Schools For The Little Littlebird

[LittleBird]

Does anyone know of any international or bilingual schools in Nakhon Pathom? The hubby and I are discussing moving myself and my son to Thailand for a while, and he doesn't think there are any in the area. I found Meta International School. Are there others? I would rather not have to take the trip to Bangkok each day.

On a related note, is education mandatory the way it is in the States? Are there home school options? Do I have to use an international school? From the moment my son was born, we've been using both languages, and his abilities to use and comprehend them are equal. Could he go to one of the Wat schools?

Thank you in advance for your help!

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นกน้อย

[Boo]

Home schooling is quite popular in thailand, I plan to use it on my son in conjuction with thai primary/junior school education when he is older as my husband wants our son to attend the thai catholic school that he attended, it is a very nice little school which doesn't want to convert the kids but I also want to top up my sons education with the UK curriculum so that he can take GCSE's later in life.

You dont' say where you are from but I found some non religious UK resources online. I will post them when I get my laptop back from the 14 year old I am looking after, who has hogged it to msn his mates!!!

[Spoke]

Our son went to Meta international school for one year of kindergarten. We found a definitive lack of academics in his education. They were not teaching him any reading or writing or math. Not sure how it is in later years. Personally I was not too concerned that he is not learning much in terms of academics at an age of 5 except that most Thai kindergartens do teach these subjects and if we decided to change schools in Thailand later on he would be at a disadvantage.

We decided to transfer him to St Joseph Uppatham school in Sam Pran district of Nakhon Pathom for his last year of kindergarten and grade 1. The school is very large (a few thousand students) and is reasonably good. He is in the English program where the instruction in English and Thai is balanced at about 50/50. It is a catholic school but there is little religious education and many kids are not catholic. You actually specify on the admission papers whether your child is catholic or not which decides whether he/she participates in some infrequent religious activities. Most kids in his class are Thai but a handful are half Thai half foreign kids. A school van picks him up from my home in the Nakhon Chaisri district (25km from the school) and drops him off after school. I woulod definitely hate to have to drive in to Bangkok every day to drop him off at school. It would make your life miserable.