My daughter will be spending her junior year (11th grade) somewhere in Thailand as an exchange student. At this point, we do not know where she will be living. Does every school in Thailand use the same calendar (start and end dates) or is this like the States where every school district has its own calendar? Approximately when does the school year begin? She is scheduled to arrive around July 2 and will return the following May. We are wondering if the school year will have already begun.

For Thai schools, the regular academic year usually begins in mid-May and the first semester runs until about the 1st of October. The 2nd Semester usually runs from the 1st of November until February/March. There is some variation in the calendar from school to school.

Scott, thanks for the quick reply. Since I posted, I've done a little research and found a site that recruits teachers, http://www.volunteerthailand.org/thai-school-year-calendar/. It claims that the Ministry of Education announced changes in the school year. It says the first semester of 2014 will begin in early June. I wonder if this will really happen.

The changes don't apply to government schools, as they changed their minds. It only applies to the universities, and maybe to the Satit / Demonstration schools, as they might fall under the university umbrella.

If you can find out the name of the school which your daughter is going to, you could probably then find what their calendar year is based on. However most government schools start in the middle of May.

Do you know if this exchange program is part of the YES program?

If so, do you know if your daughter will attend the Bangkok or Ubon Ratchcathani school?

In Bangkok, this would be the Yuwathoot Suksa School on Kaset/Nawamin. They run on a schedule as described by Scott: Mid-May to Mid-February.

International schools operate on a calendar closer to ones in the U.S. or U.K. So ISB runs mid-August to early-June (many, many holidays and vacation).

As mentioned by SlyAnimal, some Sathit Demonstration Schools might start as late as June 1 (Rangsit, for example) but others might start May 15 (Pathumwan), this is dependent on the university schedule that the school may be affiliated with.

This is not associated with the YES program. It is AFS. We have friends here who have hosted teenagers from abroad through this program. We are sufficiently satisfied with the program to entrust them with our daughter. But some aspects of the program are wacky. For example, we may not know which city in Thailand, let alone the name of the family she will stay with until just a few days before she arrives in Thailand. It's likely that she will arrive about six weeks into the school year. Since we won't know the name of the school, we won't be able to start a dialogue with the school in advance to get help her get caught up. But apparently, AFS has been doing this for many years and the students make out OK.

The AFS Thailand site confirms the July "arrival" so assume that's geared to accommodate U.S. students - they can't really come in April/May.

http://www.afsthailand.org/hosting-programs/our-hosting-programs/

It seems like the school/location are really dependent on a match between a local Thai host family and your daughter's stated preferences. But it is safe to say that she will arrive approximately 4 - 6 weeks after the start of the school year. Purely based on statistics it may be safe to say that she will likely end up in the metropolitan Bangkok area.

If the school has an EIP-like program then math, english, science, health, phys ed would have native speakers. The equivalent grade here would be Mathayom 5 (M5). It may be possible to locate M5 syllabus/curriculum/outline detail on-line. Alternatively you could try to determine which schools might have hosted students previously, and contact the EIP director, or past students, to get a feel for the content and potential preparation?

All that said, some of the goals of these programs can be shock/awe, immersion, handling the unexpected, personal growth, dealing with and overcoming challenge so too much advanced preparation may be discouraged? But getting a head-start on learning (alphabet, reading/writing, vocabulary, sounds/tones) Thai might be a good idea?

With young adults' use of social media it wouldn't be too hard to find others who went to Thailand on this particular program.

Thanks for all the information. It does look like my daughter will be arriving several weeks after the school year starts. When I told her, she just rolled her eyes.

We are in the waiting phase now, so I've been doing this research to feed the excitement. It's clear that many students have been through this process and they seem to come out OK.