Finding A School Overseas (Singapore)

If you’re moving overseas and you have school age kids, finding a school for them is one of the main issues you focus on for months in advance. We were not blessed with much help in our research so we had to find our own way and I thought I’d share what we did in case it might help someone else out there in our position.

International schools in Singapore often have long waiting lists and are, whether right or wrong, very picky about whom they choose to offer entry to as it affects their academic standing. Whether right or wrong, it is often a challenge if you happen to have kids with special learning needs. I would encourage you to do your homework if you have special needs children. Ask the schools for specific references of other parents that you might contact. If they don’t give you any, then you pretty much know that school won’t be a fit. Think about it, if you were able to help another family with special needs kids, wouldn’t you? Probably so, so if the school has no references for you, they probably don’t have any.

We searched out schools where we were moving to, Singapore, used the limited information we received from our company, dug deep into their websites and searched the net for blog posts, google images and even youtube videos to find out anything we could and then we emailed our top 5 choices. And simple as it sounds, the school with the answers we were most comfortable with is the one we chose. They also happened to be the one with the most prompt reply to the initial email and subsequent correspondence and that made points as well.

Below is the email we sent out to our five top school choices. I’ve left out the details of our personal family situation but we did begin with a brief overview of our children’s ages and current school status, where we moving from, etc. We were actually homeschooling before we moved to Singapore so that also threw a little kink in things with some schools we emailed. I’m not sure some knew what to do with that which also helped narrow our choices. Btw, home schooling is a viable option. You have to be a little creative in the social aspect and shipping curriculum but it can work. We’re on our 2nd year now of home schooling in Singapore and it works for us.

So, I hope this will be helpful for someone. It worked for us. Our son graduated from the school we chose. We did end up pulling our daughter out after her first year but it was a personal choice for us to home school her again based on several factors that did not fully reflect on the school itself.

Feel free to cut and paste and make it your own.

———–

Hello.

Our names are ……. and we will be relocating to …… in ……….. for work. We will be in Singapore at least one year, possibly two. We are moving from ………….

(insert brief overview of your children’s grades and current school situation) 

We are writing to ask a couple of questions specifically about (school name) as it applies to (your children’s names) as they will be attending school in Singapore during the …. school year and potentially the following.  We have researched your school online and also have a brochure packet we received from our employer. We would appreciate any other information that you might think would benefit us in making our decision.

How do you help students adapt to a new school in a different culture?

What would you say might be the biggest difference(s) between your school and the typical US school?

How will attending (school name) affect our children as they integrate back into American school / college in a couple of years?

Do the values, standards, facilities, curriculum, programs, etc. stated or depicted on your website accurately reflect your school throughout a typical day to day experience?

What are the class sizes and the teacher/student ratio in both (your child’s grades levels) at (school name)?

How do your high school courses compare to the AP (Advanced Placement) courses in US schools?

Do you offer American Curriculum and the IB Program? If so, what would be the advantage of choosing one over another in our given situation?

What are issues that current parents face that have children on two different campuses?

What would be the advantage(s) of our children attending (school name) over any other international school in Singapore?

What might be the disadvantage(s) of our children attending (school name).

As we are searching for the right school for our children, is there anything specific that we should be made aware of concerning your school (positive or negative)?

What is our next step should we choose to apply for our children to attend (school name)?

We appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Sincerely,

(your name)

Moving IN Singapore

We’re moving from our current townhouse to a smaller condo. It may be smaller in size but we’re movin’ up for sure! It’s fully renovated and gorgeous and comes with ZERO stairs! We currently have 6 levels in our tall, skinny house and I’ve had my fill of them.

We’re moving for a few reasons. There are only three of us living in Singapore now so we don’t need 3400 square feet and 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Our LL tried to raise the rent on us by 35% and also just did an overall lousy job of taking care of the place. Getting anything repaired was a constant source of frustration.

I’ll post about our new place once we’re in and it looks all pretty but I wanted to list a few things we’ve had to take care of in hopes that it might help someone else going through a local move in Singapore.

*Choose a moving service if  you plan to use one. We are SO fortunate that our company is moving us since it was classified as a forced move due to the rent increase and his decision later to sell the place. We also arranged for them to bring boxes and packing supplies ahead of time so we could pack up some things that we didn’t want them to mess with.

*Start getting rid of items you don’t need, or as in our case can’t fit, in the new place as soon as you can.

*Switched over electricity, cable, internet

*Put the gas and water for the new place in our name. (our agent took care of that for us)

*Change address with bank, cell phone, MOM (actually our company took care of this for us)

*Coordinate aircon servicing (usually mandatory) and pest control services (we just do this because I’m a bug freak) for the new place.

*Gather all documentations you’ll need for handover of the current location. Your agent should be able to help you with this and should be present at the handover. This is critical. My friend, Leone, has written a very helpful post about her “learning” experience. engaging your own professional property agent.

*Arrange for cleaning service or schedule in time to clean your current place before the handover. You might also want to hire a handyman to come in and patch up holes and minor fix ups.

