Sarasas Cmai - Super Highway

[BlaMuek]

Just seeking latest thoughts and opinions about Sarasas. Our little one is in pre-school, doing well at a little nursery thats quite convenient. But there's not that many kids there, and I'm concerned she'll get more 'nursery/day-care' treatment than school treatment. So we're looking around and we think Sarasas best suits our needs ...

So if people have some pro's and cons for the place, I'd like to hear them. - I hear traffic getting in and out can be pretty bad??

(BTW, this will probably just be for a year as we'll be moving and mum's pretty keen on her going to Regina the following year - perhaps staying put at the current nursery would be better than changing schools twice? - whats current thinking on this??)

Thanks for your input.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Our little one is in pre-school, doing well at a little nursery thats quite convenient. But there's not that many kids there, and I'm concerned she'll get more 'nursery/day-care' treatment than school treatment.

In general, I firmly believe it's called 'pre-school' for a reason. Kids get plenty of opportunity to get knowledge stamped into their brains.

Of course I don't know the actual situation at that particular nursery.. I know my kids learned an unbelievable amount at their pre-school and K1-K3 kindergarten.

Sarasas... just strikes me as yet another huge Thai education factory. I think you can do better, especially for younger kids. I like to pick a smaller one, that still uses a combination of foreign and Thai teachers.

[ShouldaWoulda]

I would have to agree with Winnie. I have been working for Sarasas for about 5 years. I would not send my kid there ( if I had one). There are much better options. I only work there because the salary is nice and I enjoy what I do. I am teacher at the kindergarten level. Please send you child somewhere else. Good luck to you. Do some serious inverstigation before sending your child to any school in Thailand.

[BlaMuek]

ShouldaWooda, we delayed the move. Why do you say what you say?

[wolf5370]

Shame you missed the Childrens day a Airport Plaza - loads of nursery schools there of various types, may have helped get an idea.

I am (probably unfairly) warry of Sarassas because I knew a senior foreign teacher at one school (not going to mention which one it was) who was in charge of all foreign teachers at that school - I used to see him at a friend's bar every night so drunk he could hardly stand (still managed to drive home each night though!) and slurring incoherently. Made me wonder about his teaching ability the next day - and this really was every night. One evening, early on, I was chatting with him (he was only a beer or so in at that point) and a few others - and he was fielding some questions from other patrons about the school and his job. He taught English, of course, and when I asked what level/year/ages (tried each a few times) he just kepy holding up his hand and saying "this tall". it became obvious he didn't even know the year structures of the school - when I asked if it was Matiom or Pratom, he clearly had no idea which was which or what ages were concerned. As a teacher of 5 years in the kingdom working for them (back then), and the guy in charge of foreign teachers, this worried me - how could the school continue to employ a guy that is drunk locally every night and has no idea as to which classes he teaches - incidently, he was not a teacher back in the States, but did a TEFL here along with a non-teaching degree from home.

BTW before anyone mentions that I was at the bar every night, I lived very close and used to have buisness meetings there (it was also a cafe) or stop by to pick up some takeaway most nights.

I know this is probably one school and not the one you mentioned (though same chain), it still tainted my decisions.

[elektrified]

I was fairly impressed by the school when we went to have a look at it. Seemed they were serious about education. The place was much cleaner and more organized than some other places we looked at. The g/f did all the talking and said the fees were reasonable for Nursery School but ridiculous after that.

[Smee]

_{Our experience with Sarasas Witaed Romklao has been appalling. Short list of grievances, and these are only some of the issues we have had to deal with over 6 years: they don't allow parents anywhere near the classrooms or the teachers.In 6 years, we have been allowed onto the campus just 4 times, once to see a 3 minute play performed by the class (then we were chivvied out rapidly), once to meet a teacher that claimed she wanted to help our son do better at school but actually just wanted us to pay to "fix" the boys poor exam results so he could continue "studying" at the school (she spoke no English, of course).}

_{My wife was called to the campus on two other occasions, once for a sports event and another time to meet teachers regarding poor performance, low grades and "discipline" issues. On each occasion, not one single Thai teacher we met at this so-called “Bi-lingual” school spoke any English at all. Teaching English is left to "native" English speakers, many of whom you might see (and avoid) drinking on the streets and in cheap bars of an evening.}

_{Certainly that has been our experience.}

_{We once met a sweaty, disheveled, drunken Brit at a bar one weekend who volunteered that he taught English at the school to children of our son's age and then when asked if he knew or son he became very defensive and told us that he teaches "over 700 kids a day in many different classes and I don't know any of their names and they don’t know our names either.". He also failed to impart any knowledge of English to our son either.}

_{Subsequently, this fellow got into a drunken bar brawl with a couple of other patrons, someof who were also Sarasas English teachers.}

_{Our son returned home with a broken arm in a crude cast one day - broken while playing football at a school activity. No letter from the school. no explanation, no phone call, despite me sending letters and calling up trying to find out what happened and why no one thought it appropriate to communicate with the boy's parents.}

