Beijing Series- International School of Beijing

Hubby and I had four main objectives for this very quickly planned trip (4 days) to Beijing.

1. Make sure it was even somewhere we could imagine ourselves living. Yep, we think we could.
2. Hubby to meet with the Chinese partners of his firm and check out the office. All went great with that.
3. Look at schools. This post & next post.
4. Look at living options. Future posts.

Do you ever plan ahead and it does not pay off? I kind of put all my eggs in one basket when it came to schools. Now we realize we may go a different route. More about that later.

I had been in contact with some women from church who live where these two schools are...a suburban district near Beijing. I had decided early on that my children should be in this area, at one of these schools. So we visited both schools in Shunyi and did not schedule any tours for international schools in the city. We were impressed with both schools so, at that point, all was well.

International School of Beijing- (ISB) This school has a high reputation of excellence.

It's a nice, new modern establishment. It houses preK -12 grade.

Elementary cafeteria- there are three seperate meny choices daily- vegetarian, western, asian. The middle school and high school cafeteria is more of a food court with coffee bars and couches.

Each classroom has 18-22 kids. Most classrooms have two teachers. They each have a smartboard and each student has their own laptop.


Of course the biggest plus of all of the international schools are the arts and elective courses offered. We are so used to these services being eliminated here in the US so I was a kid in a candy store with all of these awesome options. The high school has a film department. The senior students have the opportunity to film their own short films. They roll out the red carpet and have a premiere night every year. A few years back, one of the films even won awards at the Tribeca film festival.



Great music deparments. Glad since one of mine plays the clarinet and the other plays the guitar.

The physical education department was impressive also. My fourth grader would have the opportunity to do Wushu (karate), running, rock wall climbing, swimming, basketball, etc. The after school activities offer a lot also.

Other things that stood out to us was the amazing school busses (pricey though). Included are many opportunities for the kids to go away to outdoor adventure camps each year. I also liked that the buildings are all high-tech ventilation for the poor air quality.
Next post will be school option #2- stay tuned