A vivere al Cairo. We are new here.

Best place to stay will be as well in Zamalek (the traffic is a nightmare here), there is the Gezira Sporting Club right there as well, and about villa with a garden...only outskirts of Cairo you can find such a thing but again you will find the school-house way terrible. Hope this will help you a bit.

Hey Olga,

U will always be welcome in Egypt. Zamalek is a good choice. There r many lovely places and boats by the Nile where u can relax or have a meal. As for villas, it would be hard to find them but in zamalek, u could find Duplex appartments on ground and first floor, similar to a villa and some of them have small gardens but just look around. I also agree with "Wild" that Al Gazeera Sporting Club is a good choice. Hope u find what u r looking for.

Have a great stay in Egypt.
Rania

THANK YOU BOTH OF YOU FOR YOUR KIND REPLY
WE ARE LOOKING INTO MAADI AREA
IS GOOD AND SAFE?
THANK YOU
OLGA

Maadi is a great area for foreigners, but are you willing to send your child every day to school trough all the traffic? It will take her 2-3 hours back and forth to Zamalek

where is the school located? I am not aware of a British International School in Zamalek?

we are still looking for the school
we would like to see MAADI BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL or AMERICAN COLLEGE
but i saw there is a nice school also in Zamalek
maybe i was wrong i was just random on internet

do you think that from Zamaled is too far for my housband to come in Maadi everiday?

Do you have any raccomandation for the school?

Today the agency sent me some pic of the houses and they looks very old and quite expensive!
do you know any good agency for the house serching?

thank you for your help
Olga

You said that your daughter will go to the school in Zamalek, so according with that i give you an answer. You better choose the school acording to your husband or your work area, will make a lot of difference for you later on. Same thing with housing.

Hi Wild
thank you for your help
i am new here and i do not know yet exactly how to use it
regarding Cairo
I think finally we will look for the house in Maadi
and my daughter will go to the Maadi British International School
I hope for my husband will not be to hard to go up and down from the office...
you said traffic is a nightmare...


any club to reccomend in Maadi?
thank you
Olga

there is a big difference between British and American schools!

True that Traffic here is not nice,however doesn't mean it take 2-3 hours between zamalek and Maadi..never,Those schools have got buses to almost all spots in cairo,So just try to find the school you prefer,and for the house.No need to depend on an agency,u can directly contact someone renting their flat in zamalek or maadi or wherever

InvisibleLegend, maybe my math is wrong when you have between an hour and an hour and half to go and same on the way back, so thats mean for me 2-3 hours a day, or maybe the people going to maadi from zamalek daily are wrong too( even by bus),however, Olga i dont advice you to rent by yourself if is the first time you came to egypt, you may get some bad surprise. Read what you need to know about renting a flat in Egypt from older posts on this forum. Sometimes you find very usefull tips here.

Wild,It's not about Math or science!may be it happens one or two days per week,but not everyday.I don't live in the moon by the way

WE HAVE TO DECIDE BETWEEN
CAIRO AMERICAN COLLEGE AND MAADI BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
ANY ADVISE?

Are you already in cairo now or not yet?If you are here,you'd better visit both schools and then decide,if not here,You can do the same when you arrive,the following semester will start i think by the end of September ,so you have time.what do you think?

CAC in Maadi and BISC in 6th of october (before used to be in Zamalek) are known as the best english schools in Town.

do you know the fees? And also the fees for the exams?
Which system do you want for your children: American or British?
For example: students from the American system are not (or not easy) accepted in universities in Europe. I don't know for your country, but if you want your children to study later in your home country, you can ask (or search online) universities about their admission requirements.
Also in Egypt: British system is higher qualified.
If someone fails to pass exams in the British system, they will go for the American system. (at least this is the case in my daughters' school)

I'd like to add that yes in Egypt the american system doesn't really qualify students for Universities,They will be missing some essential stuff.I know this in person as some of my friends experienced this problem during their first years at university and they had to take extra courses and stuff like that.It doesn't offer sufficient material,on the other side,the british one is highly recommended and offers sufficient subjects' content,thus you will be sure your daughter will not suffer at university,whether in Egypt or anywhere else.My sister was following the British system and i highly recommend.In this case if it is really in 6th of october,it will be way far from Maadi.You'd better live in 6th of october it self,or Haram.and about the flat,i might be able to help you get one at a reasonable price in Haram as i live there

MAADI BRITISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL writes that it doing the national British system. I don't know the difference but our daughter is in Port Said school Zamalek, British department. She is doing IGCSE's (International General Certificate of Secondary Education). Her exams come from England and are corrected there.

The school fees this year: LE9000 + exam fees (depending how many subjects. The school fees are not that high because the school has local teachers. Only the English teacher is really from England.

thank you for your replies. I was thinking of Maadi British international school because of high standards of educaation as well. Most of our friends were saying that the american gave them lots of troubles for the admission to european university.
I was thinking about Maadi British international beacause i tought that was in Maadi and my housband will work in Zamalek so i think it will be better for us to choose house close to the school.
But I assumed that all people working there is english as well. Isn't like that?

I don't know anything about this school, I was speaking about Port Said school in Zamalek. There almost all the children are Egyptian and teachers are also. In my daughter's school the British system starts at year 7 (around 12 years old).

I think that the Maadi International British school is a good option for your child. But you have to visit the school first!

yes you are right
we are coming this week end and we are going to visit
CAIRO AMERICAN COLLEGE
MAADI BRITISH SCHOOL
AND INTERNATIONAL BRITISH SCHOOL in new cairo

Do you think New Cairo is really too much far from the city centre?
my housband will work around there in South part of Zamalek...

thank you of our great help
Olga

hello,

And welcome to Egypt the place where everything can appear to be confused and sort of complicated.

I'm American and both of my children have been within the local education system for about ten years or so.

my son was initially enrolled in one of the American divisions and i felt he was allowed to coast along doing only that which was required to sustain passing marks.I visited the school and meet with management and the teachers a number of times and complained.that it was obvious that the curriculum was insufficient to challenge even average intelligence nor conducive to maintaining a healthy learning environment.Also the staff was less then impressive when it came to any type of proactive involvement in motivating students that already understood the generally established reputation of the American school system within Egypt as being easy.

CAC is the exception,they were the top rated school in the entire American school system including America for a number of years.

We have long since moved our son into the British system where he is now forced to exert efforts related to his studies.

all the fees change on a yearly basis related to the specific grade in all schools.

the fees are also different from school to school and often relate to the amount of foreign staff which are employed by the school.

The school my wife works for is one of the most expensive in Egypt with many if not most of the staff members being English or other foreign nationals.The yearly price for my wife's school is double what we currently pay as the per year fee now and is listed below.

last year the yearly fee for the tenth grade was 22,000le
bus 3,000
exams 4,000
exam bus 800
Misc. books 500
uniforms 500

Another family member just selected a new school for the son.

This was the real process and logic used to selected the school.

You will run the family shoe business which is one of the oldest within Egypt. when you complete your education, so we only want a document which says you completed the education process and you will go to the American university only to obtain another document. so they selected one of the new American schools and we visited it together the fees where over 35,000le total for the first year for the ninth grade.

we asked to see the school and meet the teachers none of the staff members were clearly foreign based on name or look.

I looked directly at the owner and asked about this observation and asked to see the foreign staff he said i saw them.I said to him they must all be dual nationals and none are really from America. he laughed and said yes.

every classroom we visited or walked by had electronic white boards and computers installed for student use and it was clearly an impressive looking facility.

the family enrolled him directly and are happy about this and understand it will require the least effort on his part.