Varee - International school

[sly4all]

There is a few threads that comment on Varee but all are 5-6 years old and mainly pertaining to the thai or EP section. Since then, Varee has opened an international section for y7 to 13 following a british curriculum.

They are opening y1 to 6 for the new school year 2016-17.

If there are any parents on this forum who have their kids in the international section (and possibly graduated), I am interested to have any feedback from them as I may consider Varee as an alternative to Lanna for my kids to follow the british curriculum.

Appreciate if we can keep the comments to the international section of Varee only.

Thanks,

[prism]

My kids are enrolled in the EP section and will move over to the new Primary international section when it starts. There's a new building being built to house the new primary classrooms. Don't see how it'll be completed by the start of the school year as they are promising. Varee's fee schedules are similar to LIST. LIST is accredited by Western Association of Schools and Colleges(WASC), Varee by CfBT. Seems that WASC is preferable by some of the teachers I've talked to (maybe because they were american). I've visited the LIST campus and the environment there is different since it's exclusively international and the Varee is mixed with Thai, EP and International students. Varee is promising a max class size of 25 students. Varee should have some openings now, when I checked with LIST, they had a wait list.

Varee is a big school so the mornings can be a real crush.

[sly4all]

Thanks.

If you don't mind asking, what is your experience with the school so far ? I take it that if you plan to join the international school you have been satisfied ?

[XGM]

Found this thread while searching for information about Varee. I see they now have International section starting from the early years. Could anyone share their views / experience about this program?

[baywatch82]

Is Varee an "international school" ? What accreditation they have ? It is a private school with english programs. I bet that affects quality of teachers they hire. They can pay lower salary than accredited international schools, so experienced and well certified teachers will not choose to work for them.
Varee is not part of CMCIS (Chiang Mai Circle of International Schools) and not member of CMAC (Chiang Mai Athletic Conference), which is a huge disadvantage if your kids like to play sport.

 

It's hard to recommend any international schools, as it always come to the quality of teaching. Every school have some good teachers and some bad and lazy teachers, and by choosing a school, you don't really choose a teachers. Staff rotation at international schools is huge. Usually teachers complete 1 or 2 or 3 years contracts and move to other schools offering better conditions and salaries than schools in Chiang Mai.

[ilostmypassword]

5 hours ago, baywatch82 said:

Is Varee an "international school" ? What accreditation they have ? It is a private school with english programs. I bet that affects quality of teachers they hire. They can pay lower salary than accredited international schools, so experienced and well certified teachers will not choose to work for them.
Varee is not part of CMCIS (Chiang Mai Circle of International Schools) and not member of CMAC (Chiang Mai Athletic Conference), which is a huge disadvantage if your kids like to play sport.

 

It's hard to recommend any international schools, as it always come to the quality of teaching. Every school have some good teachers and some bad and lazy teachers, and by choosing a school, you don't really choose a teachers. Staff rotation at international schools is huge. Usually teachers complete 1 or 2 or 3 years contracts and move to other schools offering better conditions and salaries than schools in Chiang Mai.

According to Prism, Varee is certified by CfBT. Do you have different information? If that is the case, then the rest of the disparagement in your first paragraph seems to have been undercut.

I also got this from the Varee International School Sports Page:

Varee International offers a variety of sport programmes, including Futsal, Basketball and Football and we compete against other International Schools in the Chiang Mai area. Follow our dedicated sports page on Facebook

http://international.varee.ac.th/?page_id=58#  Do you maintain that they are being untruthful?

As for your final paragraph, you are just offering generalizations.

[iainiain101]

Varee International is more aligned with an English curriculum and Cambridge Exams. Excepting Lanna, the rest are more American. Varee has cricket and rugby as sports.

[baywatch82]

It came to my attention that Varee might be an accredited international school. If I wasn't correct with an above post - my apologies. 
There is many organizations with accreditation rights on different level of prestige.

 

[naboo]

Varee Chiangmai International School (to clear up any confusion on the name) is an international school accredited by an organisation from the UK called the Education Development Trust, EDT for short. EDT was formerly known as CfBT, mentioned earlier in the thread, and accredit schools across the world with the ISQM, as well as inspecting independent schools in the UK.

 

The school was a member of CMAC but left a couple of years ago for various reasons. Currently it has a sports program that works with Prince Royal College for rugby and Chiangmai Cricket Club for cricket. The school also arranges competitive fixtures with several Thai schools in a variety of sports. As a parent, I am happy with this. Sport should be inclusive regardless of background.

[Scott]

A post containing possible defamatory remarks has been removed.  

[Paulme]

I can't speak as a parent, but I can share with you the feelings of a good friend of mine who has a child in high school at Varee. This is therefore second-hand information, so ignore if you wish.

I am told that his son (half Thai) enjoys going there and his wife is very happy because although "international" it is still very Thai, and she likes that. That's the problem for my friend though - it is not really international. An overwhelmingly Thai student body, with all of the cultural baggage that that brings, and of course the lower English language skills of classmates that this brings. They also don't have much contact with the other local international schools. They are not part of the international sports calendar, not part of the circle of Chiang Mai international schools, not even members of the International Schools Association of Thailand; still very Thai and insular.

