The Primary School Interview Diaries: Part 1

Here’s where I break the many months of silence…

Choosing a school for your child (or watching your child be chosen or not) can be extremely…… Counter-intuitive. Every fiber of the mum in me just wants to reach for the stars. As in, choose the most expensive education we can afford (and can get Rockstar into) and assume Rockstar goes to an elite ivy-league someday. Done. Little box next to Send Rockstar To Harvard….. Check!

As we looked around us, attended school meetings, spoke to people, we realized things can get really, really crazy if you let it. So future parents, beware – I think it hurts your child more than it helps. There can be a lot of hype over schools, and most every parent you ask will be happy to offer an opinion, often a passionate one – and then after awhile you realize information and opinions can be extremely conflicting and confusing. And there will be parents who will swear by them anyway.

Please don’t take this as disrespectful or anything, I took this pic to show some of the hype – this dog’s local owners are very proud of this jacket, which reads “Pet International School”, because they don’t have kids

Before I start on our story, lemme just say: Know, really know your own child’s strengths, weaknesses and personality first. And then every time someone tells you what works for their child/ boss’ child/ some urban legend child who went to Harvard at 16, don’t forget what you know of your child.

So, here we go. Our own experiences and opinions…

At the ESF Kindy/ Primary talk, we were generally advised to apply to a minimum of 2 other schools in case they can’t take everyone due to oversubscription. So we did. We found many more people who applied to 6, 10, or “practically every” school, though we didn’t.. The ESF Kindy/ Primary talk (not to mention all the staff) provide a lot of support and handholding and tips on how to prepare for interviews.

Rockstar went for a total of 3 different school interviews this season; 2 he got through, 1 we don’t know the results of at press time but submitted our acceptance paperwork and paid up everything for the ESF primary school which was our default first choice* anyway. Nope, not even on their last acceptance day 🙂 We are happy and grateful for the spot. Rockstar probably won’t win any sports medals for the school <grin> but maybe I can get him on the Debate Team someday! Yay!

(*Being very happy at the Kindy).

But I had some stories to tell anyway… I trust the SEA community living here will understand what I mean by “it’s like you can’t be “Southeast Asian” and not try to look at Chinese International School,” however perfunctorily or not; tho I also know Koreans who feel the same way, it’s a nod to our “Malaysian-ness”, that we always feel we must at least try, especially living in Northasia and feeling it, that we be “Malaysian Chinese” who have been illiterate in Chinese for several generations. CIS btw, was Rockstar’s 3rd interview, the one where we haven’t had news about.

That I know of, CIS (very well-known for strong Putonghua and English) had a debenture that traded up to just under HKD 5mio. Kings’ colleagues have told us there are kids from powerful families who attend school each day with bodyguards. I know girlfriends who have looked at borrowing Hermes crocodile handbags to attend their Meet-The-Parents.

Well no school can help who chooses to apply to them now, can they? 😀 It’s not to say everyone’s like that, but there were parents we met who considered they had arrived – socially, economically – if they got their children into CIS. Thing is, they look more or less like the parents who don’t. Think that way, I mean. And sometimes, you might not talk to them long enough to realize which they are, when they stand there and gush about their choice of school (not necessarily CIS, just any expensive school, I mean).

Our personal experiences with CIS kids were when we were looking for a Putonghua-speaking babysitter for Rockstar and ended up meeting a girl living nearby who was from there… who yes, spoke impressively flawless English and Putonghua and told us of the many classmates going to top universities worldwide (though she also speculated that maybe she’d gotten in despite relatively less well-heeled parents because her family had a strong Oxbridge history – and to some extent we did just passingly wonder how much parents’ alumni factors)…

And then I’d also met an intern in one of the dealing rooms I was at, who very candidly remarked, “Yeah my dad got me this (job). I have no interest, but our agreement was I complete this internship and then he lets me do something I want. I’m taking a year off before carrying on to college <pause> Do you guys want coffee?” (No, we didn’t – in fact Kings has been known to snap at kids in his own place with, “No I do not. I want you to learn something. Don’t bring me coffee again!” Anyway I did try, but well, she doesn’t like finance, what do you want from me? Still, I enjoyed talking to her, and we worked on some stuff she could impress her dad with – thing is, she comes from a very well-heeled family. She is exceedingly well-mannered and humble, I liked her immensely. And that is what impressed me.)

