International School (Montessori) in Yinchuan City

[Ahmadfad]

Hello, 

 

i am planning to move to Yinchuan City (Ningxia) on a job with my family. I was wondering if there are any good international schools (montessori) for kids in the city. How much are the fees normally for montessori in this region?

 

Regards,

 

Ahmad

[Lu]

According to Google, there actually is one:
 
Ningxia Montessori International School
Address: No 87, Tanglai community, Yinchuan, Ningxia
Tel: 0951-5026938
 
(found here by googling 'international school ningxia'). I'm afraid I haven't been able to turn up more than this with a quick search, but perhaps you can try for yourself. I'm actually quite surprised there is an international school there, and even a Montessori school. Ningxia is not actually the most developed province in China and I wouldn't have expected there to be enough expats to maintain a school, let alone more than one.

[roddy]

"International" in a school's name can often just be a marketing strategy - doesn't mean the staff or kids are international. The first school I worked at in China in 1998 was an 'international school', but the only international aspect of it was me, three other foreign teachers, and two scared-looking French-Chinese kids.

 

Montessori is doing quite nicely in China, I think - strong appetite for non-traditional-Chinese approaches. 

[ChTTay]

I used to live in Yinchuan and remember that school. It is International in name only I believe or that just implies the "international nature" of Montessori education. I am fairly sure it's all taught in Chinese (apart from English class) and I very much doubt there are any foreign students.

Perhaps the odd Russian. There was a young Russian girl at my English school and she must have attended a school somewhere.

Some teachers had kids at my school and they home schooled them mostly. They were young though - maybe kindergarten age. Think they managed to find some mixed race play mates.l who spoke English and Chinese.

I guess the lessons may be in English but I really can't see it.

YINCHUAN is a fantastic city though. I love it there. It's small but is developing fast.

[Tianjin42]

Be careful here. As well as the 'international' nature of the school being spurious, through work we have encountered a significant amount of 'Montessori' schools that are nothing of the sort.

Whilst there are legitimate Montessori schools

here, some of those that have conntacted us have either:

-Liked the idea of Montessori and so renamed the school

- Have one Montessori teacher, or a teacher who once worked for a Montessori institution

- There was one where the owner of the school read a book about Montessori methods and decided she liked them and so changed the school name.

I believe you can check for officially accredited Montessori institutions and I suggest you do.

[Tianjin42]

Also a lot of accredited Montessori teachers that we work with have encountered schools that are Montessori only in name - we encounter that now and then.

[Ahmadfad]

Thanks all for the valuable feedback. How can I check the accredited motessori schools in China ? Is there any accreditation agency which verifies and maintains a list of accredited institute in China ?

[ChTTay]

So the short answer is, there aren't any international schools in Yinchuan - at least not in the way you want.

 

If you want to send them to a Chinese school, you may also be limited in choice by schools willing to accept your children. I assume they have little to no Chinese language skills.

 

You might want to look into an 'online school'. I knew of a guy in Yinchuan whose child attended an online school. He hired a foreign teacher in the area to tutor him, help with homework etc as well every week.