*Buy a few of those big Ikea blue bags. If you’re lucky like us, you’ll have the place for a little while before your move out and they are AWESOME for moving little things over on your own and for hauling laundry since we’re having to do that at the new place.

*Be prepared to write your FIN numbers (what we call our green card) and passport numbers a million times!

This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch but maybe it’ll get the juices flowing. If anyone in Singapore has experience with moving locally, feel free to comment with any helpful tips you might have. Luckily, most things on the list can be taken care of with a phone call. How that phone call goes, though, is anyone’s guess. Sometimes it’s frustrating and sometimes it’s just funny! Here is how Tommy’s phone call with our cell phone provide went when he called to cancel our son’s cell number after moving back to the US.  He said they tried like crazy to get me to keep it.  It got funny. (my husband’s words are in bold)

Mr Stunz I can have it canceled in 24 hours but I have to ask why.

Because it was my son’s number and he has moved back to the US.

But there a 30% discount and if you cancel it you will lose the discount.

On my other lines?!?

No just this one.

Yeah but if I cancel this one I owe nothing and 30% of nothing is nothing right?

Yes but what if you need an extra line.

Why would I need an extra line.  There are three of us here and we all have our own number.

Do you ever have guests?

Yes. And we have a top up phone for them to use.

Top up rates are higher.

We use less that $23 a month on the top up phone. And his line cost me $23 a month.

But Mr Stunz

JUST CANCEL THE LINE!

Ok we can do that for you in 24 hours. Is there anything else I can help you with.

No you have already helped me enough.  Have a nice day. Bye.

Okay thank you Mr. Stunz. bye bye.

No matter where you live in this big ol’ world, moving is a pain. The pain is compounded in a foreign country where we’re not used to the system but it’s all part of the adventure. We are so excited to get settled in our new place!! No pain, no gain!!

Moving to Singapore

I’ve been compiling a few links for those planning to move to Singapore who are like I was a few years ago and digging for any information they can possibly get their hands on. Once you get here, be sure to keep this link handy, Helpful Singapore Information.

What we normally buy in the US when we go home for visits is anything we know we’ll use and have space for. Anything we can bring will save us money in the long run. That usually includes medicines (can’t get ibuprofen/tylenol, nyquil and such here), vitamins (they have them but maybe not what you like and it is sure to be 3x the price), deoderant, undergarments (cotton/moisture wicking if possible), pants/bottoms for all of us since we’re tall and/or large, makeup that I like (have here but pricey), electronics/cameras (again you can get them here but they are expensive and not always guaranteed), any food items/snacks that we’ve been craving (different every time we go home but usually includes gum-for personal consumption, of course!), blonde hair color (plenty of dark color here), bounce/color catchers for laundry (they have bounce here but it’s expensive and is a good hole filler in luggage and they have their version of color catchers but they don’t work), sunscreen and mosquito spray (although you don’t need mosquito spray very often but you’ll need it in certain areas of Singapore and possibly on trips, they do have it here but it’s expensive), certain spices and seasonings we are picky about, Texas pecans and corn tortillas.
 
Most everything you need you’ll be able to get in Singapore somehow and in some form. It might not be what you are used to and it might be two to three times the price you are used to paying but you also might find something you like better. Those things that we just know we like what we like are what we bring back with us.

http://thestunzfamily.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/what-do-you-want/
 
http://thestunzfamily.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/singapore-faq%e2%80%99s/
 
http://thestunzfamily.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/if-i-had-never-moved/
 
http://thestunzfamily.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/18-month-check-up/
 
http://thestunzfamily.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/new-to-singapore/
 
This is a friend’s blog who is now living back in Oklahoma but her blog has so much good Singapore information on it and she was great about posting photos of her adventures and finds.  http://cajunsis.blogspot.com/
 
Here is a specific post she put together just before she moved back to the States. http://cajunsis.blogspot.com/2010/11/americans-moving-to-singapore-what-to.html although her list is specific to her, everyone’s list will be slightly different, it is pretty informative. When she talks about fitted sheets, they were for a bed bought in Singapore. US and Asian beds are different sizes so if you are bringing American beds, bring American sheets. If you like to bbq, for sure bring one if you can. You will have to get the fittings changed if it’s gas but it’s so much cheaper to do that then buy one here. A super nice grill in the US is maybe about $500 USD, it would be $3000 SGD if you buy it here. And like she said, if you can’t fit it in your new place, sell it. Someone will be glad you brought it over for them.
 
This is a sweet Australian friend’s blog who lives in Singapore for several years now. She’s amazing!! And knows everything about everything. She is super great about posting things to do and see and eat in Singapore. She, too, posts wonderful photos of her life here.
http://leonefabre.blogspot.com/
 
This is a good link for a brief overview of Singapore’s history.
http://www.singaporeexpats.com/about-singapore/brief-history.htm
 
This is a good link for what Singapore is like now:
http://www.singaporeexpats.com/about-singapore/about-singapore.htm