Anyone with experience at St. Andrews International School?

[Crumpet]

Hello, St. Andrews caught my interest mainly due to its moderate fees and location after searching through myriad of international schools in Bangkok. However, before I consider applying to St. Andrews I would like to know if anyone here had any decent experience at the school?

Final thing is I'm also a bit confused mainly because on their website, St. Andrews has a campus at Sukhumvit 107, Sathorn and Rayong but after doing more research, there are 3 other campuses which are at Sukhumvit 71, Samakee and Dusit . I would like to know if the 3 campuses are affiliated with the other 3 campuses? Thanks!

edit: There seems to be three different sites, tried to access the website where they have the 71 and Dusit campuses but site doesn't seem to respond since the site won't load so I decided to look at the site where they have the information about the 107, Sathorn and Rayong campus.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Crumpet

[Big Guns]

St Andrew's Sathorn, Sukhumvit 107 and Rayong are a group of schools owned by a British firm called Cognita which owns a large number of schools worldwide. The other St andrew's schools you mentioned are part of a separate company. The website for Sathorn, Sukhumvit and Rayong is www.standrews-schools.com. To answer your original question they aren't affiliated with the other schools which share the same name.

[stbkk]

Hi,

My 2 boys (13 and 10) have been going to St.Andrews at Sukhumvit 71 for years, and they both love it.

It has decent but not fabulous sports facilities, and from my point of view the quality of education is excellent. As far as I know, the Dusit campus is only for younger children.

I'd suggest they are worth a visit to check it out for yourself.

Steve

[Hideout]

I also have a son and daughter at the Suk Soi 71 school. We have friends with kids at other international schools like Pattana. On the plus side St Andrews is considerably cheaper than the other "big name" international schools (although I wouldn't say cheap), it's a smaller school with a good "community feel" about it, class sizes are OK (not too big), standard of education seems compatible to the other international schools and our kids love the school. On the negative side the school is lacking in sports facilities and sports options, the school is on a relatively small lot of land and whilst not currently over- crowded there is high demand for new enrolments and it's pupil size is growing. As a previous poster mentioned its best to visit the school yourself as all the schools have their own pros/cons and atmosphere. We are certainly very happy with St A.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[samran]

I also have a son and daughter at the Suk Soi 71 school. We have friends with kids at other international schools like Pattana. On the plus side St Andrews is considerably cheaper than the other "big name" international schools (although I wouldn't say cheap), it's a smaller school with a good "community feel" about it, class sizes are OK (not too big), standard of education seems compatible to the other international schools and our kids love the school. On the negative side the school is lacking in sports facilities and sports options, the school is on a relatively small lot of land and whilst not currently over- crowded there is high demand for new enrolments and it's pupil size is growing. As a previous poster mentioned its best to visit the school yourself as all the schools have their own pros/cons and atmosphere. We are certainly very happy with St A.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

for various reasons we ended up sending our daughter to NIST (mainly cause it was 100% IB), but my wife, a teacher, also visited the St Andrews Suk 71 campus and was suitably impressed by their approach and the general feel of the campus. It turned out to be a very close second in terms of choice of schools for us.

Edited August 25, 2014 by samran

[Hideout]

Good to hear. NIST certainly has a good reputation and I hope your daughter goes well there.

[samran]

Good to hear. NIST certainly has a good reputation and I hope your daughter goes well there.

It certainly deserves it, but I've heard nothing but good things about St Andrews.

[farang000999]

if it is a close second why did you choose NIST it costs 2.5x as much.

Edited August 26, 2014 by farang000999

[farang000999]

your daughter is very lucky. looks like you will be dropping around 12m(?) on her k-12 education.

Edited August 26, 2014 by farang000999

[samran]

if it is a close second why did you choose NIST it costs 2.5x as much.

As I said, Nist is all IB which was important for us. Their turn over in students is less that 10% per year, this year it was near zero in my daughters year level. So there is good stability there too.

Additionally, I'm pretty sure it doesn't cost twice as much. I did the spread sheet of the fees and while Nist is more expense, at the end of the day it works out only marginally more expensive.

As for how much we are going to drop?

Id be paying that in tax back in OZ anyway. Here I pay less tax but more in school fees. Swings and round abouts.

Secondly, my wife is a teacher, and an experienced international school teacher at that, though currently taking maternity break. I have no expectation of paying full fees when she goes back to work, which will happen at some point. And if not, I'm getting my money's worth anyway so not going to quibble.

[samran]

if it is a close second why did you choose NIST it costs 2.5x as much.

See attached the spreadsheet I put together when researching options. Hopefully it opens. As said we had two choices. Probably a third more expensive than St Andrews. Not 2.5 times though.

