Making Decisions about schooling

[Shirley77]

Hi there everybody
After saving and planning for many years, we now feel we are in the position where we can move to Cyprus and hope to by summer next year.
Our daughters will be aged 16 and 10 when we move over. Our eldest is hoping to get into the International School to do A Levels, does anybody know if the American Academy is still open? If so, that would be another option. We are hoping to put our youngest into Greek School and have arranged Greek Language Lessons for her from September this year until we come over next summer. If we wanted her to do her GCSES when she moves into secondary school do we have to send her to ISOP or can she have home tutoring to do GCSES if she goes to Greek School? Has anybody had similar decisions to make and is there another way around doing GCSES other than the ISOP?
We are over there next march to hopefully finalise schools/location etc.
Any advice would be appreciated!

[kimonas]

Shirley,

Making choices for their children's education has to be one of the toughest for expats, which is probably why the sticky thread on education has so many hits. I'd suggest re-reading the many related topics there (if you haven't already) to get a flavour of how others have negotiated this issue. There are two important things to consider - the University system at the moment is in a fantastic state of flux (in the UK and Cyprus) but currently the state system in Cyprus is closed to non-Cypriots which makes GCE (A) levels and their prerequisites IGCSEs vitally important for anyone wishing to enter Higher Education. The second point is that the state schools do not prepare students for either examination and therefore students will have to study for these exams privately (which is very expensive). There is some provision (and it is expanding) available on the internet - but in my view, there is no substitute for face-to-face tuition.

From my experience of dealing with parents and teachers across the island, there seems to be less provision for English medium private education and more dissatisfaction with that provision in the Paphos region than elsewhere. A tough decision therefore would be to consider moving to the limassol, Larnaca or Nicosia districts where the choice of private schools (and tutors) is better. If you are commited to Paphos, there are new schools and tutorial centres which might be worth investigating, details of which can be found within the sticky thread on Schools.

Good Luck!

[Shirley77]

Originally Posted by kimonas

Shirley,

Making choices for their children's education has to be one of the toughest for expats, which is probably why the sticky thread on education has so many hits. I'd suggest re-reading the many related topics there (if you haven't already) to get a flavour of how others have negotiated this issue. There are two important things to consider - the University system at the moment is in a fantastic state of flux (in the UK and Cyprus) but currently the state system in Cyprus is closed to non-Cypriots which makes GCE (A) levels and their prerequisites IGCSEs vitally important for anyone wishing to enter Higher Education. The second point is that the state schools do not prepare students for either examination and therefore students will have to study for these exams privately (which is very expensive). There is some provision (and it is expanding) available on the internet - but in my view, there is no substitute for face-to-face tuition.

From my experience of dealing with parents and teachers across the island, there seems to be less provision for English medium private education and more dissatisfaction with that provision in the Paphos region than elsewhere. A tough decision therefore would be to consider moving to the limassol, Larnaca or Nicosia districts where the choice of private schools (and tutors) is better. If you are commited to Paphos, there are new schools and tutorial centres which might be worth investigating, details of which can be found within the sticky thread on Schools.

Good Luck!

Thank you for your reply Kimonas. It really is a tough decision and I need to research all avenues before we come over in March. Do you know the best way to get info. on the one to one private tuition for the exams, i do not want to go down the route of tuition on the internet. I will certainly take another look at the thread on Schools, I have been looking over the last couple of months but there is so much to take in.

We are not really commited to Paphos but feel it would be easier to settle there to begin with, from the research I have done up to now, but like I said before we still have other avenues to go down before finalising decisions.

Is the American Academy in Paphos still open?

Thanks for your help.