If he has his way he would switch to Lanna (the established British international school in Chiang Mai), as a number of his classmates have, for what he is led to believe is better teaching, wider A level course choices, better examination results, good international university placements, etc.  BUT his wife is having none of it, so Varee it is!

 

[prism]

I can speak as a parent and my feelings are not as harsh as your friend. Even though Varee has Thai, EP and International programs, I find that the International program is quite independent from the rest of the school and the curriculum is all English except for the other language classes. There are quite a few half Thai kids along with Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Thai. Very few western students though. I agree that this does result in that my kids English language skills not being challenged as much by the other students as would be in an exclusively international school. My kids love going there and they are motivated to learn. That's important to me. Their Thai mother likes it because she feels like she's not being totally left out of the kids education process. My communications with the school has been good.  

 

I haven't heard of any students switching to Lanna, it's hard to find openings at Lanna anyway. I do agree that Lanna would be preferable choice. Other International Schools in CM are considerably more expensive.  

 

This is only for Varee's new primary level international program and I'm generally happy with it. I do have some real concerns on their secondary program, university placements etc.         

[iainiain101]

13 hours ago, Paulme said:

I can't speak as a parent, but I can share with you the feelings of a good friend of mine who has a child in high school at Varee. This is therefore second-hand information, so ignore if you wish.

I am told that his son (half Thai) enjoys going there and his wife is very happy because although "international" it is still very Thai, and she likes that. That's the problem for my friend though - it is not really international. An overwhelmingly Thai student body, with all of the cultural baggage that that brings, and of course the lower English language skills of classmates that this brings. They also don't have much contact with the other local international schools. They are not part of the international sports calendar, not part of the circle of Chiang Mai international schools, not even members of the International Schools Association of Thailand; still very Thai and insular.

If he has his way he would switch to Lanna (the established British international school in Chiang Mai), as a number of his classmates have, for what he is led to believe is better teaching, wider A level course choices, better examination results, good international university placements, etc.  BUT his wife is having none of it, so Varee it is!

 

 certainly comes as a surprise to me. Are you sure your friends kid is in the International section? Maybe he is paying the International fees and she has the kid in EP?

 

Not heard of any kids going to Lanna, in fact the opposite seems to be the case. Also, have personally found the English language skills at Lanna to be questionable.

[JaseTheBass]

I can't speak as a parent, but I can share with you the feelings of a good friend of mine who has a child in high school at Varee. This is therefore second-hand information, so ignore if you wish.

I am told that his son (half Thai) enjoys going there and his wife is very happy because although "international" it is still very Thai, and she likes that. That's the problem for my friend though - it is not really international. An overwhelmingly Thai student body, with all of the cultural baggage that that brings, and of course the lower English language skills of classmates that this brings. They also don't have much contact with the other local international schools. They are not part of the international sports calendar, not part of the circle of Chiang Mai international schools, not even members of the International Schools Association of Thailand; still very Thai and insular.

If he has his way he would switch to Lanna (the established British international school in Chiang Mai), as a number of his classmates have, for what he is led to believe is better teaching, wider A level course choices, better examination results, good international university placements, etc.  BUT his wife is having none of it, so Varee it is!

 

Sounds more like the EP section rather than the International one. My son used to attend the EP section there and we moved him to a different school because the EP there was too 'Thai'.

Sent from my SM-T815Y using Tapatalk

[Happy Grumpy]

On 4/28/2017 at 7:23 AM, Paulme said:

I can't speak as a parent, but I can share with you the feelings of a good friend of mine who has a child in high school at Varee. This is therefore second-hand information, so ignore if you wish.

I am told that his son (half Thai) enjoys going there and his wife is very happy because although "international" it is still very Thai, and she likes that. That's the problem for my friend though - it is not really international. An overwhelmingly Thai student body, with all of the cultural baggage that that brings, and of course the lower English language skills of classmates that this brings. They also don't have much contact with the other local international schools. They are not part of the international sports calendar, not part of the circle of Chiang Mai international schools, not even members of the International Schools Association of Thailand; still very Thai and insular.

If he has his way he would switch to Lanna (the established British international school in Chiang Mai), as a number of his classmates have, for what he is led to believe is better teaching, wider A level course choices, better examination results, good international university placements, etc.  BUT his wife is having none of it, so Varee it is!

Is his wife paying for it or is he?

