Please give me your advice on my kids' education in Taiwan

good point, ironlady. we know of a french teacher who teaches at TES along with his wife but instead of taking advantage of the free tuition benefit, they’ve enrolled their eldest son in the local kindergarten and then the local elementary school. they’ve been here for at least 5 years but i suspect the son can also speak english and french pretty well (his mandarin is impeccable!) however, at the end of the day, it’s whatever best suits your family situation. take all of our advice with a grain of salt.

Aleegulotty, thanks. All very useful insider advice and information, especially which districts are best for which schools. When we were last in Taipei I really liked Beitou so it’s good to know we could find somewhere nice to live that isn’t too expensive. We’re hoping one of my husband’s former work colleagues may be able to help us out with negotiations for housing, though I think we’ll have to accept that as noobs we will get ripped off a little. I like to view it as an incentive to learn the language and integrate. :slight_smile:
Now the thread is thoroughly highjacked (sorry LAguy!) I’ll pm you if I need to ask you more.

This has all been very helpful for my family. We are relocating to Taichung in February with 2 kids. One is in kindergarten in the USA and the other is 2.

A few questions: I see the list of bilingual schools in Taipei, does anyone have an experience with bilingual schools in Taichung? We do have an education allowance for our kids.

Are there any European schools in Taichung? I see TES in Taipei, but no branches in Taichung. I only ask as we might move to Europe after Taiwan and if we go the international school route, I would rather it be a european school versus an american one. Does anyone know of any kids who commute to TES via the speed train?

We are in Taichung too, our son is 2 years old. I have not checked out most of the things you ask about,
but we did join the parents group in Taichung.

http://guanximag.wordpress.com/community/

[quote]Taichung Parents
Is a group dedicated to providing expatriate and Taiwanese parents and families with opportunities to network and share information about living in Taichung with their children. They meet the last Sunday of each month in a local park.
taichungparents@googlegroups.com or on Facebook[/quote]

Thank you! I will definitely look up this parent group when we go. This must be the google group that I have hear about here in Forumosa.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I don’t mind my post being “hijacked” as you said. In fact, you all gave me lots of useful information not only about schools but also about other aspects of the kids encounter in Taiwan. Well, it is very sad that it’s less info on schools in Kaohsiung. For now, I’m still collecting info on schools in Kaohsiung area. The more i dig, the more I feel difficult to move my kids to schools in Taiwan, regardless of international or local schools. I thank you all again and hope that when I have more info and come back here for more comment, you will continue to share with me your experience in this regard. Have a nice day everybody.

Hi Aleegulotty, can you post the link to the school lists on the MOE site (in Chinese)? My Chinese is so-so, not good enough to navigate around the MOE site but I should be able to read the school names and locations, etc. if I have the list in front of me…

We are down in Zhonghe/Banqiao area, hoping to look at some bilingual elementary schools a bit closer to home (if any!)

I knew some south Americans who moved here and lived in Lotus Hill. The husband flew for China Airlines and his 2 children went to local schools. His eldest daughter was about 14 and son about 10 and they did quite well here in local schools but it was a lot of hard work for the kids.

However, children do learn fast.

[quote=“nohobobo”][quote=“aleegulotty”]

you’re welcome. i got the listing off of the MOE website but unfortunately, if you can’t read Chinese, you won’t find it. the English site does not have the corresponding information either. all accredited institutions, public or private (I think with the exception of international schools like TAS, TES and the likes of them), are under the supervision of the MOE and are all listed on their website, by region and by type (elementary, middle school, etc.) i should probably ask them if they’d like me to translate all this pertinent info for them, for a fee, of course. :wink:

[/quote]

Hi Aleegulotty, can you post the link to the school lists on the MOE site (in Chinese)? My Chinese is so-so, not good enough to navigate around the MOE site but I should be able to read the school names and locations, etc. if I have the list in front of me…

We are down in Zhonghe/Banqiao area, hoping to look at some bilingual elementary schools a bit closer to home (if any!)[/quote]

Here’s the MOE website: tp.edu.tw/neighbor/

This is the main page from where you would enter your selection criteria. I was trying to do the search for you and just send you the results page link but the link doesn’t work, unfortunately. So, you’d have to enter Taipei County as your area, select the cities (one at a time) and select Elementary school as your school type. It’ll then display a list of all the public and private schools in the city of your choice. It’ll have the name of the school, the website (most schools have a website) and other contact info.

