Class structure makes a difference when choosing an international school

----By James Roy

Few parents hunting for schools do so without carefully considering the long-term benefits of a school's system for their children. They ask questions like: How do students learn? How large are the classes? And, not unimportantly: How will the school help prepare my child for university? And, in an international setting like Beijing, there are some extra questions, like How can my children benefit from growing up in China?

Once they find the right fit, parents tend to get on board and stay pretty loyal. "Often schools, quite rightly, grow from the bottom up. Your elementary students go through up to the upper school and sustain [the class]. ¡­ Once parents have elementary students in the school, they like the school and are happy, they stick with the philosophy they know, the routines they know, the teachers they know," says Julie Todd, acting upper school principal at Beijing City International School (BCIS) a newcomer to the capital founded in 2005. This is reflected in the school's student body: Its lower school, from preschool to grade five, has 185 students, while its upper school has 65 students and only currently extends to grade nine.

The three main curriculum types on offer at international schools are the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme, the United Kingdom National Curriculum (UKNC, known for the IGCSE, O-level and A-level exams students take in high school) and the less structured American style. There are plenty of schools for each, and some, like Yew Chung International School even offer more than one curriculum track. Nick Combes, co-principal at Yew Chung, currently oversees the school's A-levels curriculum, but points out that he will have his first batch of IB graduates next year.

IB programmes in particular seem to be catching on. According to Stadler's Education Guide to Beijing, eight schools currently offer them, compared to six with American curricula and five on UKNC. Raymond Williams, principal of Beijing BISS International School, sees the IB diploma's reputation as a pre-university course as its strong point. "It's kind of the cr¨¨me de la cr¨¨me," he says. "It's universally recognised by the Ivy League [and other] top universities all over the world." That's important at BISS, whose graduates mostly go on to study at universities in their home countries, which include Australia, the United Kingdom, Korea, Germany, the United States and dozens more (though Williams notes that a common pattern is for students to go on to pursue master's degrees in the US). BCIS has also implemented an IB programme and plans to have its first graduating class in the 2008-2009 school year.

The IB's breadth also differentiates it from the depth of the A-levels, says Williams. "A-levels force students to specialise very early, so they tend to take three languages or three sciences or three humanities ¡­ whereas the IB has a broader base. Students take a first language, a second language, a humanities course, a math, a science and an arts subject. ¡­ Students don't actually know when they're 16 where they want to go to university or what they want to do with the rest of their lives. So the idea is to accumulate as many points as possible and apply to the universities of their choice."

This is not to say that the IB is the only widely accepted curriculum. A-levels and O-levels are recognised throughout the former British Empire and indeed the rest of the world. The main separating factor between the systems is pedagogy.

Mandatory Mandarin

Bilingual schools are also widely available in Beijing, and are an attractive option for parents looking to take advantage of their children's. Yew Chung requires all of its students to study both Chinese and English from kindergarten to graduation, and prides itself on their performance. "Our students excel. Their results [on standardised Chinese exams] have been exceptional." says Combes. An increasingly popular path for his graduates, who might otherwise go on to university in North America, Australia or the UK, has been to stay in China for an extra year and enrol in intensive Chinese-language programmes "as a sort of preparatory year" for university.