Deciding

After much deliberation, I think we have decided on a school for our children to attend in Shanghai. This was a difficult decision, more difficult than I anticipated. Schools in Shanghai are like housing in Shanghai. Your options extend pretty much as far as your budget will! You can stick your kids in local school (not recommended!) or pay $30,000+ EACH! for the straight-up American school. And then there's everything in between. We have decided to go as authentic as possible without actually enrolling in local school. The school Braden will be attending is called Shanghai United Bi-lingual School (SUBS). It is more British than American. The international children have an English speaking teacher and a Chinese speaking teacher. And there is also a section of the school that is for local children, and they do interact quite a bit with the international children. There is one family from church who's children attend this school, and the mom is an English teacher there (3rd grade). They love it, and after 3 years, all her children speak Chinese.

SUBS has a sister school, Fortune Kindergarten, where Wilson and Lydia will attend. Same basic set-up, but for international children only. My biggest educational priority for the kids while we are living in Shanghai is for them to learn Chinese. They are young enough that I don't worry about them falling behind academically. I am really excited about these schools, and think we have made the best choice for them, language-wise. Feel free to visit their websites (although I will warn you, they are not the greatest websites on earth....but worth a look anyway!)

www.subs-ed.com.cn

www.fkis..com.cn