Good luck!

I’ve had a different experience of the Taiwanese elementary education system than most - extremely positive.

My daughter had always had problems fitting into school, starting as a five year old back in her home country. I’d heard all the stories of the perils of the Taiwan education system and was very very worried about what I was bringing her to. She was nine years old at the time, and spoke no Mandarin. After some hunting around, I decided on a small “mountain” school. These schools are still part of the govt system. Because of difficulty getting a sufficient roll of children from their local area, they often expand in creative ways to fill a niche, and like to take students with “special needs”, who are eligible to be counted as one and half, or two students, for funding purposes. Hence, schools can continue to operate with very small class sizes. Cool!

My daughter was a special needs kid, on account of her lack of Mandarin… which meant that she got lots of free one on one hours with a lovely patient teacher who took her walking in the mountains when study all got too much for her. There were only 13 children in her grade! So she got to be on the swimming, baseball, dodgeball, athletics, football teams for three years in a row. At school shows or sports event, every child in the school had a turn and received support and applause. The kids LOVED their school. They were proud of it, happy to clean it and take care of it - (the notion of deliberately harming it in some way would be unthinkable) and they treated their teachers with respect and affection. We LOVED the concept of half days, and she thrived with the very sensible regime of ten minute breaks to run around madly between every fifty minute class. There were student centred creative and positive solutions put in place to help her when her behaviour was unacceptable. This environment completely turned around my daughters bad attitude towards school, and she learned so many positive things from it that will stay with her for life.
I will remain forever grateful to the Taiwanese Education system for this!

When we arrived, I couldn’t speak any Mandarin either, and the school was incredibly considerate - always provided their English teacher as a translator for me in meetings.

This particular school had about 30% “mountain” kids, and the rest bused in from all parts of the city. Many of them were foreign born Taiwanese, who needed time and extra help to pick up their Mandarin language, or reading and writing skills. Many had parents who just didn’t want their kids to have to start coping at such a young age with the pressures of homework and exams that the city school present. The school responded accordingly, and was in many ways fairly “alternative”.

My daughter arrived there speaking no Mandarin. She was conversing freely in basic Mandarin within six months, and was fluent in a year. It took her longer with reading and writing of course - and this would have compounded into more of a problem for her if we’d continued in the local system.

I would highly recommend it as an option for kids up to the age of 12, especially if they’re only going to be here a year or two. My feeling is (and I’m also a teacher) that what they learn about learning itself, and the cultural and language benefits, far outweigh the risks of “missing out” on something in their English language schooling, when they return to it. Particularly if they’re already reading and writing in English, and that can be supported at home. If you can read and write, you can always catch up with the facts you need for exams.

If you’re staying longer, it’s more of a dilemma, because you have to think about what your children are going to do AFTER elementary school. Middle high is a whole other world… of weekly tests, huge class sizes and only ONE way to succeed. If your kids aren’t cut out for this, (mine definitely wasn’t!), or if their Mandarin reading and writing skills aren’t sufficient, as is almost guaranteed unless they start here at five or six, then you’ve got a problem. Get up to speed, Go home, or Hope for windfall to pay their International school fees.

Those interested, the school my daughter went to is Datun Guoxiao, ten minutes up the mountain from Beitou. There’s a free school bus that picks up from the Beitou MRT. There are a couple of other similar schools that I know of, that also have foreign students, in the YMS area.

Cheers!

1 Like

Amazing post, kaipakati. Thanks for sharing. Who knew such a system even existed in Taiwan? :notworthy:

Both the junior high schools I have worked at have had special needs programmes. The first had a programme for deaf and hearing impaired kids. The current school I teach at (only 141 students) also has a special needs programme. I teach four kids, though there are other special needs kids in other subjects. One of the classes is actually my favourite in the whole school because of two things, 1) the kids will have a go – they’ll make stupid actions if I make them, and they’ll actually come to my room during their breaks and try to speak with me (as limited as that is); 2) because the standard way of teaching them here obviously doesn’t work for them and everyone realises that, both the kids and teachers actually a lot more responsive to different approaches than a lot of the more “advanced” kids or their teachers seem to be.

