Lertlah Schools

[Monkey Fish]

Hello,

In my ongoing quest to find the best school for my daughter (entering anuban 1 this year), we're now looking at the Lertlah schools, Kanchanaphisek branch to be specific. We live out in Samut Sakhorn, so options are somewhat limited. She's been attending Sarasas Bangbon, but for a number of reasons (mirrored repeatedly on thaivisa and elsewhere), we're ready for a change.

I've seen a number of comments about Lertlah, but few specifics. I'm hoping parents or teachers might see this and have something to say.

The school seems somewhat similar to Sarasas: similar demographic, similar bilingual program, and similar prices. But it's smaller and (based on what I saw on the tour) has more presentable English teachers. They claim that all the teachers were from Canada, at least at the Kanchanaphisek branch. I don't know about "all", but many (including a high percentage of women) appeared to be here on an exchange program for new teachers from Manitoba University.

In their sales pitch, the school emphasized the English program and parent-teacher communication. English I'm not so worried about, but I did like that they use the Reading A-Z books. I did like that they say they give frequent feedback on how things are going at school. My daughter's present school did this weekly at the very beginning of the school year, but hasn't done it at all since.

Three items of concern to me. First, nothing was said of the Thai curriculum, so I'm guessing it's just the normal barrage of drills, worksheets, and notebooks. Second, they mentioned that all the classes of one grade were unsegregated by ability, except for one, which they were unable/unwilling to adequately describe (problem students?).

And third, the swimming pool at the center of campus, viewable from many of the classrooms, was filthy. Pet peeve here. Many pools in Thailand appear to have a maintenance program like this: wait for the pool to become filthy, kill everything in the pool (and within a 25 meter radius) with a chlorine bomb, repeat. One assumes a similar situation here. On the one hand, it's just the pool, on the other, it speaks of the quality of management.

I would be greatly appreciative of comments by anybody with first-hand experience. Feel free to PM if there's anything you don't want to post publicly.

Thank you

Edited February 6, 2011 by Monkey Fish