“Hokatu”(保活) is a word that indicates preparation for a child’s admission to available nursery school. At the latest, most of the parents having little children after maternity leave simultaneously start moving to look for a nursery school that can look after their children from the previous September for 6 months in order to be on time to make children enter in the next April.

During Hokatsu, it is really common that parents apply for 2 or 3 nursery schools at the same time as a safety measure because being added on a child waiting list is really common in Japan, too. Some of them take an international kindergarten into consideration with the expectation of a child’s early language education in Japan.

Compared to ordinary non-licensed kindergarten, its nursery fee is more expensive. Nobody doesn’t care about what nursery services are provided for children in spite of such an expensive nursery fee.

In this article, I want to talk about what services are basically provided in an international kindergarten and how much a nursery fee is basically.

Place importance on your educational policy to your children

Parent’s experiences that I heard about the most is a regret against the realized fact that those services were totally different from their expectations.

Not to fall into this case, you have to firmly keep your educational stance to your children and what kind of services you fundamentally require an international kindergarten
. Questioning yourself what you want your child to learn at a kindergarten is the important thing to squeeze a target to one international kindergarten.

The position of international kindergartens in Japan

Although domestic international kindergartens are certified by the prefectural governor of a municipality as a “miscellaneous school” based on clause 83 of the School Education Act, many of them are non-certified prep-school. There are said to be about 125 certified international kindergartens in Japan but the Ministry of Education never grasps the number of certified kindergartens in Japan.

In addition, if a child goes on to international school equivalent to Japanese elementary school after graduation from international kindergarten, because a certified international school equivalent to Japanese elementary school is still treated as a “miscellaneous school”, a child is not looked as fulfilling compulsory education process properly.

In short, if a child graduates from those international school equivalent to Japanese compulsory education process, a child is not regarded as completing compulsory education process. In 2016, the Japanese government established the policy that accepts fulfillment of completion of compulsory education by a student who belongs to an international school with a condition that a student reports learning situation to an education committee that supervises specific school district of compulsory education,

What kind of children international kindergartens target to

Nursery schools or kindergartens named “international” on its head in Japan mostly educate children in English. If you want to choose a nursery school that educates children in other languages except for English for your child who doesn’t understand Japanese, a nursery school for foreigners is more beneficial to your child.

International kindergartens’ target children are the ones from the country that an international school characterizes uniquely to maintain the quality of the country’s language, and Japanese children whose parent’s want to strength early English education.

In an international kindergarten accepting both Japanese and foreign children, its nursery education is done in English 100 percent but your child will spend time with Japanese children who newly start learning English or children whose one of parents is from English speaking country and hope a child to become bilingual.

If you are an immigrant from an English speaking country and make your child enter international kindergarten to get used to Japanese society, it is one of your choices but you also have to pay attention to Japanese education to your child at the same time if you continue living in Japan and think about your child’s elementary school entrance after graduation from prep-school.

4 points you pay attention to when you choose a international kindergarten in Japan

No Japanese cultural manners education

To survive Japanese society, acquiring Japanese manners are essential. You may think it is too inconsequential to educated such things in a nursery school but so many Japanese people tend to judge personality from his/ her behavior based on traditional manners. Hereafter, unknowing Japanese manners are in the way of a child’s life in various fields in Japan

The way of using chopsticks, Japanese table manners and habit of arranging shoes when taking it off are the examples. A Japanese nursery teacher will indicate children’s wrong manners on the spot. However, I have really a question if non-Japanese teachers who haven’t been brought up in Japan could teach such things.

Difference of educational stance reflected by kindergartens’ characteristics

International kindergartens have different education curriculum individually, which are diversified by reflecting a characteristic of a country that kindergartens uniquely adopt, such as English style, American style, Indian style, Chinese style.

In terms of religious education, there are also various types of kindergartens that have a unique principle to it but most of them are willing to welcome children regardless of whether children believe in another religion or are atheists.

kindergarten’s characteristics. A day starts from singing the American national anthem and a provided meal in lunchtime is a combination of Nachos and cheeseburger. Of course, Some Japanese children who don’t get used to this culture leave such an international kindergarten.
If you go inspect an international kindergarten, you should also think about kindergarten’s cultural aspect if your child meets the characteristic.