Interestingly, there are locals I have spoken to who will say CIS is not famous to them and they really want to get into ESF, and will go to fairly similar lengths that SEAsians do re CIS, for ESF. Which I find amusing to a jaw-dropping degree.. Even our very local driver, with I think a 5 year-old grand daughter in Kiangsu (code to SEAsians and possibly other non-locals as the local school you enroll your child in first, if you are then trying to move to CIS) will bewilderedly say “Really meh? Well Kiangsu’s good too……. Why move again?” He had such a fit when I told him about the debenture.

I just mention because they seemed such very different worlds, in Hong Kong. Rockstar would go gamboling everywhere in his ESF Kindy uniform after school, sometimes to meet Kings wherever he’s at, and more erm, moneyed expats would possibly be rather disdainful, (ESF has an annual school fee slightly less than half that of the other international school Rockstar interviewed at which shall remain unnamed, btw – primary school and up receive government subsidy and therefore mandate to provide English education to those who cannot access a local system) while decidedly middle-income locals have been known to strike up conversations and proudly say they’ve had kids attend ESF too**, and ask Rockstar what class he’s in and so on… ESF has a very high percentage of kids going into local HK uni, which btw is not exactly easy to get into, but as a very general statement is not as well connected as the ivy leagues and oxbridges…

**Canton-speaking locals are considered non-Cat 1, because they can access the local system. I’d met an English lady who then expressed concern about the quality of English spoken at school if there were too many locals going, I then told her I was the other way around – I actually liked locals attending because their kids were often quite erm, “academically sound,” with their math/ general knowledge and all, and English was the one thing I could handle anyway, as obviously could she…

Kings and I observed a couple more without Rockstar interviewing, but are not pursuing. We’d actually applied to ESF plus two fairly obvious choices given our area, just that Kings applied while I was at work not having all my marbles and Rockstar was like, 15 months old and now was when the CIS interview came up. So Rockstar interviewed at ESF, CIS, and one of the two other international schools we were looking at. He got accepted at ESF so we didn’t pursue the interview at the original third international school we had planned to try.

And so the Rockstar formed… opinions. Often within earshot of the various school staff. Knowledgeably: “This (school) is better. They had Lego.” Scandalized: “And then- and then- someone spoke to me in Chai-nese.“ Huffily, “I really hope they have people who speak English here.” (That last was unfortunate, though funny, because he said that going into the Chinese International School interview though yes, they are bilingual. Well, at least they know I wasn’t lying when I filled their pre-interview form about Rockstar’s personality with something along the lines of, “Doesn’t enjoy Putonghua and will not speak it unless he’s absolutely certain he can’t be understood in English…”)

What? I’m insane?

Why lie, they’ll find out anyway because it’s possible Rockstar will tell them. Ok, but seriously here’s my point – if we had to get the school slot based on some fib I told about Rockstar, it’s possible he’s not going to do well there anyway because I would expect a good school to also make a professional decision about fit. He’s not a good fit, don’t take him – and I shouldn’t take it personal. Oh, there it is. When it’s your child, when you want something so very bad, it’s very hard to not take everything personal.

The reason I respect CIS (not from grapevine hype) is because they really didn’t behave like The School Who Had A HKD 5mil Debenture. (In a good way.) When I mentioned Rockstar’s attitude to Putonghua on the form, their response at Meet-The-Parents was something along the lines of, “You have to be supportive and work at it (plus suggestions),” and, “Then English will be the language we evaluate your child in.”

Contrast that with Meet-The-Parents at other “desirable” international schools where we didn’t bring Rockstar back for interview – “Uh-this-happens-to-be-a-top-performing-international-school,” complete with horrified expression at our perceived ignorance. Kinda put us off a tad. (Uh-I-just-think-people-worth-their-salt-don’t-need-to-make-it-felt-to-others.) Then there was one with a huge push to introduce corporate (or come forward ourselves as) donors so they could build “a world-class facility” and “a legacy”.