[quote=“LAguy”]Ladies and Gentlemen,

I don’t mind my post being “hijacked” as you said. In fact, you all gave me lots of useful information not only about schools but also about other aspects of the kids encounter in Taiwan. Well, it is very sad that it’s less info on schools in Kaohsiung. For now, I’m still collecting info on schools in Kaohsiung area. The more i dig, the more I feel difficult to move my kids to schools in Taiwan, regardless of international or local schools. I thank you all again and hope that when I have more info and come back here for more comment, you will continue to share with me your experience in this regard. Have a nice day everybody.[/quote]

to be honest, I don’t know what you’re thinking.

You do NOT want to send your kids to public schools in Kaohsiung, assuming you’re not asian. Public schools aren’t the best, especially if your kids are different from the others and don’t speak the language.

What you need to do is get your prospective employer to include in their offer sheet, paid american education. Many companies do that for their foreign employees. Otherwise you better make sure you make enough money to send them to one of the international schools. Some don’t cost all that much. There are spoiled local brats from rich families, but atleast your kids will be with other foreign kids coming from similar background.

they’ll also have less run-ins with local school boy “liumongs” .

[quote=“kaipakati”]

Those interested, the school my daughter went to is Datun Guoxiao, ten minutes up the mountain from Beitou. There’s a free school bus that picks up from the Beitou MRT. There are a couple of other similar schools that I know of, that also have foreign students, in the YMS area.

Cheers![/quote]

Your daughter’s school sounds really interesting. Do you have any contact details, Kaipakati? We’ll be visiting Taipei soon and we’re lining up schools to visit. Do you have any more information on the others schools too? :pray:

Hmm… it’s been a few years since she graduated from there… Best thing is send me a pm and I can give you directions to go on up and see for yourself. Probably better to visit in person rather than try phoning - the office staff will be terrified if you expect them to speak English. :laughing: But when you just turn up, someone always rallies around and finds someone who can.

The other school I know of personally is Hu Shan, also up from Beitou. But I have spoken with other long term foreigners who’ve found similar schools in the various mountain areas surrounding Taipei. The key point is small class sizes and lack of pressure.
Cheers!

I was talking to my wife about the “mountain” schools, actually “forest school” (shanlin or senline xiaoxue) in Chinese, and there are many. Apparently she’s had a few private students who have attended such schools.

Strange the secrets wives keep from their husbands. :laughing:

Thanks Kaipakati, you’ll be hearing from me.

Mucha man, you don’t know the half of it. :wink:

My situation is slightly different in that my son was born here and his spoken Chinese is at a native level, but he spoke Tainanese and Mandarin as a young child but not English. He could not speak English as a young child here so maybe that helped a lot.

He left Taiwan at 7 and went to school in Australia and the school there were able to provide extra English teaching, but he learnt more by playing with my sisters kids and his classmates.

So he had done 3 years at a Japanese Kindergarten in Taichung, followed by 1st and 2nd grade at a local school here, then he did grades 3 4 5 in OZ, Then 5th and 6th grade here in Alishan where he had to learn the written Chinese again, as well as learn Tsou Aboriginal language as well. As the school year is different in Oz ( Feb - December ) he did a half year repeat of 5th grade to help him catch up with his written Chinese befor 6th grade.

In 5th and 6th grades in Alishan the class was around 10 kids and they had the same teacher for both 5th and 6th grade so that was nice that the kids had the same teacher at each grade level.

Kids are adaptable. My son didn’t like learning to read and write Chinese too much but he perservered and his step mother ( who is a qualified teacher ) was able to help him.

His classmates also helped him as well as they were always at our house even on weekends. The small village community is really good like that. I think also not being in a city my son found that having mountain streams to swim in, and plenty of places to play with the other kids was really fun. His friends also enjoyed coming to our house and sharing game time on his xbox. He is still good friends with those now young adults nearly 10 years later on.

Sometimes what is hard for a kid now proves useful later on in life.

I wonder if we’re talking about the same thing here…

I use the term “mountain school” but only because these little schools are usually up the mountain. A better term would be “country school”. They’re still fully a part of the normal education system. It’s only their low roll numbers, due to geography, that give them a special advantage, and then some of the principals capitalize on that. So, they don’t have swimming pools. gymnasiums, and high tech gadgets in the classrooms that bigger schools have, but they have a personal family feeling, and treat students as individuals. Many of them develop a specialty, based on the traditions or geography of their area. The little state school in Wulai is a “weaving” school. All the kids learn to use a loom and weave traditional material. It also specializes in aboriginal culture. Another school is a “pottery school”.