_{Sarasas doesn't do communication.}

_{On another occasion, the boy came home with an absurd military-style haircut We discovered that Sarasas accepts money from a training program for barbers/hairdressers to supply heads of hair - our children - for these students from outside the school to practice on. Of course, parents are not consulted or asked of they are willling to allow their kids to be used guinea pigs while someone pockets a fee for turing our children into laughing stocks.}

_{As I say, Sarasas doesn't do communication.}

_{So no response to that written and telephoned complaint either.}

_{Mostc recently the boy's cell phone was taken from him, he claimed because he was "late" (my fault, not his), and so missed the time by which it is required to turn over a cell phone to the teacher. Accordingly we couldn't communicate with him where and when to meet him at the end of the school day. 45 minutes spent in the front office tracking the boy down, then finding the teacher to get the phone back, only to find that we were waylaid before we got to the classroom by a gaggle of Thai teachers, not one of whom spoke one word of English, and none of whom could offer any explanation as to why the phone was taken in the first place, or why it was not returned to him to call his parents to arrange his collection at the end of the school day.}

_{Then a short, angry little man arrived, who I subsequently identified as a "coordinator" (and who it later transpired, unsurprisingly, is universally loathed by the students).}

_{He ignored me and immediately started screaming at our son, wagging his finger in his face and spitting with rage, backed up by several other male teachers who surrounded my son in a menacing phalanx. This went on for almost two minutes before I stepped in and told him to stop shouting at the boy and tell me, his father, what was going on. Instead, he started wagging his finger and shouting at ME! I don't suppose he was expecting me to shout back, but of course I did, louder, longer and more pointedly than him and within 20 seconds, clearly intimidated and unused to anyone standing up to his vile diatribes, he ran away screaming he was going to call the police. I returned to the front office
and demanded to know who this vile little man was, and why he thought it in any way appropriate to start shouting at my son in front of me and then to start on me and then to threaten me with the police. After a while, he was duly summoned and appeared, continued shouting at me before his colleagues insisted that he stop shouting and start acting reasonably as the children outside the office were getting scared. He finally offered the most insincere apology I have ever witnessed through gritted teeth and stormed off.}

_{The following day, our son was called to the head teacher and forced to sign a letter binding him to leave the school and never return after the end of term - because, get this, his father shouted at a staff member!!! Needes to say, we were not infomred of this before, during or after the event.}

_{Sarasas doesn't do communication.}

_{Sarasas Witaed Romklao does not accept checks, credit or debit cards, bank transfers or any other financial instrument other than cash. It does not issue tax receipts. This could easily lead one to suspect that it is fiddling billions in undeclared income from the Thai government.}

_{Its modus operandi includes accepting all-comers in age groups below 15, giving them risible academic support and then, at 15 years old or so, when the exam results start to really matter, expelling or refusing to accept under-performing students... so the senior years are greatly diminished and populated only by the rlatively few students that are likely to achieve good grades, thereby creating the illusion that the school's graduation records and grades are significantly higher than the national average.}

<sub>This contrived "fact: is what persuaded my wife that a education at Sarasas was worth the misery and confusion it inflicted on parents and students alike. We know better now, but far too late to salvage our son's academic aspirations.

In case you might be thinking that our boy is somehow unique in this respect, the sad truth is that the vast majority of his former classmate/friends have already been taken out of the school and placed elsewhere by their parents, among them police and army generals and some extremely wealthy Thai business persons who all started off with teh same mistaken assumption that Sarasas is an icon of academic excellence but finally saw what was going on and were able, financially, to act accordingly and could afford to get their kids into proper schools such as La Salle or an International school.</sub>

_{UInfiortunately, we are not as wealthy as some of his friends parents, and our son’s academic career has been cynically and progressively compromised by the unprofessional, uncaring, over-bearing, abusive, uncommunicative and utterly unacceptable actuations of Sarasas Witaed Romklao school and its so-called “teachers”.}

_{So, avoid Sarasas Witaed Romklao at all costs.}

_{I can't speak for other Sarasas schools, of course, but if the comments of large numbers English teachers on various blog posts, easily found on the internet, are anything to go by, Sarasas Witaed Romklao, which as demonstrated above is an utter, utter disgrace, is hardly likely to be the only totally worthless school in the chain.}

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Wow. Thank you for taking the time to write that.

When looking for a school for our daughter we did visit Sarasas but never good any kind of positive vibe, so we scrubbed it off the list.

[Loaded]

^^ not defending the school but why have you kept your children there for 6 years if it's this bad?

Plus, Sarasas Witaed Romklao is located in Bangkok. http://www.swr.ac.th/contact-the-school.html

[Smee]

^^ not defending the school but why have you kept your children there for 6 years if it's this bad?

Plus, Sarasas Witaed Romklao is located in Bangkok. http://www.swr.ac.th/contact-the-school.html

Reasonable question.

The answer is that I wanted to take him out years ago but up until a year or so ago, my wife stubbornly defended the school based on its graduation record, despite the traumas the schol inflicted on our family.

