Admission for LKG in Bangalore - Sharing our experience

[r2bangaloresoon]

I have 3 year 9 month (as of Jun 11) old son who went to preschool here in US. We wanted to get admission for him in North Bangalore school before we kick start the r2i process. If he had not got the admission we would continue in US.

Timeline:

Sep 2010: Contacted top 4 school in our list of school (DPS north, Vidya Sagar, Mallya Aditi and SSRS vidya Mandir) about the application for the LKG school. Got conflicting, confusing, come back later kind of answer. No one was clear as to age group for LKG..it varied from 3 yrs 6 months in SSRS to 4 Yrs in DPS. Calling from US doesn't really help, no one picks the phone in India except our parents :) when we call

Oct 2010: Sent parents to personally talk to the school admin. My parents can't speak English and I got a feed back that they were trying to ignore my parents questions and was giving general answer to the questions.

Sent Brother, he got most of the information about the timing of the application distribution etc., but our basic questions like admission process etc., was not answered. Got good idea of fees and donation etc..,Also, got good feedback as to school's infrastructure, kind of activities available, buses from where we plan to live, number of students, schedule of the classes, things kids will do in the school etc.,

Nov 2010, Dec 2010: Got application form from DPS, SSRS, Vidya Sagar through parents (my parents started hating me :)...they almost disowned me at this point) after multiple trips. http://www.thinkvidya.com/ which use to be www.3pundits.com is a great website where parents share the date when the application for the school you want starts giving out. You get an email reminder. That helped me a lot

Dec 2010 and Jan: Filled the application and sent back in India to parents and parents submitted to school. School typically wants to interview the kids in Jan. But unfortunately, my wife, me or Son couldn't travel to India in Dec or Jan or Feb for medical reason (I Don't want to go into why). So I sent a letter with all the three admission form explaining our situation and requesting to waive personal interview or deffer it till Apr.

SSRS: Assured us there will be spot for my son when we go to India in April. But gave back my application. I spoke to principal who assured me admission in May shouldn't be problem because She already looked at my application and understands the situation

Vidya Sagar: Rejected application, no seat for my son. Don't even want to talk. Didn't even care about anything else.

DPS: Received the application. Didn't communicate with us after that. Not willing to talk but asked us to meet the principal whenever we were able to come to Bangalore.


May 2011: Wife and son reached India last week of May just 4 days before school are scheduled to start.

SSRS: They are ready to admit the kid with Rs 50K as a cash donation to some unknown charity. Wife didn't feel comfortable with the school and people whom she was talking with. Also felt it may not be upto standard of other two school we were considering. We knew couple of teachers in the school, and that helped a lot in terms of getting face time with Principal. Also, seems like more flexible in terms of age requirement for LKG

Vidya Sagar; My wife hate this school, because the principal made her and my son wait for 4.5 hrs before sending them back without even seeing them. She just waited there for ever...everytime she was told she can see the principal in next 30 minutes. Also, they ruled out admitting my son to LKG but they were considering him for the preparatory (or nursery). General impression of the school is positive. Kids seems to be happy and lot of activities. But admin staff don't care about you. Also, in this school we had recommendation from one of the minister in state cabinet, but didn't help. They seem to don't care about anything.

DPS: Wife liked the school. Son loved it. He had great time from the time he stepped in the school. Admin Staff was super nice to him (he is talkative type). We again had some minister's recommendation for this school (we had the letter with us) but we didn't had opportunity to use that. Principal recalled our letter as soon as my wife explained the situation. She said though the admission is over, she will consider as we had already applied in Dec but couldn't come to interview. She asked my wife to step out and asked bunch of questions to my son. Questions were what is your name, what is your fathers name, what is your mothers name, what color shirt you are wearing, what color saree I am wearing, sing me a rhyme, sing me an alphabet song, Tell me what shapes are these, who was your friend in your previous school (May be more questions but these are the question my son remembered). It lasted a good 20 minutes it seems. So after all these, they admitted to him to LKG. But they told us if he is not showing progress with other kids, they might move him to nursery. He was short of a month for their cutoff for LKG it seems. But my son was extra energetic that day and should have impressed the principal with his non stop why questions :)

No extra donation in DPS (they take 30K cash donation from everyone whether you register in Nov/Dec or in Apr/May). So finally happy ending.

If any of you have any questions on Bangalore north school, let me know. Hope this helps someone. sorry for the typos

[HarryPotter]

Thanks for sharing your experience r2bangaloresoon. We are moving to North Bangalore (Hebbal Kempapura) area at the end of June, and have a son who is 3 yrs 6 month old (as of 1 June). So far we have been trying for admission of my son remotely, but with no luck. My parents/relatives are far off from bangalore, so it has been tough to get information. We are crossing our fingers and hoping things work out for us.