[DavisH]

It's often better to look at the details of what is being taught in schools, along with qualifications of teachers. Even though I work in an EP, I draw most of my material from IGCSE, A-level, IB material. Most foreign teachers in non-international schools would do this as the Thai curriculum is vague at best.  I know the topics to be taught based on the Thai curriculum (which in mathematics is quite similar to foreign curricula anyway). I just adapt it for my students, especially the language aspects. Whether the EP is good or not will depend a lot on its management teacher quality, professional development, etc. That will vary from school to school. I don't necessarily think those school are "too Thai"; they do have a large numbers of foreign teachers and this can have an influence on students. Mine are very open to asking questions, arguing, finding faults and errors and pointing them out, etc 

[XGM]

7 minutes ago, DavisH said:

It's often better to look at the details of what is being taught in schools, along with qualifications of teachers. Even though I work in an EP, I draw most of my material from IGCSE, A-level, IB material. Most foreign teachers in non-international schools would do this as the Thai curriculum is vague at best.  I know the topics to be taught based on the Thai curriculum (which in mathematics is quite similar to foreign curricula anyway). I just adapt it for my students, especially the language aspects. Whether the EP is good or not will depend a lot on its management teacher quality, professional development, etc. That will vary from school to school. I don't necessarily think those school are "too Thai"; they do have a large numbers of foreign teachers and this can have an influence on students. Mine are very open to asking questions, arguing, finding faults and errors and pointing them out, etc 

As a parent I expect headmaster / management / program supervisors to set the standards rather then hope that some teachers will be as initiative as you while others just do the minimum possible. 

[DavisH]

46 minutes ago, XGM said:

As a parent I expect headmaster / management / program supervisors to set the standards rather then hope that some teachers will be as initiative as you while others just do the minimum possible. 

Teachers who do the minimum generally don't last very long where I work....three teachers were let go at the end of the last academic year. 

[stament]

10 minutes ago, DavisH said:

Teachers who do the minimum generally don't last very long where I work....three teachers were let go at the end of the last academic year. 

I would have preferred them to have gone sooner once replacements were secured rather than wait till the end of the school year. 

[holy cow cm]

If still there and think so, they have an idiot white guy who runs the English dept. One should scrutinize his MA degree as I was told once. Met him once, and he is a piece of work. English or Irish or Scottish of the something. Otherwise the school has its good points and its not so good points.   

[junglechef]

8 hours ago, holy cow cm said:

If still there and think so, they have an idiot white guy who runs the English dept. One should scrutinize his MA degree as I was told once. Met him once, and he is a piece of work. English or Irish or Scottish of the something. Otherwise the school has its good points and its not so good points.   

Which school are you referring to?

Is this the English department in their EP or Inter program?

[junglechef]

On 4/27/2017 at 6:27 PM, ilostmypassword said:

According to Prism, Varee is certified by CfBT. Do you have different information? If that is the case, then the rest of the disparagement in your first paragraph seems to have been undercut.

I also got this from the Varee International School Sports Page:

Varee International offers a variety of sport programmes, including Futsal, Basketball and Football and we compete against other International Schools in the Chiang Mai area. Follow our dedicated sports page on Facebook

http://international.varee.ac.th/?page_id=58#  Do you maintain that they are being untruthful?

As for your final paragraph, you are just offering generalizations.

The link brings you to Varee website that mentions a dedicated sports page but the link does not work nor does a search bring up one.

Do you have a link to the actual Varee Sports page on Facebook?

 

Thanks, JC

 

[DavisH]

On 4/30/2017 at 1:33 PM, stament said:

I would have preferred them to have gone sooner once replacements were secured rather than wait till the end of the school year. 

I agree. Unfortunately, I'm not the boss. There also needs to be a set procedure (verbal, written warnings) for terminating contracts and this needs to be followed. One cannot just fire a teacher on the spot unless there has been a serious breach of contract. 

 

[holy cow cm]

4 hours ago, junglechef said:

Which school are you referring to?

Is this the English department in their EP or Inter program?

Varee

[XGM]

1 hour ago, DavisH said:

I agree. Unfortunately, I'm not the boss. There also needs to be a set procedure (verbal, written warnings) for terminating contracts and this needs to be followed. One cannot just fire a teacher on the spot unless there has been a serious breach of contract. 

 

There also needs to be a proper process for recruiting teachers, including checking their references at previous schools. I wonder to what extent is that done.

[junglechef]

1 minute ago, XGM said:

There also needs to be a proper process for recruiting teachers, including checking their references at previous schools. I wonder to what extent is that done.

Probably most often not nearly enough 

[junglechef]

7 minutes ago, holy cow cm said:

Varee

Does the person you'r referring to run all the English departments at Varee incl the International and EP programs?

[baywatch82]

1 hour ago, XGM said:

There also needs to be a proper process for recruiting teachers, including checking their references at previous schools. I wonder to what extent is that done.

Most reputable international schools use "Search associates" platform for recruiting, which is excellent. But also school need to provide some level of standards and salary, I would be very surprised if Varee uses it.

[Scott]

A post has been reported and removed.   Please stay on topic.  

 

[stament]

On 2017-5-2 at 6:05 AM, DavisH said:

I agree. Unfortunately, I'm not the boss. There also needs to be a set procedure (verbal, written warnings) for terminating contracts and this needs to be followed. One cannot just fire a teacher on the spot unless there has been a serious breach of contract. 

 

I agree, I meant of course they get rid of incompetent teachers after due process is followed not just upon expiry of their contracts which is a cop out way and not putting students first.