Hi there,
Our grandson is going to take the admission test for Yu-Tsai this month.
I have no idea whether this school is any good or not, so I’m curious, is there anyone here who has taught there before or has kids who have gone to that school?
Looks a bit old and small from images and videos I seen so far.
Any insight would be appreciated.
I believe a friend of mine sent her daughters there because she believed in high-pressure discipline with lots of homework would get her daughters into national universities eventually.
This was very important to her because although she was quite succesful she was ashamed of having gone to a much lesser school in the rural south.
She also did not want her daughters to have contact with the children of poor people who would be in the local public schools.
Although I had/have my reservations about these motivations, her daughters grew up to be happy, confident young women who indeed did go to national universities and seem to be doing pretty well making their way in the world. One overseas studying art in Italy and the other climbing the ranks at a big tech company here in Taiwan.
In general. private schools in the Taipei area are for people who think the regular public schools aren’t hardcore enough and don’t give enough homework. So he’ll probably eventually have to work pretty hard there.
I am not sure what to worry about, to be honest. A high-pressure environment that prepares a kid for the tough world out there (or turns it into a emotionless robot) or one that is more relaxed and has potentially bad influence, because of the unwashed peasant population.
Looking at our boy, I think he is on the bright side of things, so he will probably thrive if the school is more demanding and he is surrounded by the more intelligent students. Boredom would probably lead to more severe problems than pressure to achieve excellence.
I don’t think they would be in business if their model didn’t work for a good number of their students. And these schools very much are businesses. They are owned by families. Basically glorified and more professional (and more highly regulated) buxibans.
The one thing I am not sure I would assume is that the students there are necessarily particularly bright. It’s usually thought that the best and brightest go to public schools in Taipei like Tunhua and Xinsheng. That’s where the real elite sends their kids.
The private schools are more for the socially mobile/climbing parents like my friend. They tend to be a bit anxious and conservative. Their children are products of that context with what that entails.
You might want to consider Chu Lin Elementary School (竹林國小). A dedicated educator who I have know for a very long time has worked there for decades. She wouldn’t do that if she didn’t believe in it. I believe it’s very similar to Yu-tsai.
Chu-Lin is probably the fall-back option if Yu-tsai does not work out. Not sure if he will pass whatever test they have. His mother prefers Yu-tsai for some reason.
Our boy passed the school entrance test. 
No idea whether this school will be good for him or not, but for the time being I just feel proud that he made it. I think there was a 3:1 chance making it. So with 300 applicants he beat like 200 other kids.
I will share our experiences here from time to time for anyone who wants to know what going through this private school is like.
Little update.
August almost over, first month of “light” summer classroom activities. Not sure if this is common nowadays, but the school uses the ClassDojo app, which informs parents almost in real time about things going on in class and other important matters.
They have a point system for positive and negative behavior, which I still try to figure out. My worry is that it puts quite a bit of pressure on the students to behave, based on the school’s or teacher’s standards. Nothing seems to get unnoticed, which is perhaps good for seeing patterns and make adjustments quickly. On the other hand, I worry, that students are forced to behave in certain ways to gain points. I guess, it’s up to the teachers to make this system work in the students’ best interest.
Seeing a lot of negative points piling up over the last few days, I am a bit worried that our boy struggles to fit in. 
Hi @hannes, thank you so much for sharing your honest updates. I can really feel how much you care about your boy and his well-being—it’s not easy balancing high expectations with making sure kids also feel happy and confident in school. I completely understand your worries about pressure and fitting in.
I’m an English teacher myself and also a parent, so I know how important it is to give kids positive, encouraging learning experiences outside of school too. Sometimes, having a safe, fun space to practice English through songs, games, and group interaction helps children gain confidence and enjoy learning more—even if school feels a little strict at times.
If ever you’d like to explore, our tutoring school offers a free online trial group English lesson for kids, just to see if it’s something they’d enjoy. No strings attached—it’s simply a chance for them to experience a more relaxed and playful environment. And if it’s not for your child, perhaps you might know another family who would find it helpful.
Wishing your son all the best as he adjusts—he’s lucky to have such a supportive parent guiding him. 
You are right to worry about that.
Who set the standards?
Our Yu-Tsai experience nears its end, just one month and a week after it started, we have decided to take our kid out of there.
If you are planning to send your kid to this school, I think it’s best to start with their kindergarten. The transition from ordinary kindergarten to elementary school turned out to be too much of a hurdle for us. They seem to be on a tight schedule and disrupting children who are not used to that environment are not giving enough time to adjust, in our opinion. Not sure if all private schools in Taipei are like that. I don’t think they are necessarily a bad choice, but parents definitely need to prepare their kids beforehand. It’s a demanding environment, some kids thrive there, others suffer. We decided not to find out, which one it would be long term for our boy, because we’d like to spare him from possible early psychological damage.
We are now moving on to public school and certainly will face other challenges.
I pulled my daughter out of a private JHS after the first semester because the homework workload was insane. By contrast the public school she is in now is a comparative breeze (and IMO the homework there is nuts). There seems to be a split between private schools where they are either hippy-dippy ‘experimental’ for the rich kids, or completely traditional East Asian study until you commit harakiri.
In public school? How so?
Too much of it, IMO.
Like far out dude. I do like my Santa Novella Patchouli.
But you also say “homework workload was insane” in private school. So can’t escape that? Unless you go to a hippy dippy school in the forest…
It was more insane in the private school. Parenting and compromise go hand in hand.
Jesus, sounds pretty authoritarian for me. I would have been massacred in such a system in high school. Chewy -50 for causing a bunsen burner with chemicals to explode. Chewy -100 for nicknaming the teacher “Ms Infection”. Chewy -500 for drawing incredibly lewd pictures of the female French teacher in the cahier journals. When that teacher was PMSing, and I was caught drawing pics, my desk would be moved out of the classroom into the hallways, where I would “hold court” with passerby’s in the hallway. 
