Overseas Family School-Overcrowded, easy, lax school?

[not an OFS parent]

we did not know the dates of the school terms, neither was it made clear to us over the phone when we asked for an appointment.

but you didn't think to ask if it was holidays, even though it was August?  What about the website - most put the term dates on the website - did you check that?

Naming people in a public forum is below the belt. You could have said 'one of the women from the front office', but you didn't need to put her name on the site.  That's out of order.

[another OFS parent]

We started OFS in Aug 2007, and I have to say it was not my first choice of schools but was really the only school that could take both children. My kids are very happy, certainly learning lots, the four hours of languages a week is awesome, one of my children is in the advanced math program and is loving it.  There is a big racial mix in the school, over 14 different nationalities in each class but the kids do  not notice it and what an important lesson it is for children and parents to learn about different cultures and be able to get on with different people etc.
This summer we had the option to move to one of the "top tier" schools in Singapore and neither child wanted to move, they are both happy.  My feeling is that OFS might not be the best school in Singapore but it is the best school for my children.  Good luck in your search its a hard decision but I also think you can worry and over analyse too much

[Agree With "Not.."]

OP is obviously out to get "payback" by posting that woman's name on this thread. Why so vindictive? A simple phone call or a letter to the school to voice your concerns would have been sufficient. Your vindictiveness is way over the top. In fact, you have seriously devalued your entire thread as a result. Grow up, s sort yourself out and learn some human decency.

[school choices]

Picking the right school is not an easy process. Since yours is a Diploma student, don't just see the Registrar. Make an appointment with the High School IBDiploma coordinator. Ask questions about the process of Extended Essays assignments, what guidelines do students have while doing their IAs or oral paper. Ask them about their CAS programme to make sure that they don't run it fascist style because and Dip student can be overstretched if they enforce every rule in the book. Try to get a feel on how accessible they are if you need to talk to someone in the admin team. Then, you make a decision.

As for "We are not going", you are not a nice person. If the overall experience of other OFS parents with the registration staff is great and there has never been a complaint made on this lady, that might be why the school did not take your angry complaint too seriously. Why mention that she is "Singaporean". Where is the relevance? You are in Singapore and believe it or not, you are going to meet lots of Singaporean. Some lovely, others not so and many just regular Joes just like in any other place. In my experience in a service industry, nice people begets nice treatment and the nasty ones get the professional but not too warm treatment.

[New to OFS]

"We're not going" - and boy am I glad to hear that.  I'm with the other posters.  Quite shocking that you'd slate the staff member in this fashion, but worse still to stupidly label her as autistic.  Are you really that ignorant ? Your offensive language suggests you must be the kind of person I certainly don't want to meet at OFS, or any other school for that matter.  Maybe you should consider home schooling, so we can all be spared your nastiness.

[Ofs mom]

My two sons are in highschool in OFS. They moved from a different school system to ofs and I am very impress with the way the school help them to settle down.

I heared about the so called top schools in Singapore but I am more concern with what will be the best fit for my children.

Our main aim is to get suitable admission for our children in a good university and I am sure we can achieve that with Ofs. They are pro active with university admission and the are helpful with university application. They have a lot of useful contact with different universities all over the world and the hold unversity fair and visits for high school students.

I feel that its more important to get into the right university doing a useful course than attending a top high school. As an adult I have never had anyone ask me what high school I attended they are more intrested in what university and what course you studied.

Ofs have a good track record of getting their students into university. For a school that do not require entrance exams that is remarkable. Its much easier to get top marks when you only take top students but to take all level of students and still get them to pass takes a whole lot of work.

[uneedto]

It's you who need to decide what is good for you and your family. OFS is a for profit school. If you need real quality, a trust school is what you should be looking at but the issue is getting into these schools. If you have no choice left, there is nothing much you can do with lax and happy schools.

[fareastjunebug]

I've seen it said in this thread, but I think it bears repeating. You need to judge the fit of the school to your children. For us, it needed to have the right educational program (IB based - PYP, MYP, etc), a language requirement, and to have the right social atmosphere.

The school allows the children to push themselves as hard as they want. As a result, if your child is self motivated, the quality of the education is excellent. They also stream children according to capability, so students are appropriately placed. Those coming in without English language proficiency are also accommodated which I think is great because there are a lot of great students that don’t speak English as a first language. Some of the ESL students can really drive the curve in mathematics and science.

A lot of students need rigor and structure around them and OFS won’t work for them to excel. For the right students, to say the school is lax just isn’t correct – it will produce excellence. It’s large enough that it’s really many institutions in one. Although I'm a bit nostalgic for when OFS was smaller and cozier, I expect the current downturn in the economy will reduce the student population at OFS and many other schools over the next year or two. Who would have thought there was a bubble building in the international school system...

[oh how very wrong]

"Uneedto", you can't be further from the truth. I had in trust schools that are non-profit making and they are average at best in the education that they provided. It depends on who are sitting on the board of trustees and how much they know about education. I had also been in profit-making schools that are excellent. The non-profit trust schools in Singapore might be of a high calibre but it is not because of their non-profit policy. My child is at OFS and I must say that the quality of education that she is there is higher than the international trust school that she went to in our last posting. Like many posters here said, ask questions, see the IB coordinator, find a match for YOUR child. Take what our personal experiences with a pinch of salt.

[xopipedreamer]

Hi, its the OP, but then I cannot login for some reason.
Well , I we just talked to the IB coordinator, and they're still very wishy washy. Nonetheless, I believe that OFS is a very family friendly school when I visited it last friday. They have community service activities , I spoke to a few of the kids and they all seem very happy. During lunch, there were a few that were more isolated, but then in general the atmosphere is nice.

What I don't like is the mix of ESL and english speakers. i went to an SL biology class and the teacher had to translate many , many of the words , slowing things down a bit. Also, the lab equipment seemed sort of disorganized. There are also not enough computers for such a large high school.

But if OFS is willing to accept my daughter, then I guess its what we'll go with.