For the Girouard family, enrolling their children at Canadian International School gives them the best of both worlds: a bilingual education in their mother tongue and English, as well as exposure to different cultures and perspectives – a win-win.
For families living abroad, helping children maintain their cultural identity and mother tongue are among some of the top concerns for parents. One of the best ways to do so is to continue to speak in your native language at home. There’s also the option of enrolling your children in a school that teaches in your home language to further strengthen their language skills and sense of identity.
The Girouard family from Quebec, Canada wanted the same for their children and chose to enrol them at Canadian International School (CIS) for its French-English bilingual programme. On top of that, the Girouard children get to learn in multicultural classrooms as well. Here’s their full review of the school.
Can you share more about the top factors in selecting a school for your children?
Being able to continue learning French in school is very important for us. We’re from the French part of Canada, but both of our children have grown up in Asia. So we would like for them to maintain their own cultural identity as French Canadians.
Besides that, we also want a school that can encourage our children to develop their critical thinking and learning skills. At the same time, it should foster inclusion, autonomy, respect, creativity, as well as provide them with exposure to various cultures and perspectives.
And does CIS tick all these boxes?
Yes, the French-English bilingual programme at CIS was one of the main reasons we chose to enrol our children at the school. We wanted our children to have a strong grasp of French while being able to learn English at the same time. What we like about the programme is the balanced 50:50 approach. The children learn all their subjects in French one week and then in English the next, which helps them become comfortable in both languages quite naturally. The teachers are also native speakers, so the children get authentic exposure to each language. As parents, it’s been great to see how confidently our children are learning and using both languages.
We also chose CIS as it offers the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum. We find that it’s a well-rounded and academically rigorous curriculum, where our children get to study a broad range of subjects. The IB emphasises on research, critical thinking, and global awareness. Overall, we feel that it prepares students very well for university and international opportunities, which we want for our children.
Was it easy for your children to adapt to their new school?
They immediately felt like part of the school community, as the school organised their orientations with students of the same age.
We’d like to mention that the lead teacher for CIS Middle School, Mr. Lee, and our son’s advisory teacher played crucial roles in helping him find his place in the school. The size of our daughter’s class and how inclusive her teachers are made a huge difference for her as well.
What do your children enjoy about CIS?
They both really enjoy the friends they’ve made and the variety of after-school programmes. Our son particularly enjoys music and media classes too, as he could learn and try different design tools.
As a whole, CIS has a spacious campus with great facilities. There’s a nice library, dedicated pools for different age groups, gymnasiums, theatres, music studios, and learning pods. Our children also enjoy using the labs to experiment with robotics and other cutting edge tools.
Tell us more about the parent community at CIS.
The parent community at CIS is vibrant, supportive, and engaged. Through the Parent Academy, the school offers a full programme designed specifically for parents. This includes informative presentations, conferences about the curriculum across all grade levels, and a variety of fun events and classes, such as yoga and language learning. We appreciate that the school keeps us well informed about our children’s learning and development, so we remain active partners in their educational journey.
What do you value most about the school?
CIS is a great school because of the positivity and respect it fosters in its students. We like that it has a diverse and multicultural community. The teachers are amazing and incredibly supportive, always doing their best to support their students.
We’ve seen our children improve their French language skills, exposed to different French accents, and even develop an international French accent – all while maintaining our native French Canadian accent and identity. The fact that CIS is multicultural school that celebrates diversity and respect is amazing too.
Do you have any advice for parents who are still looking for a school for their children?
Look at how your shortlisted schools encourage children to be creative and take control of their own learning process. You should also think about your children’s wellbeing when choosing a school for them.
Thanks for sharing, Mr. and Mrs. Girouard!
This post is in partnership with Canadian International School.