First year was the real kicker with the capital levy and the reg fee - pulled it out of our mortgage and sold some shares (luckily they did well!) Not cheap, but you gotta do what you got to do.

Edited August 27, 2014 by samran

[farang000999]

thanks for the responses, best of luck.

[farang000999]

I see that ST Andrews uses 3 terms which is where I went wrong.

Edited August 27, 2014 by farang000999

[kurnell]

if it is a close second why did you choose NIST it costs 2.5x as much.

See attached the spreadsheet I put together when researching options. Hopefully it opens. As said we had two choices. Probably a third more expensive than St Andrews. Not 2.5 times though.

First year was the real kicker with the capital levy and the reg fee - pulled it out of our mortgage and sold some shares (luckily they did well!) Not cheap, but you gotta do what you got to do.

Are these rate from their website or an actual quote?

[samran]

if it is a close second why did you choose NIST it costs 2.5x as much.

See attached the spreadsheet I put together when researching options. Hopefully it opens. As said we had two choices. Probably a third more expensive than St Andrews. Not 2.5 times though.

First year was the real kicker with the capital levy and the reg fee - pulled it out of our mortgage and sold some shares (luckily they did well!) Not cheap, but you gotta do what you got to do.

Are these rate from their website or an actual quote?

Fees as published from around the start of 2013.

[kurnell]

if it is a close second why did you choose NIST it costs 2.5x as much.

See attached the spreadsheet I put together when researching options. Hopefully it opens. As said we had two choices. Probably a third more expensive than St Andrews. Not 2.5 times though.

First year was the real kicker with the capital levy and the reg fee - pulled it out of our mortgage and sold some shares (luckily they did well!) Not cheap, but you gotta do what you got to do.

Are these rate from their website or an actual quote?

Normally for whiteys they drop the registration fees and give up to 50% discount

[farang000999]

whitey means two farang parents?

i have not seen that mentioned anywhere else.

50% off the annual tuition?

[samran]

if it is a close second why did you choose NIST it costs 2.5x as much.

See attached the spreadsheet I put together when researching options. Hopefully it opens. As said we had two choices. Probably a third more expensive than St Andrews. Not 2.5 times though.

First year was the real kicker with the capital levy and the reg fee - pulled it out of our mortgage and sold some shares (luckily they did well!) Not cheap, but you gotta do what you got to do.

Are these rate from their website or an actual quote?

Normally for whiteys they drop the registration fees and give up to 50% discount

they don't have to do that at NIST. In my naievety, I certainly explored that option, gently. And was gently rebuffed.

People clammering to get in and waiting lists at most year levels. Fact is they have a 30% limit for Thai nationals. So you see basically very influential Thai's getting there kids in there, or if they can't, the lucky ones have Thai kids who happen to have a foreign passport (not talking about luuk krung's either) and take them in under that banner. As said earlier, it has a very stable population with minimal turn over.

Not that it doesn't happen elsewhere. Siting at a chamber of commerce lunch once last year, I met a guy who was a BD for one of those second tier international schools, the ones that have about 4 anglo kids out of 1000 and make sure that those 4 anglo kids are all put on the front cover of the marketing stuff.

His email to me after the event was:

"I know you mentioned your daughter was already in international school at Nist. if you happen to have any mates who are looking for a school and Nist is too full or expensive then send them over to XXXX. We offer half price tuition for all Kiwi and Aussie passport holders, plus Poms and Yanks after consideration!

Pass the word. Hope to see you about again soon at another such like event".

Edited August 28, 2014 by samran

[kurnell]

See attached the spreadsheet I put together when researching options. Hopefully it opens. As said we had two choices. Probably a third more expensive than St Andrews. Not 2.5 times though.

First year was the real kicker with the capital levy and the reg fee - pulled it out of our mortgage and sold some shares (luckily they did well!) Not cheap, but you gotta do what you got to do.

Are these rate from their website or an actual quote?

Normally for whiteys they drop the registration fees and give up to 50% discount

they don't have to do that at NIST. In my naievety, I certainly explored that option, gently. And was gently rebuffed.

People clammering to get in and waiting lists at most year levels. Fact is they have a 30% limit for Thai nationals. So you see basically very influential Thai's getting there kids in there, or if they can't, the lucky ones have Thai kids who happen to have a foreign passport (not talking about luuk krung's either) and take them in under that banner. As said earlier, it has a very stable population with minimal turn over.

Not that it doesn't happen elsewhere. Siting at a chamber of commerce lunch once last year, I met a guy who was a BD for one of those second tier international schools, the ones that have about 4 anglo kids out of 1000 and make sure that those 4 anglo kids are all put on the front cover of the marketing stuff.