Now that she understands how the school works, pushing under-achieving students out at 15 years old and only keeping the top tier scholars to create the impression that it is a seat of learnng excellence, she wants to get him placed smewhere - anywhere - else. The problem is our son's grades are so low, and always have been it has t be admitted, that no other school would want him - this has been the experience of most of our son's friend's families, particullrly those that have alrady pulled their kids: the average grades are dismal troughot Sarasas. Only those that can afford to pay for much more expensive schools and who are willing to make up lost (academic) ground (typically going back a year for at least six months to catch up) have been able to transition relatively easily.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Smee

[hellodolly]

^^ not defending the school but why have you kept your children there for 6 years if it's this bad?

Plus, Sarasas Witaed Romklao is located in Bangkok. http://www.swr.ac.th/contact-the-school.html

My thoughts exactly.

That and one other thing kind of got me to doubting.

The other thing is why such small fonts?

I don't know about others but I find them very distracting not as easily read as the normal font on TV.

Curious as to the thinking that made them smaller.

Just my opinion and wondering.

He talks about the graduating record but then mentions that the fall out rate is rather large.

[Loaded]

The other thing is why such small fonts?

I don't know about others but I find them very distracting not as easily read as the normal font on TV.

because it's a cut and paste of another post he made today on TV about sarasas. I think he's made 4 so far today about this school.

[Greenside]

Many Thai schools (that you would think were above it) manipulate their academic results by pruning out the less able students. Sadly, they do this as late as possible so as to maximise their income and so the unfortunate children are sent off to a new school just about the time they really need the teaching support and stability that a good school should provide.

The OP's wife's reluctance to see what must have started to become obvious a while ago is also sadly typical of the power the results and status myths have over many people here, especially those who may be dealing with private schools for the first time.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

The other thing is why such small fonts?

I don't know about others but I find them very distracting not as easily read as the normal font on TV.

Hit the Control key and '+'.

Several times.

[hellodolly]

The other thing is why such small fonts?

I don't know about others but I find them very distracting not as easily read as the normal font on TV.

Hit the Control key and '+'.

Several times.

Yes I know but I still wonder why the small font. To the best of my knowledge he deliberately made it small.

[Smee]

The other thing is why such small fonts?

I don't know about others but I find them very distracting not as easily read as the normal font on TV.

Hit the Control key and '+'.

Several times.

Yes I know but I still wonder why the small font. To the best of my knowledge he deliberately made it small.

Why would I deliberately make the font smaller???

I copied and pasted it from Word and that's happened

I

[jackr]

The other thing is why such small fonts?

I don't know about others but I find them very distracting not as easily read as the normal font on TV.

Hit the Control key and '+'.

or Ctrl/mouse wheel.

[Krupnik]

It is a very bad sign if a teacher who works there wouldn't even recommend the school! (Thanks for the input ShouldWoulda.)

What about NIS or NAPA?

Thanks for the Ctrl key tips - didn't actually know that!

[Rancid]

Well I'm hearing Wichai is chasing the baht as there has been some funds "misplaced". Might explain why that has gone down so much, plenty of teachers bailing there, maybe the Turkish language program will be a hit though. Knew a teacher at Varee that had serious ambitions of gun running to the south as a side line, mentioned it one night collapsing over the bar. There are always going to be a few bad apples. Regina is OK and gets good uni entries, not much of an English program though.

[jackr]

He ignored me and immediately started screaming at our son, wagging his finger in his face and spitting with rage, backed up by several other male teachers who surrounded my son in a menacing phalanx. This went on for almost two minutes before I stepped in and told him to stop shouting at the boy and tell me, his father, what was going on. Instead, he started wagging his finger and shouting at ME! I don't suppose he was expecting me to shout back, but of course I did, louder, longer and more pointedly than him and within 20 seconds, clearly intimidated and unused to anyone standing up to his vile diatribes, he ran away screaming he was going to call the police.

Though warranted, well done for not dropping the scoundrel.

[bangkok blue]

I feel this thread is unfair to Sarasas Chiangmai and has gone completely off topic.

Shouldawoulda, who stated he/she has been working in K.G for 5 years does not work for this school. The current longest serving KG teacher has been there for 3 years.

Romklao school is in Bangkok.

Wolf5370, who commented on the the teacher that gets drunk every night, mentioned that he was not a teacher back in the states. In the whole 5 years that Sarasas Chiangmai has been open, no American teachers have worked there. In fairness to wolf5370, I think he pointed out it related to another school.

Sarasas is a big chain of schools in Thailand, I think there are over 30 different schools in total. The biggest has about 9000 students. Sarasas Romklao has about 5000 students. I think Sarasas Witead Chiangmai has about 1200 students at present.

I suggest to the OP to make a list of the schools he would like to check and request to sit in on a lesson and make his own mind up. I'm sure any school that has good values in education will happily agree to this. I know that Sarasas Chiangmai has held regular demo lessons to prospective parents, who would like to send their child there. You may need to check when the next demo lesson will be, as I'm not sure they organise them on an individual basis.

I suggest it would be only fair for future posts on this thread to be about any experiences people have had regarding Sarasas Chiangmai school only, as the OP's question was about his decision to send his child to this school and not any of the others in the Sarasas chain.

Edited March 2, 2013 by bangkok blue