Look Ma, No English! Expat parents demystify the local Chinese school system

The van Lawick van Pabst-Koch Family

Three-year-old Bernadette van Lawick van Pabst has blonde, curly hair and big blue eyes. She lives in Xingfucun with her mom Elisabeth Koch, dad Albert van Lawick van Pabst, and 18-month-old brother Diederik (or Dede). For the most part, the van Lawick van Pabst-Koch family are like any other expats. They shop at April Gourmet, have lived in Beijing for five years, and speak several languages (Dutch, English, and Chinese) among the four of them. Both Koch and van Lawick van Pabst are entrepreneurs; Koch is the founder of Elisabeth Koch Millinery, a hat-making studio whose creations have appeared on the cover of many international magazines, while van Lawick van Pabst is the founder of SDS Ventures, a tech investment firm that provides advice to sustainable ventures.

And yet, one thing sets Bernadette apart from many of her peers: She attends a local Chinese school. Though there are other foreign students at Beijing Sweet Angel Kindergarten (北京幸福天使幼儿园), Bernadette is one of the most visible. “One day, she said [a boy called]Andy was pulling her hair in class,” says Koch. When Koch brought it up with Bernadette’s teacher, she said: “Oh no, it’s not that! The other kids are fascinated with her hair, so they keep trying to touch it.”

The decision to put Bernadette in a local Chinese school was largely spurred by location and cost. Previously, she had attended The Children’s House International Montessori Kindergarten (both the CBD and Lufthansa locations) and Ivy Academy. However, Koch wanted something within walking or cycling distance; that’s when she heard about Sweet Angel from another mom.

There was one catch: Koch didn’t speak or read Chinese. “I basically Google Translated Sweet Angel’s entire website,” she laughs. “The research took hours, but the information was surprisingly complete.” She was impressed by the school’s seemingly multi-faceted approach to education, which included music, dance, fine arts, and sensory education. However, her husband was apprehensive about sending Bernadette to a local school. Would she be subject to rote memorization? How would they communicate with the school administration? What about bribery?

And yet, the tuition price was undoubtedly a big draw. At RMB 3,000 per month, Sweet Angel worked out to approximately RMB 36,000 per calendar year. For a full day program, the same spot at an international kindergarten could cost anywhere from RMB 55,000 to just under RMB 100,000 per child per academic year. Cost effectiveness was key for Koch and van Lawick van Pabst. As entrepreneurs, they didn’t have access to an expat package that would cover the price of education for their kids.

There are a few differences between local and international kindergartens, of course. Sweet Angel doesn’t offer half days and doesn’t break for the summer. Students attend school from 8am to 5pm every day. Tuition included some odd purchases, like a duvet for the daily nap (which Bernadette doesn’t always willingly participate in). That being said, the application process was surprisingly painless. Koch didn’t have to fill out any forms until the first day of school, but she did have to take Bernadette to one of three approved hospitals for blood tests, then turn over the results to Sweet Angel.

During the application process, Koch found out that Sweet Angel is actually a private school. Unlike public schools, which are partly or fully subsidized by the Chinese government, private schools collect tuition and other fees from parents. Ostensibly, they also offer better facilities, smaller class sizes, are more likely to hire foreign teachers, and emphasize English learning more than their public counterparts. There are exceptions; some of the best schools in Beijing are high-profile public schools with a history of academic excellence, such as Beijing 101 Middle School and Fuxue Elementary School.

So far, Koch has been pleased with Bernadette’s experience at Sweet Angel. Bernadette made friends right away and now knows all her classmates by name: Fanfan (her best friend), Da Mei and Xiao Mei (the twins), and so on. In the past, Bernadette could only understand ayi’s Chinese despite being born in a Chinese environment; now, she is fluent in Mandarin.

In addition, Bernadette seems to have picked up some good habits from school. “One thing that struck me was how clean the school was,” says Koch. “Every day, the students have to get a clean cup and towel from the front of the class, and then use them over the entire day.” She was both surprised and amused to find that Bernadette was suddenly able to tuck shirts into perfect squares – a skill she developed at school from folding her blanket after every nap.

The experience has also had its moments of hilarity. Koch was aware that Sweet Angel incorporated potty training into the students’ daily routine, but she wasn’t prepared for what Bernadette did at home one day. “She went to the bathroom, then dropped to all fours and stuck her butt in the air,” laughs Koch. “It turned out that this is what they’re taught in class – an adult is meant to ‘wipe off’!” A friend later confirmed the same behavior in her own daughter, a student at another local school. Koch also gets the school menu texted to her every day at 8am, which often results in questionable Google Translate results. For example, “gold and silver volume” turned out to be jinyin juan
(金银卷), a type of steamed bun.