Nationality can become criterion for selection

So many international kindergartens are limited to the nationality of children who apply for. Eligibility requirements for examination of an international kindergarten are, for example, clearly mentioned that “eligible children should have England citizenship” or “eligible children should have nationality except for Japan” because they want to maintain the quality of education and maintain the balance of nationality of children in prep-school.

Considering child’s course after graduation from an international kindergarten

What you pay more attention to when choosing international kindergarten is about your child’s course after graduation from an international kindergarten, also including the factor of if you live in Japan continuously or not.

Because your children’s course is going to be completely different whether you permanently live in Japan and you permanently live in Japan.

If you temporarily live in Japan and make your child education in your country after a child’s graduation from an international kindergarten or an international elementary school, it is a good idea to make a child to enter a kindergarten that perfectly reflects your country’s education system.

However, if you permanently live in Japan and want to bring up your child in Japan, you must not forget the School Education Act regulated by the Japanese government. Even government-certified international elementary schools are not positioned in an educational institution fulfilling compulsory education. (International school’s compulsory education process is partially accepted by satisfying conditions that a student submits learning reports on a regular basis to an education committee that supervises compulsory education of a municipality where you live. ) In this case, if you think about your child’s admission of Japanese public elementary school, the choice of an international kindergarten for your child is not a really good way.

Prestigious international kindergartens

There are so many international kindergartens ranked top prestige school in Tokyo. Those prestigious kindergartens have large number of children and a lot of achievements of nursery educations.

  • American school in Japan
  • Nishimachi international school
  • Saint international school
  • K international school

These are the examples. International kindergarten is a school that so many non-Japanese children go to but child’s turnover rate is high and new children enter one after another regardless of simultaneous admission season instead.

Management base of international kindergartens tend to be influenced by international situation and its opinions about Japan because there is a case that non-Japanese parents get information from own country’s media on daily basis to observe Japanese situation objectively.

In March, 2011, we experienced big earthquake in Tohoku region. At that time, non-Japanese parents having a little child were really sensitive about the news broadcasted by foreign media that reported exaggeratedly the earthquake disaster situation and some of them decided escaping from Japan. Not a few international kindergartens in regional area were forced to close because of influence of such international opinions about the earthquake.

You may also have to recognize such a risk.

School inspection

You have opportunities to inspect prep-schools at a school festival and a school examination guidance. Some prep-schools propose a requirement of participating in school admissive examination guidance as one of the conditions of admission.

Others provide a school touring service individually and you can ask teachers questions in an interviewing style.

Examination preparation for international kindergarten

Generally, prior to admission screening, kindergartens in Japan set an admissive examination for all applicants to maintain educational quality. So thorough preparation for examination is needed beforehand if your selected kindergarten is quite prestigious.

Test contents

Test contents are basically a interview and behavior observation.
The way of interviewing are decided into 3 ways depending on the kindergarten.

  • Interviewing parents only
  • Interviewing parents and their child
  • Interviewing a child only

Parent’s interviewing

In parent’s interviewing, the principal, a person in charge of admission affairs and a class teacher sit at the same table.
There is a case a translator sits behind you as your requirement if your child doesn’t speak English. However, a translator who a kindergarten prepares for you can only translate between English and Japanese

You are asked questions about your education policy at home and what kind of career path you want your child to walk through.

Child’s interviewing

Questions to be asked to a child is based on the child’s ability of language that a kindergarten designates as a common one and mathematical ability and the child’s character.

The child’s communication ability will weigh as well. Generally, children entering an international kindergarten continuously go on to an international elementary school managed by an educational institution running the international kindergarten.

The factor of whether a child can speak the language which the kindergarten requires is really important because a child needs to use the language over 12 years.

Behavior observation

This is a test to observe how a child behaves in a group of other applicants’ children. The points of this text are

  • If children can make their own rules and keep the rules
  • If children can respect diversity and individuality
  • If children can listen to someone’s talk

Depending on the kindergarten, child’s leadership is added on the checklists of behavior observation.

Closing remarks

Even having own websites, International kindergarten has a lot of information not disclosed openly so my information written here is only the fundamental part. Possibly, there are some which are as unique as only my little information corresponds to their standards. As a reality, you have cases that information written here can be totally against your expectations of an international kindergarten that you went to.

So please trust the information you got proactively by your action on the premise my information is just for a reference. As I wrote at the beginning of this article, doing proactive “Hokatsu” is a very important factor to meet a good kindergarten that supports your education policy to your child.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *