Need help with Chinese high schools

[Karena]

My husband and I are moving to Shenzhen, China for at least a few years due to his new employment. This will be a great opportunity for us and the reason I joined the forum was to help my mandarin skills for this. We have a 17 year old son son in UK high school (secondary school) and he wont be able to graduate from his school because of the move (he's okay about moving by the way). The language aspect is fine - he scored a 9 out of 11 (I think?) on the HSK.

 

I really need some help about the whole process. We need an affordable high-school in/around Shenzhen - how do I go about this? Are there scholarships available? 

[ZoxGuo]

This DOC would be helpful, it’s last year‘s list of good schools in Shenzhen.

Eh, not so many high schools in China have scholarships, but yeah, some of school in this list have, such as 深圳育才中学.

Here’s the DOC, password is 8s4w.

[msittig]

There is basically zero support for Chinese language learners in local Chinese high schools. Use "international division" in your Google searches to find schools that have English-language programs in place, and even then expect Mandarin Chinese to be the language of socialization, administration, and basically everything at the school except the base academic content.

 

Actually, given your son's Mandarin proficiency, that kind of program might be a great choice for him.

[Tianjin42]

Karena, 

I don't have experience with this myself but talking to fellow expats I think it would be a difficult sideways step for your son. The quality international schools would be extremely expensive and the idea of joining a local high school at this stage sounds problematic in the extreme (as well as bureaucratic issues, I fear 9 out of 11 on HSK won't count for much at a domestic Chinese speaking college for example). 

 

Given your son's age, would it be possible for him to remain at home to complete his schooling and then join you? If this is simply a case of one further year then he could complete his studies before moving to China upon reaching a "natural" break in education. This way he could complete the studies that his education has been geared toward thus far and then stop and consider how he (and your family generally) feel about his next step in an educational sense. 

 

If he is by that stage at the point where he is considering university he could look at any university internationally and also Chinese universities (perhaps with a one year language acclimatization prep course).

[roddy]

Sounds like an exciting move. 

 

My question would be - what is he doing after high school? Is he planning to go into a Chinese university with all the other Chinese students, head to a university overseas, not go to university?

[Lu]

Sounds like a great opportunity!

But I doubt transferring to a Chinese highschool would be a good idea. Even if he speaks the language without a problem (and it sounds like he has great Chinese already), the things he has learned so far about history, essay writing, geography, etc etc, will be rather different from what Chinese children his age have learned. One year is much to little time to close that gap, and as a result he'll do pretty badly in school and on his final examination. Honestly even if the move would be to Holland I'd think it's not the best idea.

Often when an expat is sent abroad, his/her company pays for his/her children to attend an international school, perhaps your husband can look into that opportunity? If not, I agree with Tianjun42 that it might be better to have your son stay in the UK for one more year to finish his secondary school.

That's not really the advice you asked for, sorry. I hope others can tell you more about schools in Shenzhen. Have you found any Shenzhen expat forums? There must be some. Also perhaps consider asking the consulate in Hong Kong, they might have some information.

[obscuritea]

I'm not sure about any specific schools in Shenzhen, but given my past experience I think there may be a local Chinese high school that would suffice. I attended a high school in Beijing for a few months which had an international department (北京市第八十中学). There were 3 language levels for international students whose Chinese just wasn't up to par yet. If you were intent on taking the 高考 you took academic classes such as math or chemistry instead of P.E., art, etc.. Once your Chinese was good enough you move out of the language classes and go on to a more typical (as far as I know) Chinese high school curriculum, with other international students, and ultimately take the 高考 your senior year. The school I was at also had a program for Chinese students who wish to attend schools in America or the UK, so their classes consisted of preparation towards the SAT and included stuff like AP classes. While this program was for Chinese students, they allowed my American classmate to attend it, since he didn't want to be stuck with international students having come all this way to China, and the school seemed very firm on not allowing him to join the normal classes for local students.

 

This all may be super uncommon for a local high school in China, I'm not really sure myself. But given that Shenzhen isn't some small city, perhaps some or one of their high schools offer something similar. As was mentioned earlier, the only advice I have for finding something fitting is to try to do some online searches for Shenzhen high schools that include the word 国际部.

[gato]

In terms of undergrad education, the usual consensus is that it would be best to get a degree outside of China since the teaching quality in Chinese universities is spotty at best.

Given that, have you considered how a transfer would affect your son's chance of getting admitted to a quality UK university?