Since you already indicate that, in spite of the contract, you're not planning to settle in long term you might consider one of the bilingual schools since they are rather 'international', teach both German and English (in Zurich), have a lot of local Swiss kids and are not subject to the ban on expats sending their kids to international schools.
My daughter went to the 'happy medium' of a local bilingual school and I can't say that it was a happy experience for her. The excited girl in the photo on the first day of school this year (back in the US) looks nothing at all like the sullen girl in the photo last year in Switzerland. Mostly it was due to a very green teacher who couldn't keep control of her classroom and there was a lot of girl-style bullying and just the overall adjustment where she was getting a lot of grief (as was I) over her not picking up german in 2 months.
What is FMS? Thanks for clarifying for those of us in the Suisse Romande.
Unfortunately, Faltrad, recent changes are making it more difficult to go from the Swiss national system with a matura to the UK. Each university now has a limited number of places that it can allocate to students with grades of ABB- (or equivalent), and students with EU qualifications (and Swiss qualifications are considered EU) fall into that category irrespective of their grades. EU students who apply to the UK with an IB diploma don't fall under the same limitations, but compete for a place based on their grades.
Thanks for the update. We've sent a few students to the UK in the past years with no problems. Well, changes...
As a 6th Form tutor and teacher until not very long ago,, that is news to me. In which case, perhaps a good idea to re-do year 13 in the Uk in best 3 subject required for the course- and a time to settle back into the home country?
Going back to an earlier comment on more diversity: For my friends with children in international schools, more diversity has meant the whole class changing each year as at least 1/3 to 1/2 of families move. My friend's son had only 3 class mates remaining after 1 year. He was 8.
This has been the experience for 4/5/6/7/8/9 year old age groups and may be lower for other age groups where it is harder to move children. But at the time of their stay, it is a comforting bubble where coffee mornings are arranged, communication is in English and school lunches are part of the curriculum.
In the local system, it has been hard work integrating and understanding the locals. I am now at the point where my child has lots of friends, playdates and is completely fluent in German. It has been a hard slog both language wise, having faith in the walking to school alone aspect, lunches at home and generally culture wise but I think it is worth it as we can always have the international school as a fall back choice. The other thing I have learnt, with friends all over the world, is that each system has its challenges and opportunities and it is how to make the most of them that counts.
Bravo - I read a report a couple of years ago about the huge difference a positive parental attitude makes, when encountering a new education system. Sadly I didn't copy it and haven't been able to find it again- but i am absolutely sure it has a significant impact.
Hi Odile,
I recently heard rumors about a limited pool of places at UK universities for EU students so I contacted UCAS, who forwarded my query to someone at King's College London. He confirmed the rumors and added some details, though I still don't claim to understand it completely. It's all related to the increase in university fees and the government limiting which students they will reimburse universities for. Students starting this fall of 2012 are the first to be impacted by the new rules, and it seems they are still evolving. Theoretically the number of "controlled places" allows universities to maintain current numbers of students of European Union students.
Here's the reference I was pointed to: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/lt/h...dingsncnewarr/ .
Your suggestion of repeating year 13 in the UK seems reasonable to me, though students who are getting dual IB/Swiss Matura diplomas should be fine, assuming their IB scores are high enough.
Thanks very interesting. Surely though, if a student is British and becomes resident in UK again prior to the course, they should not be 'subjected' to the same rules. One more reason to do a year 13 course in the UK and apply from the school, perhaps. People are always so worried about 'wasting' a year, but I think it wouldn't be a waste at all - and a good way to get back into the system, and also do English GCSE or AS at the same time.
I went to UK university back in the day when some sort of grant existed and fees were paid by the LEA. IIRC, if you were British and previously living abroad, you could only get a grant/fees paid if you satisfied residency (3 years continually living in the UK).
A girl from Bermuda, with a full British passport, was not mpressed that he parents had to pay the lot... (because she did not satisfy the residency requirements).
Just to weigh in on the mobility issue, as we moved our British kids to the US last year, after 3.5 years in local Swiss school.
My son was then 11, and went into 6th grade. He slotted in completely happily, both academically and socially (this was 6th grade at the end of elementary rather than 6th grade in middle school; we decided it would be an easier transition to just have one teacher and one lot of kids to befriend rather than the social zoo of junior high). After 4 months, in April, he took the annual state standards tests, and we've just got the results. He comfortably Exceeded the accepted grade maths level (admittedly I did drill him a bit in fractions, as he hadn't done those at all), almost got into the Exceed level for reading vocab and comprehension, and was a solid Met Grade for writing. This is a child who had done NO writing at all in English for nearly 4 years, and virtually zero free writing at all even in French (his school was big on 'fill in the blank' worksheets rather than composition).
My daughter was 7, and went into 2nd grade. At the time, she'd barely started reading some phonic sounds in French, and her reading in English was at the 'c-a-t'... erm.. c-a-t... cat... CAT!' stage. The school was wonderfully supportive, and she had almost daily pull-out one-to-one tuition and practice. Now, 8 months later, she's reading grade-level chapter books (Judy Moody, that sort of thing), her spelling is surprisingly good (she seems to have a really good ear for letter/syllable sounds, maybe due to her exposure to languages), and she's easily picked up all the new maths things that weren't included in Switzerland (basic fractions, data analysis, geometry, etc). Her letter formation and handwriting aren't great, but she's not the worst in her class.