There are some schools where you really understand why people are so hungry for their kids to get in, and then there are schools where you really don’t understand why people are so hungry for their kids to get in. It’s like you want to hate the Had-A-HKD5mil-Debenture school the powerful people’s kids go to and they just don’t give you any reason to. How inconsiderate of them.

Anyway. Back when people who’d been around lotsa kids (while yours truly had never been around any) were saying Rockstar was a “problem” child, I felt desperate and I shall give credit where it’s due. It is to the ESF Kindy’s credit that now people tell me Rockstar’s smart, rather than has “a problem”. 

Thing is, as objectively as I can, I hadn’t thought it was likely Rockstar was dumb (barring God forbid say, a learning disability or an accident). However I know he is very much not easygoing. With a perfectly straight face, he will make you vomit blood if you don’t take him seriously or brush off his opinions. He hates music session at Wisekids Playroom (after staff brushed off that another toddler took two of his toys), and so when the music starts he will politely walk to the exit and stand there waiting to be let out. And politely tell you “No, thank you,” if you try to get him to participate. But he swings both ways. If he likes the teacher and school…. you can imagine you never have to push him to do any schoolwork. Which was why I didn’t totally discipline it out of his personality – for e.g. I like when he focuses on un-age-appropriate Lego or some other puzzle he refuses to give up on.

This however has previously led a well-known pre-school to think he was dumb or something. Pre-ESF days, Rockstar was once retained in a baby class at a well-known pre-school. His teacher, this older British lady, explained apologetically at a parent-teacher meeting that he’d not said anything to her and so she’d simply thought he couldn’t. It was also my fault for having a helper who fed me absolutely crap about his progress. (The irony was it was another helper, not this teacher, who first highlighted to me Rockstar had been held back for months.)

Btw that pre-school, which also has Kindy classes, boasts a much smaller class size than what ESF has.

Then entering the ESF Kindy, I had then filled in their About (my child) telling them this about his personality too, same as I did with the Putonghua and CIS. Don’t think it doesn’t feel counter-intuitive to do this when there are people who go to extreme lengths to get the schools they want, but I sincerely believe if the school is professional (and of course you as a parent listen to their suggestions), my child should not be penalized for it.

This maybe neither here nor there, but erm, we had also somehow misplaced the ESF interview letter, I discovered on the eve of their primary school interview, and called said school wanting to know if I could bum the instructions on what to bring off one of Rockstar’s classmates (i.e. whether we had similar instructions). Instead, the person on the other end casually read out everything I needed and was all “no worries” about it.

As I said, things can get hyped out of proportion, and the people who do power-trip on you might not be worth it anyway. Avoid where possible, before everyone ends up in an audition for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

You can imagine I have zero respect for schools that turn down toddlers for being “too stubborn.” Or for being anxious and crying – when they make imperious booming announcements over the PA system that it is “Absolutely Imperative Parents Leave Their Children Now.” Some kids do fine, some don’t, when they announce over the PA system. Maybe some of the kids doing fine didn’t notice there was a booming announcement?

Well anyway. I don’t claim to know everything – I’m insecure about parenting Rockstar just like so many mums here. So I avoid as many serial wigging-out parents as I can. What? I’m melodramatic? Just look at the number of borrowed proofs of address (for catchment areas), interview tuitions and various others (XYZ pre-school activities mimicking ABC Kindy’s evaluation exercises so your child will do better at interview. Insisting at dinner parties on being seated next to any person who works in the school of your choice. I know someone who considered putting in a downpayment on a place, after not being able to borrow an address proof, just for an ESF catchment area. People here want their school choices bad.

So it is not easy to go, “If Rockstar doesn’t get in, it’s probably not the right place for him anyway” when you see everyone else going the other way. What you really want to do is stand in the middle of a field somewhere and scream your lungs out, “YOU WANT A PIECE A-ME? I’M RIGHT HERE!!” at the whole bloody HK system with the rabidly oversubscribed schools.

To. Be. Continued……

**Updated April 2013 – Cat 1 mentioned above will soon not be in effect anymore for 2013/2014