we are looking for international schools in Hsinchu. Our kid is 8y.o. and would attend grade 4 next year (currently enrolled in French section of TES).
By the look of several forum posts and a whole lot of Google search, we came accross the following:
Hsinchu American School (in Hsinchu Science Park area)
Hsinchu County American School (Zhubei area)
Hsinchu Pacific American School
couldn’t find any French school alas… but any info would be welcomed.
Do you guys have some info on those schools? which one is good/bad why?
I have long been under the impression that the Hsinchu International School is the best private international school in Hsinchu. That’s the one I’d look at if I needed one.
From what I’ve heard from people who’ve taught at some of those schools, Hsinchu has some international schools of “questionable” quality to put it mildly.
My understanding is that Hsinchu American School is legit and Hsinchu County American School is like the Chinese knock-off that just slightly misspells the brand name to fool you into buying it.
I’ve done English language examinations for students at Hsinchu American School and they have been outstanding. Seriously better than native speakers in many ways.
Hi,
We send our oldest child to Hsinchu International School (HIS). He is in the elementary department and has been going there for 2 years.
We live in Zhubei, and were looking for a school offering a quality education in English, compassionate and attentive teachers, and most importantly for us, diversity of students. Our son is mixed, and we wanted him to attend a school where he wouldn’t be the only non-Taiwanese kid in his class. Or the only native English speaker in his class. We’ve found that HIS offers all these things (especially the last item regarding diversity).
HIS has been around since 1981, and has a reputation of accepting primarily students from overseas families who come to work in Taiwan (in the science park or in ASML, for example). That isn’t to say that native Taiwanese students can’t get in. However, they told us from our first visit to the school that they give priority to students of overseas families. Having a non-Taiwanese passport is a requirement for entrance. There are many nationalities represented in the student population, including French.
(HIS offers something called the French DELF and Spanish DELE, I have no idea what these are, but maybe you do?)
I found out about HIS through Forumosa, actually. This thread is old, but still relevant:
As far as the other international schools go: I’ve heard that Hsinchu American School (HAS) could be comparable to HIS these days, especially in the high school department. But the other schools don’t even come close. Also, almost all of them are more expensive. I do know that Pacific American School offers teaching in Spanish, not sure about French though. One downside of HIS is that the students have more holidays than other schools, including 3 weeks for Christmas and several professional days throughout the year, in addition to the normal national holidays, and 2 months off during the summer. But for us, this wasn’t a huge issue and we were able to work with it.
In any case, we will probably send our other kids to HIS too (and go broke in the process…)
If you have any other questions about living in Zhubei/Hsinchu, please feel free to PM me.
Thank you, this was very helpful. We are looking for an international school in Hsinchu for our two US-raised kids, and we’ve been in contact with all three of the schools mentioned here (HIS, HAS, HCAS). HIS looks great but we’d prefer not to have to drive the kids to school so the location isn’t ideal.
HCAS in Zhubei looks very impressive in terms of facilities and it seems very popular, though my impression is it’s mostly Taiwanese kids. We’d prefer to live in Zhubei so that’s in HCAS’ favor.
The downside to HAS for us is the small class sizes, I think the 3rd grade is like 4 kids or something.
for information, we have decided to register at HIS, and frankly, this was the best decision we could have made. The school, teachers, and generally the integration had been great. Under no circumstances I would make a different choice today.
As for your specific point, do know that there are ways to send your kid to HIS from Zhubei (by specific “taxis” which acts like school bus for HIS), you should contact them, they can give you more details
Thanks, that’s great to hear - we have applied already for HIS but haven’t paid the application fees, bit confusing whether they have a spot for us for January or not, does the school fill up? We will have a car and I probably won’t be working so I could drive them to school I guess. I’ve driven in Japan, Italy and Boston, so hopefully that’s enough preparation for driving in Taiwan. We’re also applying to Hsinchu County International School.
they had 2 classes of grade 3, and I hear there might be only one of grade 4 (but do check with them directly though).
I’d say they do fill up.
we also felt that HCAS was too Taiwanese… (not sure that would be great honestly, from an integration point of view), also, it felt like HCAS was under heavy structuring/restructuring, and feared the overall system was more a sattelite of their mother school, rather than an actual school…
Either way, hope you’ll find the right school for your situation!
Just wondering how it’s going with HIS? Our move got delayed til summer so we’re going through the application process again, uggh. And schools seem to want an in-person interview before admitting our kids, which is strange cause US private schools don’t require that.
They want to give the impression that they are VERY good/ exclusive schools. The school I’m at does that so the teachers can get a feel for whether or not they’re a good fit. But all the kids I specifically said “needs learning accommodations. Require special needs assessment and IEP before admitting” last year were admitted this year without being assessed. I got a good “eff you” from that parent when I laid out how and why I think their child needs help. So it’s an appearances thing.
Remind the school that they’re an international school and that they should have a policy in place to allow video chat interviews with children.
a parent actually effed you for telling them the kid has problems ?
I would actually appreciate a teacher feedback on this, the earlier you deal with it the easier for child,parents and teachers
I got an “eff you” and a “how dare you imply that I haven’t done my best to educate my child at home?!”. Most parents have this reaction. It’s like me saying “this is what I’ve observed and it’s beyond anything you or I can do, but someone who specializes in this area can help” is implying that they are a bad parent. Denial, like the stages of grief.
off topic, do you know where to go / what to do if i want to have a child evaluated for learning disabilities like ADD or dyslexia? (for a non-chinese speaking child)
If they’re under 6, they can go to a general “6 and unders” doctor that can either assess single-handedly or there’s a team of people available in the same department to do the diagnosing of everything. Whether or not that’s in English I don’t really know. I’ve seen reports of Chinese-speaking students of mine who were also assessed in English, even though they don’t know English.
After age 6, it becomes a complicated mess of chasing down doctors. This is when private insurance can come in handy, though those doctors tend to be unable to actually do more than get you to the front of the line with the NHI