His email to me after the event was:

"I know you mentioned your daughter was already in international school at Nist. if you happen to have any mates who are looking for a school and Nist is too full or expensive then send them over to XXXX. We offer half price tuition for all Kiwi and Aussie passport holders, plus Poms and Yanks after consideration!

Pass the word. Hope to see you about again soon at another such like event".

Yes, supply and demand. Do they offer a better education than St. Andrews, Ascot, Harrow? Who knows??

[samran]

See attached the spreadsheet I put together when researching options. Hopefully it opens. As said we had two choices. Probably a third more expensive than St Andrews. Not 2.5 times though.

First year was the real kicker with the capital levy and the reg fee - pulled it out of our mortgage and sold some shares (luckily they did well!) Not cheap, but you gotta do what you got to do.

Are these rate from their website or an actual quote?

Normally for whiteys they drop the registration fees and give up to 50% discount

they don't have to do that at NIST. In my naievety, I certainly explored that option, gently. And was gently rebuffed.

People clammering to get in and waiting lists at most year levels. Fact is they have a 30% limit for Thai nationals. So you see basically very influential Thai's getting there kids in there, or if they can't, the lucky ones have Thai kids who happen to have a foreign passport (not talking about luuk krung's either) and take them in under that banner. As said earlier, it has a very stable population with minimal turn over.

Not that it doesn't happen elsewhere. Siting at a chamber of commerce lunch once last year, I met a guy who was a BD for one of those second tier international schools, the ones that have about 4 anglo kids out of 1000 and make sure that those 4 anglo kids are all put on the front cover of the marketing stuff.

His email to me after the event was:

"I know you mentioned your daughter was already in international school at Nist. if you happen to have any mates who are looking for a school and Nist is too full or expensive then send them over to XXXX. We offer half price tuition for all Kiwi and Aussie passport holders, plus Poms and Yanks after consideration!

Pass the word. Hope to see you about again soon at another such like event".

Yes, supply and demand. Do they offer a better education than St. Andrews, Ascot, Harrow? Who knows??

None of those are cheap, so it comes down to what suits your child best. Ideally, happy child, good educational outcomes. From a educational perspective, IB is pretty challenging, but also portable. So that suited us. Others might not.

[Harry62]

Hi all,

I got a reminder of Thaivisa for my inactivity on the forum and I suddenly remembered that I once was interested in info on St Andrews in Sathorn (an earlier thread in 2012, now archived) and that I promised at the time to submit "real life" experience later to help others.

So, here I go, my experiences with St Andrews Sathorn (as well as a little bit on NIST):

Moving from Europe to Asia with our two kids now almost three years ago, we were a bit anxious to see how the kids were going to take it, especially school wise. It turned out that our worries were nothing good for, it was incredible to see how smooth this transition was. First day in school and the kids were happy. And I do believe that this is due to the St Andrews Sathorn school itself. The relatively small scale, the family feel, the very friendly and professional teachers, it all contributes to how the kids experience school. I also believe that there is a good mix of nationalities and a stable situation in terms of teachers and children turn over. I've always had the feeling that the education level is good (my kids are pretty clever but never felt bored) and my kids always liked the projects that they were doing every trimester. All this time, I really have been very happy with our choice for St Andrews Sathorn. Perhaps the only negative is that St Andrews Sathorn only has primary education, and their secundary branch is far away in Sukhumvit 107. For that reason, we moved our eldest last year to NIST which is closer.

I can therefore also make a preliminary comparison between St Andrews Sathorn and NIST. OMG, what a transition this was. As I said, transition from Europe to St Andrews Sathorn was nothing but transition from St Andrews Sathorn to NIST took my kid at least half a year. Perhaps this was also due to transition from primary to secundary but I think it was also because NIST was less welcoming as compared to St Andrews Sathorn at the time. One of the flaws I found at NIST is that it is advertising to have great sport facilities but when you're in you'll find out that this is only the case if you're selected for the school's sports teams. In terms of regular after school activities, it turns out that there's hardly any recreational sports available. I was quite shocked to find out since my kid is crazy about sports and this was one of the reasons to choose for NIST. I also have the feeling that the mix of nationalities in NIST is not as good as in St Andrews Sathorn, although I'm not sure about primary in NIST and I sometimes wonder if people take their kids back home once they reach secundary age. I don't know yet how to assess education level in NIST because it will probably take me a few years to understand their very particular grading system. I do see good things in NIST, e.g. in the education system they emphasize on understanding what you're doing, not just reproducing facts. There's also a good emphasis on presentation and communication skills and on making the kids think further about things and formulate their opinion.

Of course, these are just my personal experiences, I hope this may help some of you...

[Scott]

Thanks for posting and it's good to see you back!