By the time they've done another school year, I'm certain that you won't be able to tell that my 13 yr old effectively missed nearly 4 years of English language instruction, and my 9 yr old started school 18 months later than her peers. And these are just regular kids, bright enough (like all forum children :-) but not exceptional, and certainly not that academic or hard-working.
So be assured that you can do pretty much ANYTHING with primary/elementary education, and have it all come good very quickly after a move back to an English-speaking country.
Personally, I'd go local in your situation. It won't make the tiniest jot of difference to your child's education if you move back before she goes to secondary school, but it'll make a HUGE difference to your hindsight overseas experience as a family because you'll have had a 'real' overseas life, and you'll end up with better German because of it. And what if you end up staying much longer than you'd anticipated, or permanently?
I'd also be really wary of the 'but we'll pay for it' offer; I saw two kids moved from international to local school aged 8 and 10 due to the school fees offer expiring, and certainly for the 10 yr old it wasn't at all pretty. Plus I think you'll also be taxed on the cost of the school fees as if it's income, so you need to allow for that.
So glad things are turning out well for the kids in Phoenix, kokodan, and what a refreshing post. Children are so much more resilient than we think - and some delay, or a year repeated, at some point - rarely means long-term damage.
Hi, thanks to everyone for taking so much time and effort to share not only your advice and experiences but also your knowledge. We have learned so much over the last few days, its great.
In a nutshell, we have gone from the automatic position that the international school was best on sunday to being convinced that the local school is, in fact, the only credible choice for our daughter.
What if we do stay for a long time...i don't think she'll thank us for being born in the country but not being fluent in the language or making true friends here.
We also decided to accelerate our german classes too. Next question is of course..upon what criteria did you use to pick a school as i understand there are no standard statistics, such as ofsted in the UK, to compare quality of education. I'll start a separate thread on it.
Thanks again!!!!
Oh, picking a school is easy. Because you don't. The commune/gemeinde will tell you which one your daughter's going to!
There is some room for flexibility, though. My son was down to go to another school but we wrote to the Schulpflege (not gemeinde/commune) to explain it was the opposite direction in which I travel to work. My husband was very sceptical that the Schulpflege (school authority) would consider my appeal based on what seemed like a selfish reason from the mother, but they obliged and put him in the school in the other direction with no questions asked.
They do listen and can be reasonable/accommodating. The reason they look inflexible and dug-in on here is because people only write a post when they have something to whinge about. Nobody writes that "everything went fine and we got what we want."
Just something to bear in mind.
To add further balance, I have read FB posts from mums in the UK whose kids are going to school for the first time this year and are absolutely pissed off at the warped logic that has been applied when their kids have been allocated schools. Siblings in different schools, kids in schools which are two bus rides away instead of the one around the corner. The UK allocation system is light-years behind the one here. I could apply the same logic that FB-ers also only post when something is wrong but there were also mums celebrating that they actually got the school they were hoping for.
Couple of points.
If you're going to try for residency in the UK before university, and your child wants to go to a Scottish university, then be resident there -currently, there are no tuition fees for Scottish resident. It does seem that the residency requirement is 3 years, and "We will not treat you as being ordinarily resident in Scotland if your main purpose in coming here has been to receive full-time education and that you would have otherwise been living elsewhere."
If you send your child to the local schools, the money you save on school fees pays for an awful lot of private tuition.
If a student is a resident of the EU (and Switzerland is treated as part of the EU for fee assessment purposes), then Scottish universities have to charge them the same as they charge Scottish students, which means no fees. This is very controversial in the UK, because students who are resident of England and Wales are charged fees. See http://www.ucas.com/students/studentfinance/ for more info. Everything to do with attending university in the UK is in flux right now and a lot of what people know from past experience has changed.
And although it is true that the money you save on private or international school fees can pay for lots of private tuition, that won't help if UK universities treat the student's qualification as second tier. Odile's suggestion of redoing year 13 at an A-Levels college is probably a more effective way to spend the savings.
And dont worry about this. A further poster has said there is some flexibility. Also, I can honestly say that all families I personally know that have gone local have been fine in terms of the support their child has received and how the child has integrated. OK there will be problems to get over but there would just be a different set of problems in a UK school. And if it isnt fine, then there is always a plan B. Whereas it is probably more difficult to switch from international to local.
We've just taken our G1 out of International school and into Y1 Swiss, and flung his sister into local Kindy. They had a smattering of German but have been well supported in learning German in the new school (but then we live in quite an ex-pat area so I think the schools have had to step up). So far so good, they are both happy to walk to and fro and it is so much nicer that the half an hour in the car twice a day. THe biggest issue for us at the International school was the high turnover- for me as well as the kids, it was hard to always have to make new friends and wave goodbye to old ones. The swiss mums have been very friendly and welcoming and seem happy that we have made the commitment to stay. Like someone else said, its easier to move them out of Swiss and back to International when they are older, but harder to go the other way.
Good luck
Read the small print. If you are British or are ordinarily resident in England and Wales, then you pay the fees. So, if the son of my Scottish friend who's been living here for ten years goes to a Scottish university, he pays the fees. His Swiss (German, French...) schoolmate doesn't.