Primary 1 enrollment here in Shanghai is as crazy as Singapore if not more. Parents here buy property near key primary school （重点小学）, find connections, pull strings, seek backdoor, donate money or whatever within their means to secure a placement.

From what i have known, public schools here aren’t allow to conduct Primary 1 pre-enrollment interviews, unless approved by the state. However, private schools （民办小学）, international schools or international division （国际部) of public/private schools are free to do so.

While the interview is like one of the standard procedure when applying for international schools and international divisions, it is a really competitive and serious affair for students seeking a place in the mainstream education （中文班，local stream, local school）. Parents start preparing their kids by sending them to Maths, English, Pinyin classes to make sure they are able to handle the interview (and written test as well!).

Zeeyau’s class teacher also started preparing them from early this year. They have a short practice sessions in the morning where the teacher will ask questions like : Where are you from? What is your favourite food? Name 10 colours. Name 20 fruits. Name 20 countries. I had a shocked when I first learned about that. Can applying for primary 1 be so stressful and demanding!? Are the schools really going to reject the students if they can’t name fruits or tell you who their favourite author is!?

Took me some time to calm my nerves. I am sure the questioned posed will be simple enough for the kids to handle. However, I have heard from some parents that some extremely competitive school asked questions like “北极熊为什么不吃企鹅？”(why doesn’t the polar bear eat penguin) and also expect the 6years old to know additional/subtraction within 30. Well, that sounds demanding, but nothing surprising when you know that some schools recieved 800 applications for their limited 60 places.

As for Zeeyau’s case, she was asked questions like:
你叫什么名字？
你是哪里的人？
你在学校学习了什么？最喜欢学习什么？
11－3＝？
3＋4＝？
你愿意不愿意到芳草地念书？

Luckily this kiasu mom has been practicing basic additional and subtraction with her at home, else she would be stumped by those two maths questions. Anyway, I felt as long as the student is decent enough, can hold simple conversation and doesn’t require special attention/care, they will accept whoever applied. Well, all her classmates who applied to international schools or international divisions have been accepted by their choice school.

It wasn’t the imperial exam, but Zeeyau had to 上京赴考. Most of the private and international schools here (including some popular public schools) requires an interview before admission. We have registered Zeeyau with 芳草地小学 in Bejing. It is one of the more popular public primary school in the capital city, but we are applying for the international division, so getting a place would not be ridiculously difficult. Nevertheless, we still need to bring the kid for an interview.

The interview process was well organised. As we enter the school lobby, there was 2 staff manning a little reception table, ticking off interviewee’s name and informing us to proceed to the second floor. We were handed a formal application form at the next stop and directed to a classroom to have it filled up. After that, we have to go to the next classroom to submit the form, have the documents (passport, visas, etc) verified and also paid the 500rmb application fee (which really isn’t too much compared to the 1000-6000rmb+ elsewhere).

After that, the kids will be lead by a teacher to the 3rd floor for the interview. Parents weren’t allowed to follow, but the school kept us occupied with information with regard to PTA and school bus routes.

Anyway, Zeeyau came back like 10min later. The interview went smoothly and she has passed. So we handed the result slip back to the teacher in charge and were done with the process.

We were then given another piece of paper informing us to set up a bank account (within 4 days), have the school fee deposited into the account and leave the ATM card with the school, the school will deduct school fees from it in future. This method is so much better then having to bring a whole big stack of cash to school for school fees payment (we don’t have cheque here!). This step finalised the whole application and acceptance process and confirmed a placement in the school.