For the most part, Koch is able to communicate with the school just fine, but wishes that she understood more of what was going on. “We didn’t turn in homework for months because I had no idea that Bernadette was supposed to have any,” she recalls. However, she can always turn to Google Translate and Fanfan’s parents – both English-speaking lawyers – for help.

Koch and her husband plan to keep Bernadette in the local school system for elementary. Her brother Dede will follow when he reaches age 2. That being said, they will probably move their kids to an
international school for middle school and high school because of the lighter workload. For now, they are happy with their decision to send Bernadette to Sweet Angel. “Don’t be afraid to send your kids to a local school,” says Koch. “The experience has been all positive [for us]so far.”

The Jabbari-Rodriguez Family

Melissa Rodriguez and Bamdad Jabbari are originally from Ontario, Canada. Rodriguez is a naturopathic doctor, while Jabbari works at Microsoft. They have two kids: Dante (age 7) and Ariana (age 5). Dante (known as Dingding in Chinese) currently attends Grade 2 at a Chinese public school called Fuxue Elementary School, while Ariana is a student at The Family Learning House. The Jabbari-Rodriguez family has lived in Beijing for over four years.

Dante transferred to Fuxue Elementary School’s Chaoyang branch (府学胡同小学朝阳学校) in September of 2012. Founded in 1368, the original branch in Beixinqiao is considered one of the top 12 primary schools in Beijing. He had to write an entrance exam that covered English, Chinese, and mathematics. In addition, Rodriguez and her husband had to provide copies of their passports, visas, temporary residence form, and a letter of transfer from his old school.

Like Elisabeth Koch, neither Rodriguez nor Jabbari are fluent in Chinese. However, it was important to Rodriguez that language barriers were kept to a minimum. “I didn’t want to have all these people translating for me and feel like ‘Oh great, a foreign lady; now, we’ve got to talk in English,’” she says. “I get the gist of [things]and Google Translate text messages that teachers send me. If I need help, I’ll ask ayi or my son’s tutor.”

When it comes to local schools, Rodriguez believes that individual differences can make or break a child’s experience. “It all comes down to the teacher,” she says. “You can have a great teacher and go to a crappy school, and it’s fine, or you can go to a great school and have a bad teacher.”

When asked whether he was happy at Fuxue, to Rodriguez’s surprise, he said: “Yes, because of the way the teachers treat the kids.” “I thought maybe he’d say ‘Yes, because this school has a lot of sports’ or “Because we get more breaks,’” says Rodriguez. “So that for me is real validation.”

However, attending Fuxue has required adjustment on Dante’s part. “The workload is heavy,” says Rodriguez. “I’m not going to deny that.” At the beginning of the school year, Dante refused to do any work in class; at home, he wouldn’t sit still. “We thought: ‘Oh gosh, this isn’t going to work,’” says Rodriguez. “At the previous school, I would do an hour of homework with him and if it wasn’t finished, then it wasn’t finished. But here, they said: ‘No, you have to finish the homework or Dante will have to go to another school. We said: ‘OK, let’s try to finish the homework for one week and see what happens.”

To Rodriguez and Jabbari’s alarm, it took an average of two and a half hours for Dante to finish his homework that first week, leaving no room for leisure. So, they looked for ways to help. “We devised a bunch of strategies to try and help him,” says Rodriguez. “We came up with a reward scheme, which actually worked, and we did affirmations. He kept complaining that his homework was too difficult, but we said: ‘Tell yourself that it’s easy and you’ll start believing it.’ Sometimes I would lean out the car window and yell at strangers ‘Today’s going to be a great day!’ to try to make things fun for him.” Over the next month, Dante started to gain confidence and actively do his schoolwork.

Currently, he attends school from about 7.45am to 3.20pm every day. His tutor comes over from Monday to Friday to help with homework, which now takes him about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Recently, he has settled into enough of a routine to do taekwondo as an after school activity twice a week. Though Dante has a heavier workload than most of his peers who attend an international school, Rodriguez believes that the experience will ultimately benefit him. “More of his time has to be sacrificed, but he is learning self-discipline and a sense of responsibility,” she says. “Sometimes I tell him he doesn’t have to worry about his homework because it’s late, but he’ll say: ‘No, no, I have to finish it.’”

Like the van Lawick van Pabst-Koch family, Rodriguez and Jabbari plan to keep Dante and Ariana in the local school system for elementary but not for middle and high school. “At that point, the pressure builds up too much,” says Rodriguez. “You have to attend a good middle school, so that you can attend a good high school, then go on to university.”

Though the cost of international schools were definitely a deterrent, Rodriguez’ and Jabbari’s first choice was always to send their kids to a local Chinese school. “We want them to be immersed in Chinese language and culture – to read, write, and speak,” says Rodriguez. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here, but it makes a lot of sense to be able to function in the society in which you live. And for the future, knowing Chinese will be very important.”

photos by The Bloom Family Photography