Whether you are an expatriate that regularly relocates with your family for work or a local trying to identify a school that offers the best quality of education for your child, chances are international schools have been on your radar. Choosing what kind of school your child will attend raises multiple concerns when trying to decide between public, private independent, and international learning. Each option comes with its own sets of challenges and benefits.
Here we will address the key reasons you will want to opt for an international school in Hong Kong. This is a decision that is will be highly beneficial to the school life and future of your child.
1. Globalised Learning
International schools offer superior curriculums that are accredited by foreign boards like Cambridge IGCSE, International Baccalaureate (IB), and Edexcel. Wherever you go in the world, these are amongst the standard options that are globally recognized and taught in the English language.
They make it possible for children transferring from another international school to easily carry on with learning with minimal disruption. Many international schools offer admission on a rolling basis, ensuring that whenever this change happens, the children can be quickly accommodated. This is a relief for parents who do not have control over where and when they will relocate.
Seeking admission to foreign universities is also less of a hassle when you have studied at an international school. The regularly updated curriculum and modern teaching methods better prepare the students to advance their education and compete in any top-level university.
2. Diverse Curriculum and Student Body
International schools provide an enriching experience for students as they get the opportunity to learn and make connections with classmates and teachers from diverse backgrounds and cultures. Many of the friendships and connections they make at this time will serve them in good stead when they eventually mature into adults.
Being exposed to different cultures and personalities helps to make the students more open to new experiences and accommodating of the differences encountered in this world. It also makes them more adaptable in everything from learning new languages to changing careers.
It can be a challenging experience for those that have to overcome language barriers, but one that fosters their abilities to problem solve and find effective means of communication. Children that learn in this kind of environment become well adapted to travelling, living and working in diverse regions as adults. Independence and responsibility are other traits that are further nurtured where the students attend international schools that offer dorm accommodation.
3. Individual Attention
The student to teacher ratios in international schools is quite low compared to what you find in public institutions. Often there are no more than 20 students in a class. This ensures that each student gets ample one-on-one attention from the teachers.
This helps to better reveal their areas of strengths and weaknesses. When a teacher has a fuller understanding of their student, they can better guide their learning to ensure improvement and encouragement where it is needed. Where they lag behind, the teacher can provide extra attention, reducing the need for parents to have to arrange for private tutoring.
It also ensures more opportunities for students to be individually called upon to participate in class, helping to boost their confidence, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. It also makes for a more enjoyable, engaging, and attentive classroom experience.
This deeper level of engagement between teachers and students ensures a more fulfilling learning experience as students enjoy greater attention that leads to a better quality of education. It also helps to provide the parents with more insight into their child’s school experience and the reasons behind their performance during reviews.
4. Personal Growth
Students need to develop a well-rounded personality. International schools provide a welcoming and nurturing environment where students learn to make connections with their schoolmates and teachers who come from different backgrounds and cultures. They come to appreciate and seek out diversity in themselves and others. This will help them grow into responsible, open-minded, empathetic, and balanced adults.
The mode of learning also helps to cultivate creative thinking and leadership potential. All this is done in a social learning environment that encourages students to network and build friendships and contacts from different parts of the world. These are skills that will be of major benefit to students when they later join the workforce. The workplace continues to be a competitive environment where those that are well-prepared tend to thrive.
International schools often place as much emphasis on academics as they do other co-curricular areas like sports, debating, robotics, music, and foreign languages. The range of options is typically much wider in international schools.
This empowers students to explore and develop their hidden talents and abilities under the guidance of professional trainers. The skills they develop can help build their critical thinking capacity, boost their confidence, improve their problem-solving ability, and expose them to unexpected career opportunities and personal interests.
5. Greater Academic and Career Opportunities
Attending an international school makes it easier for students to gain admission to top universities across the world, often without the need of even taking entrance exams. Many of these schools have partnerships with certain universities that allow them to place students with good potential in institutions that can better nurture their talents and abilities into fulfilling careers.
They also recruit highly qualified teachers that are trained in modern teaching techniques and can utilize the latest interactive technologies in the classroom environment. This teaching helps to stir student curiosity and engagement and makes them better able to keep up when they encounter the same at university.
The variety of co-curricular activities they offer also help present their students as well-rounded individuals with much needed soft and social skills that make them more valuable to their universities and future employers. It also exposes them to more possibilities when it comes to pursuing higher education and career choices. Public schools tend to focus on specific learning paths that lead to limited career options. Besides looking at paper qualifications, recruiters are drawn to job candidates that are well-rounded, exposed, and able to adapt.