Yew Chung International School of Silicon Valley

We have had an incredibly positive experience with YCIS. One of our kids is in the preschool and the other is in the Elementary program. The preschool environment is loving, effective and balanced. It's everything I'd want for my younger child. He's grown so much through the course of the program. My older child is now in the Elementary school (having gone through preschool at YCIS). Amazing. We don't speak a word of Chinese at home and I was definitely not expecting him to do as well as he is doing. He recognizes and writes all kinds of characters and even translates for me at times (and how do I know he's doing it right? I check Google translate of course haha). I am so thankful to have the opportunity to give my children the gift of a bilingual education. Beyond that, I'm thankful to have a school where I really feel good about dropping them off. I know my kids are getting the absolute best education in the most wonderful environment.

We have two kids at YCIS in the preschool program, which is stellar. Our previous experiences with preschools were not great. While we did make the conscious effort to send our boys to the "best" programs, it turns out it's really the philosophy of the school that you need to research. YCIS's philosophy resonates with our own...that is that early childhood education is an opportunity to embed positive learning processes in little ones. This is accomplished by having a truly loving environment where the children have fun and feel secure. Formal learning and good habits are integrated into the program by setting examples and allowing the children to guide conversations and investigate/dissect and learn about the subjects that interest them. Let me note that my older son had no interest whatsoever in writing or reading or anything other than playing with trains. We never felt pressured to make him conform to an arbitrary standard of knowledge. Yet, here he is, writing his name (in English and Chinese), joyfully singing and writing the alphabet, telling time, using beautifully constructed, grammatically correct sentences and basically blowing us away with how much his mind, body and spirit have grown. My younger son (2 years old) is just such a fireball...you can just see all that he's learned bursting at the seams. He, too, has learned the alphabet and he takes deep joy in singing it to us, loudly. He has great table manners. Says thank you and please, and confidently greets friends and strangers alike (in English and Mandarin, which we do not speak at home) Can you tell I'm a proud parent? Yes, I am. Much of the credit goes to my happy little boys because they are just good people. But, YCIS does an incredible job in supporting children and really helps them to set the important precedence that school is a good place and that learning is fun. We have already secured our place in the YCIS Kindergarten and cannot wait to see how our kids continue to thrive here.