Since our son was going to a daycare (Primrose), we were debating if we should send him to a daycare like KidZee, Your Kids are Our Kids, Eurokids etc. for Nursery and try schools next year. This may help out his transition. He is a shy kid and also not aggressive, so we are worried about his transition. Do you have any thoughts on how day cares are in India.

In terms of the schools you shortlisted, did you also consider Trio World school or Stonehill? I also tried Vidya Sagar and got a curt answer from them that there are no vacancies. Every other school said, after you come here, come and meet us.

[r2bangaloresoon]

#2, We were thinking about daycare as a backup option. But we were not in a hurry to r2i if we had not got the admission in the school we had shortlisted, we would have come back to US to try next year. So, We didn't even pursue the daycare. General feedback I got from my contact in Bangalore about daycare route is that choice of school becomes narrower if you send the kids to a particular daycare and admission gets tougher as you are competing with other kids for only limited seats (school prefer their own LKG students for UKG etc.,) So we were decided not to pursue the daycare option.

Standard of daycare seems to be much better than many of the schools. So its not a bad option. Heard a very good review about Eurokids in BEL layout. They seems to follow Montessori system and kids seems to enjoy them.

About transition, I have same issue. My kid is very well behaved and not aggressive at all. We have seen generally kids in India are pretty aggressive. We had a few bad experience when he was visiting India around a year and half back. So its definitely one of my top concern. What we have tried which seems to have worked is, we allowed him to spend lot of time with neighborhood kids of his age and also cousins from day one of his trip to India this time. Fortunately, my parents know a lot of neighbors and they have kids of same age group. So in the pretense of introducing him, we sent him on a play date. He hasn't changed, but he seems to be observing them and trying to be assertive now. Don't know if this is going to make him aggressive but definitely he is standing on his ground. Also, when he was playing with his cousins we told him to assertive and say if he was being troubled. He now knows if someone try to push him or hit him, he needs to tell someone with authority. It is still in work in progress, but hopefully he will get used to being around lot of aggressive kids.

Considered Trio and Stonehill both, but I felt their fees is too expensive. I can afford the fees but I didn't wanted my son to be siting in ivory tower. I wanted him to grow at the same environment as his cousins. So didn't pursue those two school. I heard not so good things about Trio but heard good things about Stonehill. Both of them are international curriculum and I wanted him to be in CBSE or ISCE.

[r2bangaloresoon]

Report of first day in the school: School bus picked up my son about 45 mins before school start. He is given name badge, so bus guys drop him off in right class. They will drop him off back after the school and you need to have a pass issued by the school (with your photo) to collect your kid from the bus. If you don't take him at the bus stop they will take him back to school. So security is not a big concern.

My son reports, bus journey wasn't fun. Lot of kids were fighting (I don't know what he saw) and no one talked to him. He just sat there in the bus.

He enjoyed his class, he said teacher was nice and was asking him lot of questions. Also, he said, lot of kids played with him. He did some coloring and teacher was helping him with coloring itseems. He said he liked new school because it has more toys and more friends (pre school in US had only 5 other kids in his class). He was asked to carry food from home, so he ate the food he had carried. he seems to be tired after coming back from school and he is generally happy with the school. They have given him a dairy in which teacher will send any communication to parents. Teacher is available to talk on Saturdays with prior appointments. Teacher seems to be nice and care about kids. She helped my son to pack the lunch box back into the bag. Other kids were able to do it on their own itseems. Also, they have listed kind of food we can send to school on each day. E.g. Wednesday it is Pasta/Sandwiches.

He said most of the kids were busy coloring or following what teacher is saying. He went to playyard with other kids and he didn't play with any other kids but played on his own (I don't know why, when I asked he said he didn't have any friends). He said he like his India school better than US school.



DPS made us buy 7 books (for LKG..I don't even know why they need books :) ) and uniform shoes etc., at the school. So budget for extra stuff over the fees if you have a tight budget. Overall we spent close to 10K on top of the fees for school related stuff.

[HarryPotter]

r2bangaloresoon Thanks for responding with your take on Trio/Stonehill as well as your take on daycare. I fell it would be good to connect in Bangalore, and our kids could go for a playdate. It will be good to be touch with a family, who is in similar shoes as us. What do you say?

[dipacgupta]

Thanks for sharing your experience so descriptively r2bangaloresoon... Reading your post has indeed been very helpful for fellow parents like me.

Would you please also share the update on your son's journey with dps north bangalore so far... I am planning to put my son in Nursery in DPS north from the coming academic year, but have not been able to find many reviews regarding the school so far. Overall how do you feel about your son's progress in the school. Also, please let me know what could be the other alternative schools in north bangalore which may be worthwhile applying in.

My son has a very shy nature and depending on his mood, he may or may not answer the questions which the teacher will ask during the interview. I am a little concerned about that part as well.