Hi all! My family might relocate to Taipei this summer, and we are looking at schools. My son would enter Year 8 and my daughter would enter Year 5. I would like to hear from other parents at TES. Why did you choose TES? What do you like or not like about it? Thank you!
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We are also moving to Taiwan this summer and would like to hear about the TES (vs the TAS). I have heard that many American families are choosing TES over the TAS. Please let me know any thoughts of TES vs TAS.
Thank you!
I would like to hear from some TAS parents but I have some thoughts about TES. Its an important decision, but it sometimes comes down to intangibles. I have looked at schools in the USA. I would read about them on the greatschools and yelp websites. Then fortunately the area I was searching had a parents group online and I met a number of very helpful parents there. Though really it comes down to just a big pile of third hand anecdotes and rumors and innuendo.
For better and for worse, Taipei has in practice only 2 choices: TAS and TES. This is probably unfair, there are some other smaller but solid choices in Taipei, Hsinchu, Kaohsiung, etc. but for most people this is the choice. One clear factor is the cost. I have to say, TES does in general do a solid job at a fair price, and I think its fair to ask, in the same city, why TAS cost structure is so much higher. I am pretty sure Taiwan gives them both a similar sweetheart deal on renting their land. Part of this is that, due to the infrastructure fee or whatever its called, TAS is even more costly the first year. Granted, they did just construct a large new building, and I imagine their accounting books are open or transparent on some level, but the fact is, if TES is about $17K, TAS is going to run $10K more than that the first year, and $5K more in subsequent years. Believe it or not, not every parent, I would even say not the majority, at TAS or TES is on a government or corporate package that picks up the tab. Perhaps these fees are sustainable because of the monopoly or oligopoly state of the market with only 1 or 2 options. I have seen 8:1 ratio in the USA for those prices. Perhaps someone can confirm the ratios. TES tends to have more total students in its lower grades and fewer total in its higher grades, I think TAS stays fairly constant but perhaps a TAS parent can let me know.
The other obvious difference is size. TAS is maybe twice as big, all on one campus. What age are your kids? Ours were very small, and TAS just felt too large. Both schools do shelter the smaller children off to their own section of the campus. But TAS had some dinky little playground carved out of the parking lot. Maybe they had another one also for the wee ones but TES appeared to have nicer play facilities. Also we didn’t want or need a car, and the TES campus was better located near the Metro line. So after all, our decision came down to these seemingly small, and possibly unfair, factors.
TES does have French and German sections, but the British is the largest. After “Year 6” (5th grade) the kids do all move up to the TES upper campus up on the mountain. I think people often change schools or move back home at this juncture. Again, possibly unfair, while I’m pretty happy at TES, I am reluctant to subject my kids to that commute.
I have more to say, but perhaps people can ask specific questions or say what ages their kids are. Mostly I would add that TES is still struggling to handle GT kids. I can’t speak to TAS but when we toured they said they did little, except maybe a child here or there working ahead in math or reading. There are rumors that no school wants ADHD kids. TES does have an excellent program helping children catch up in English. Maybe this is another topic, and its just my opinion, but I would suggest that if your child is in the top or bottom 5 percentile, or has more serious SEN needs, you should avoid Taiwan, there is just not enough support. That said, TAS does regularly graduate students to the most competitive US universities, and TES does nearly as well also, and for example accommodated a student who instead of Junior year is heading directly to one of the very top US universities. TES offers the IB degree and it is well regarded ibo.org/
Thank you for the info! My girls are currently in 7th and 9th grade, so they will be in the yr 9 and yr 11 programs next year at TES (or 8th and 10th at TAS).
kmdavis9, your older children would be up on the Yang Ming Shan campus for TES. A school bus is offered (cost depends on distance). Or you could live up on the mountain. At a certain grade, the French and German sections merge with the British section, for the IB curriculum. I think they call your childrens level Year 9 and H2 (= 8th, 10th grade).
TAS of course just has one big campus. TAS would ask them to take an admission test. (Probably TES also?) Their website(s) will have information about their admissions timetable.
TES and TAS are both fine schools. I chose TES because:
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At the time, the connection between parents/administration/teachers seemed tighter than at TAS. Three years in, I have to say that relationship of all three groups in TES is very strong.
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My mom was a school inspector for one of the US states on their school-improvement program for many years – she kindly gave me a list of about 34 things that she used to look for when she’d go into check out a school system or individual school. During the course of our initial checking-out of the school, Ruth Martin took us on a tour of the campus and every single one of those 34 things was actually covered in the course a normal conversation and walk through the different school facilities. I didn’t actually have to ask any of the points as questions, and she was not merely giving me answers to make me “happy.” As my wife and I toured the campus, we got to see those points in action and hear them expressed with no prompting from ourselves.
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The school curriculum in the British Section is the same as used in the UK, and there is great flexibility for adapting to the needs of individual children. There are programs for gifted children and for those with special needs, there are programs to help kids get their English skills up to snuff, and there are multi-level programs for teaching Chinese. I feel that my children are evaluated with reference to well-established and reasonable benchmarks for their success.
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The teachers have been wonderful with my kids. I’ve got twins that we’ve chosen to split up into different classes so that they can establish their own identities, which has given us double the chance to get to know different teachers. Our kids are terribly happy to see their former teachers, and their former teachers are similarly very, very happy to see and catch up with our kids. It’s a very sincere school.
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There is sometimes an accusation regarding TAS (people have differing views on this, so I don’t personally have any endorsement either way) that it has become primarily a private school for wealthy Taiwanese families. I do not think that the same charge can be made regarding TES’s British Section, which has a diverse student body that includes UK, Americans, kids from Commonwealth nations, and those from continental-European countries that don’t speak German or French. The expectations of the parents tend to go along those lines, as well – parents who grew up with schools of the UK, Europe, the US, and the Commonwealth nations have different expectations about the school experience than do Taiwan parents whose primary experience may have been in the local Taiwan school systems and buxibans.
Eiger John, I would be interested if you could post those 34 points. For those interested in research, this study is quite interesting. Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement …. a culmination of 15 years of research incorporating more than 50,000 studies and over 800 meta-analyses involving millions of students [that] represents the largest collection of evidence-based research into what actually works in schools to improve learning. lib.freescienceengineering.org/v … ?id=544851
I would also add that my children are mixed race. I did feel TES would offer them a level playing field, since its student body is so diverse. Not necessarily criticizing TAS, but I have no personal experience there.
In general I can echo most of the positive points Eiger John mentions. The one point I disagree on is the handling of gifted kids. I will address this more completely in a new thread at some stage.
I feel like most (not all) students in TAS develop to be real pain in the butts and often times hyper materialistic an in my few interactions pompous a**holes. Whilst TES students tend to be ok. A few odd ball cases but kids in TES are much nicer.
If your kids are older, Grade 11+ and plan to do the IB curriculum, TES is the only option.
TAS shoves AMERICAN history down each student’s throats and their IB system is downright disgusting.
Source: TES 2009 Graduate, Younger brother is currently in TAS grade 11.
We did not choose TES because of the gifted issue. One of my children had been grade-skipped in the US, and TES would not accept it. I would have had to pay tuition for my kid to repeat the same grade and feel bored. Nope.