Time goes by, and I am ready to jump back in. I hope to have good discussions with friends in Singapore, U.S. and all over the world as I share the experiences we are having in Singapore as we begin our third year here. My perspective on life has changed. We are still enjoying our experience in Asia and we are excited to see what the year brings. And I am ready to jump back in to the fun conversations that the blog brings.
NEW SCHOOL YEAR... NEW SCHOOL
The start of the school year is always kind of stressful - in a good way, but it's a new routine, new teachers, making sure everything has its labels, buying all the supplies... well this year we have some extra issues mixed in to make it even more fun. Our school is moving to the far end of the island.
My three children go to an international school here. I'll start by saying that, in my opinion, the international school scene in Singapore is out of control. We are public school people at heart, but although Singapore has one of the best public education systems in the world (ever heard of Singapore Math?) it is not entirely realistic for international kids to go to the local Singapore school. First of all, they would have to take a competitive test to see if they get in. Then there is the waiting list factor - neighborhood kids get priority, followed by I think legacies of the school and then permanent residents of Singapore. That leaves international kids like mine way down on the totem pole. Oh, and it would cost around US$500/kid/month for what is free for a Singaporean.
That all taken into consideration, we opted for the international school. My husband works for a local University, and as part of the package that convinced us to move here they pay a stipend per child per year towards international schooling (which would not count for local schools by the way, another strike). The stipend covers not even half of the approximately 30,000 dollar/year tuition cost per child.
We moved to Singapore 2 years ago - with a 4, 6, and 10-year-old. The American school was not a consideration for us mostly due to its cost - in addition to the high tuition...there is a "facility fee" of $12,000 per child the first year in addition to the annual cost. I am convinced that the majority of the kids at the American school, which is I'm sure an amazing school, do not see the bill. The traditional expat packages for businesses, embassies, etc, generally include all schooling fees including bus. These days more and more foreigners in Singapore have either a modified expat package like we do or, in some cases, no package at all.
So we enrolled our children in the Overseas Family School, a big international school in a great location. We got an apartment near the school which also meant near the main shopping area of Singapore, Orchard Road, and for the last 2 years the kids have had the luxury of walking to school which took about 15 minutes each way. What a great quality of life. And the funny thing is we thought we would not love the school - it has somewhat mixed reviews online - but you know what? We were pleasantly surprised. Both the kids and my husband and I have been happy with the experience and the kids have had in general great, caring teachers.
Now here's the catch - the school is moving from the convenient location to a new, fabulous campus on the east coast of Singapore. We knew that when we signed them up 2 years ago, and like I said, we figured we would change them after the first year to a different, probably "better" school, but here we are, happy with the school. Next week the kids will start the school year first, fourth and seventh graders, in the brand new campus which is inconvenient for our apartment and extremely inconvenient for my work which happens to be literally on the west coast of Singapore, like looking at the water and seeing Malaysia. True. You can see my hand-drawn map of Singapore included in this post.
Singapore is a small country. With no traffic you can drive across the whole thing in around one hour. It is shaped sort of like an eye. Imagine we live in the middle. School - east coast. Mom's work - west coast. Luckily my husband works close to the apartment. Still I do not like the idea of being so far from the kids every day. I grew up, like almost everyone I know, attending a local school close to my house. My entire life was generally close to the house.
Most kids will take the bus to school. Some families have that cost covered, some do not. The cost is about $3,000 per kid per year, so around $10,000 for my three kids. We are going to try to avoid the bus not only for the cost (which I find outlandish) but also because one of the kids gets carsick. So they will be going to school on the MRT (subway) with our maid. They will take a bus about 6 minutes to the subway, board the train and it's a straight shot about 40 minutes to the very last stop where the school is providing free shuttles back and forth about a 5 minute ride. So my kids will have an actual commute, like little adults. We have to start the routine to see if it is practical. i.e. are there enough seats on the train at that time? Does the bus come quickly enough? Do they need to take a taxi to the MRT station? The new routine is causing me stress so I'm looking forward to seeing how it is day to day.
Then again, moving to Singapore was also stressful, worrying about every detail, and it turned out just fine. Living abroad and going through the ups and downs of live have helped me take things in stride. So let's see how it goes.
My cartography skills:
No comments:
Post a Comment