Tenby International School vs ELC

Hi.

You need to first and for most decide on curriculum. Then look at the fee structure, ratio of expat teachers vs local teachers. It seems like tour kids are secondary kids so you need to be very careful as you need to look at examination subject options as well.

Please read babylicious8 blog as it has a some relevant postings and comments namely  "researching international schools" and "researching local international school". Although it is written and the comments are based on primary school, the basic issues and relevance to needs and expections of students & parents are still the same. Hope this has helped you...

Hi there

These were the 2 schools we narrowed it down to as well. My girls have been attending Tenby since January this year and love it. It is currently undergoing an upgrade which doesn't look that appealing but once it is finished it will be fantastic. It is mainly the sports grounds, tennis courts and parking that have been affected.  Swimming pool is still operational as well as gym/rec hall and basketball courts, for all other CCA activities such as tennis, badminton, football, hockey the children have to travel offsite which I think is only 5-10 mins away from the school.

Education wise we find the 'year groups' are ahead of the equivalent year groups back in NZ. There is a lot stronger emphasis on academics here. My girls are struggling a little bit with mandarin and malay but they are picking up bits here and there.  The other thing they've had to adapt to are the school hours, in NZ they attended from 9am-3pm whereas here it is a 7.40am start and 2.30pm finished but then they can choose to do an hour of extra curricular activity from 2.40pm to 3.40pm.

We did not choose ELC because
1. They had no space at their closest campus (Sungai Buloh)
2. the admin lady at SB I found to be quite rude
3. Cyberjaya campus is very new and numbers are very low(as in 8-   9 children per class), they do not have a hall built yet      and there were all 'local' looking children there, sorry to say this but my girls did not want to be the only 'european looking'  children there and they would have stuck out like a sore thumb (Tenby at least has quite a mix of ethnicities but also has a local campus on the same site as the international campus which I think is great for the children)
4. the commute to Cyberjaya would have been 10mins longer than Tenby for us and when you're talking 30mins a day one way 10 mins makes all the difference

I suggest you visit both schools to get a feel for yourself, after all you know your children best and what may suit their needs.

Hope this has been of some help

cheers Karen