Singapore Expats

Hello

Does anyone have any thoughts on AIS and the new GEMS school please.
Children are 6 and 7 ( year 1 and 2 here is Australia).

GEMS looks amazing but a little off the beaten track, where as AIS would be home from home .

Thanks

Long established school versus first year of new school. Easy to decide on that one.

Hi LillyP1,

We are moving there mid April, from Melbourne with 6, 4 & 2yrs old. hubby & I are going to check out AIS & Avondale Grammar next Monday. We are tossing between the 2 oz schools so not sure about Gems.

Based on internet search alone, We are leaning toward Avondale for the small size - 300 students VS 2500 at AIS.

I'll let you know how our tours go next week.

Good luck.

Chriestiena

Thanks Chriestiena, that's most helpful.
I have heard more favorable feed back for AIS out of the two of those. But really it comes down to what YOU are happy with.
Unfortunately cant make it up there until March for a look around.
I'll look out for your post.
Many thanks
Jo

quote="Cscgj"]Hi LillyP1,

We are moving there mid April, from Melbourne with 6, 4 & 2yrs old. hubby & I are going to check out AIS & Avondale Grammar next Monday. We are tossing between the 2 oz schools so not sure about Gems.

Based on internet search alone, We are leaning toward Avondale for the small size - 300 students VS 2500 at AIS.

I'll let you know how our tours go next week.

Good luck.

Chriestiena[/quote]

They're both 'for profit' schools with the problems of such. I wrote a post on this somewhere and why I would not choose a for profit school.

http://www.ics.edu.sg/ is a not for profit mission based school that can educate satisfactorily children to 12 grade for entrance into Australian Uni in my experience and is a not for profit school in a central location.

(Caveat: a relative works for ICS but honestly that's where my kid goes and it's a good school).

Thanks PNG
I think I have read your post about the profit schools. And I hear you on your points...photo copied books etc
I'm not sure about having the children do an American education or having a religious element.

LillyP1 wrote:Thanks PNG
I think I have read your post about the profit schools. And I hear you on your points...photo copied books etc
I'm not sure about having the children do an American education or having a religious element.

I don't think either of those are particularly harmful. ICS has a pretty good academic record as well.

I would be wary of new schools. Like I said in another thread I've lost track of how many have come and gone the last few years.

LillyP1 wrote:Hello

Does anyone have any thoughts on AIS and the new GEMS school please.
Children are 6 and 7 ( year 1 and 2 here is Australia).

GEMS looks amazing but a little off the beaten track, where as AIS would be home from home .

Thanks

Our children currently attend a GEMS school in Dubai.

Sunny Varkey is the person behind GEMS. Google enough articles about him and you will get a picture

Dubaiexpat wrote:

LillyP1 wrote:Hello

Does anyone have any thoughts on AIS and the new GEMS school please.
Children are 6 and 7 ( year 1 and 2 here is Australia).

GEMS looks amazing but a little off the beaten track, where as AIS would be home from home .

Thanks

Our children currently attend a GEMS school in Dubai. We cannot get them out quick enough.

Sunny Varkey is the person behind GEMS. Google enough articles about him and you will get a picture

There's quite a few clowns behind these for profit schools....

My friend was thinking of Gems, I'm sorry I can't send you a personal message, but maybe you can to me, any main points as to why your not liking Gems. Thank you kindly

Go take a look. No harm in it. The campus isn't quite finished but they expect to open on time. It's a brand new campus and will have some startup issues. They plan to offer a stellar program. They just have no track record in Singapore.

The thing is, it often takes schools years to get to the point where they can offer a strong program (as opposed to fancy white boards). The typical pattern in Singapore seems to have been - open up, get as many students as fast as possible, then worry about things like curriculum and teachers. Just saying...we had a bad experience our first time round here.

Cscgj wrote:We are leaning toward Avondale for the small size - 300 students VS 2500 at AIS.

This is a no-brainer, really.

Are you planning on returning to Australia after your stay in Singapore? If you are then Avondale might be the perfect solution. But if you will be trotting the world then is there any reason you'd want to keep your kids in the Australian school system?