Datun is a “green” school. Their specialty is nature studies. The kids there also excel in sport - mountain running being their forte as they don’t have a running track! :laughing: They have to climb Datun Shan when they graduate.

Oh yeah… I know of another one, around the North Coast, I forget which town, which has a prerequisite that all the kids must complete a sea dive (not sure scuba or free) before they can graduate.

But there are also the “Forest” schools, which are sometimes partially funded by the state, depending on current policies, but are independent private schools, begun as an experiment by a local expert in education. They’re also fairly pricey.

There is a Forest School in Wulai also, not to be confused with the state primary school I was talking about earlier, which I would call a “mountain school”. I looked at sending my daughter there - there are a number of foreign students attending. But it was too expensive, and too far, and I didn’t want her to live in, and a biggie for me, there is no reliable provision for the students after elementary school. They either have to return to the normal system, or home school, or ??? The Forest school, as I understand it, is run along lines similar to a Steiner school, so there can be difficulties for children to adapt to the more rigid state system. There is a big emphasis on the study and integration of nature, of practical learning, and student centered activities, and a REALLY impressive student/staff ratio.

There are currently a couple of options for alternative education after elementary school, but it’s very limited, and subject to change. There is a “Forest School” for junior and senior high students somewhere in the foothills behind Taichung, where the kids live in, school five days, home three. It’s a “no rules” school - the teachers are facilitators and the kids make their own choices. For some it works really well. But most take a year or so to settle down and get motivated. There’s a fairly good

Ahh! Enough already. Getting off topic here! I did a load of research into schooling options a while ago because my step daughter had special needs also. She also went to Datun, loved it, but burnt out the first year in middle school from the pressure- and she is Taiwanese. She’s now in high school in NZ and loving it, and doing really well.

So,maybe the locals also know of the country schools as “forest schools” - not sure on that. But certainly there are officially named “Forest” schools, which are private facilities.

Cheers,
Sue

Aghh! Totally sidetracked and forgot what I meant to post:

I found the website for Datun Guoxiao:
dtps.tp.edu.tw/

And a brief English page:
w2.dtps.tp.edu.tw/english/introduction.htm

Here’s a google translation of their “about the school” page off the main site:

[quote]Childhood in the mountains in the running and jumping
Datun Elementary School is located in the foothills of Datun, ten minutes from downtown Beitou drive, then stay away from the urban polluted air and Ding Fei human voice. Here, the natural forest, insects and birds, old house humanities, Sam Rainsy cloud, Four Seasons Datun scenery … are part of the course, their kids to learn to appreciate the beauty of nature, the dialogue with the environment, aware of environmental issues, citizens into action.

Parents are welcome to participate in a school
Parents are welcome into the school campus, listen to their singing, laughter, and reading sound, fully feel their happiness. You may also like us, like a lot of enthusiastic parents, into the classroom, teach them to sing and accompany them to draw, tell stories to them. Datun child in an open environment, thinking and attitude to grow, childlike honesty and natural expression in their faces. Always open the door to the family welcome you to join.

Competition and more competitive does not mean
In Datun, not the number of students each class to twenty people. Every teacher knew every child, the child can receive more attention and guidance of teachers, will it be possible for individual differences among students, adaptive teaching, have time to listen to each child’s heart, where his own way; The children have more future potential.

Happiness only in the possibility of independent study
Focus on holistic development of children, the basic capacity to implement discipline, inspiring the pursuit of personal growth, programs and activities is the goal Datun, also won nine-year plan has always been privileged to honor the school curriculum. Whether cross-country running, chess Chess, pottery classroom teaching and community, or deep plowing to promote reading, reading between multiple roots and English teaching, the essence of education is to think back, let the children happy and effective learning.

School district system for the University, where set membership can be school children in Taipei. Any school, please contact the head of the Senate or the Senate, Chenming Yun Li Jianhua, director of the teacher. Tel :2891 -4353 # 11 E-mail address: eloisa@tp.edu.tw[/quote]