CIA International School

Rune · Post by **Rune** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:42 am

All schools in Cambodia are "international". Have been considering the CIA International School.
Does anybody have anything good or bad to say about it?

Spigzy · Post by **Spigzy** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:31 am

Given the tumbleweeds, guessing not. Perhaps better to give details about your rough location, age of kids, whether they're 100% foreign or half Khmer, ages, etc & I'm sure folks will throw out some recommendations.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:39 am

Well, they hired Vladimir (bad), but realized their mistake and fired Vladimir (good).

Lucky Lucan · Post by **Lucky Lucan** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 11:19 am

Rune wrote: ↑
Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:42 am
All schools in Cambodia are "international".

I'm not sure what you mean by that, there are thousands of government schools that never claim to be international, plus loads of dodgy private schools that like to stick 'international" in their name but are nothing of the sort.

Have been considering the CIA International School.
Does anybody have anything good or bad to say about it?

They have a great campus, and use some US curriculum I believe. They seem to use laptops a whole lot in classes, even when it doesn't seem necessary.
My kid went there for a while but left after they closed because of COVID as he couldn't follow the online lessons. One criticism I'd have is they don't seem to give much feedback on progress. The only time they seemed to get in touch was to remind parents that fees were due.

Stokely · Post by **Stokely** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 11:52 am

I hear it's OK, if you can get passed the complaining mum's picket line.

Rune · Post by **Rune** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 12:18 pm

Spigzy wrote: ↑
Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:31 am
Given the tumbleweeds, guessing not. Perhaps better to give details about your rough location, age of kids, whether they're 100% foreign or half Khmer, ages, etc & I'm sure folks will throw out some recommendations.

Half-Khmer. Only three yo now, looking to start perhaps next year. Live about a km from the airport. Haven't really set a budget, but ok with paying a good sum, but not $20,000/yr. as I read one school charged. Perhaps around 6k/yr max. Would prefer a school with some other international students, but we live kinda outside the pale here, and not many non-Cambodians around, and transport time should also not be excessive, so not a must.

Lucky Lucan · Post by **Lucky Lucan** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 12:50 pm

Most international school students here are from affluent Cambodian families, the foreign/ mixed kids are a minority.

fapsara · Post by **fapsara** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 1:05 pm

Guest wrote: ↑
Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:39 am
Well, they hired Vladimir (bad), but realized their mistake and fired Vladimir (good).

The quality of schools in Phnom Penh can be measured by the amount of time it took them to fire Vladimir.

The shorter the time span, the better the school.

Spigzy · Post by **Spigzy** » Mon Feb 22, 2021 1:11 pm

I'm out Toul Kork way, so also not in the thick of it with many other expats in BKK1. My son attends Learning Jungle in Toul Kork and I've been impressed so far with the curriculum (Canadian) & his progress there so far. My only concern as he is also half-Khmer is the inordinate amount of time he spends in Khmer classes to keep up with the locals on that front, possibly at the expense of his Western education where he is miles ahead of the locals (obviously as his home is dominated in English). I've picked up the slack there myself, but would throw that out there as an honest warning for somebody with a half-Khmer kid. I might just be a hard taskmaster, but when I see my son still doing things in maths/English/Science again once he clearly mastered it the week before, I like to push him more with new challenges as I'm guessing the teachers are redoing things for the 100% locals over and over.

Fees in line with what you're mentioning, and also the pre-school (also in TK) was excellent if that's where your 3yo would go first. The main campus is a little further out of TK and traffic can be a shit, but I think no different from any other school at drop off/pick up time. I use a motorbike as I couldn't give a monkeys about how flash my car is versus getting an extra hour of life spared from a jam & listening to LoveFM DJs murder my language.

Anyway, worth a look if you're out this way - it is predominantly Khmer/Chinese students, but the curriculum is good enough for westerners in my view.

NetsleyVanHoarding · Post by **NetsleyVanHoarding** » Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:25 pm

There are many schools which call themselves international schools but what they really are is English language medium schools at best. An international school should be accredited and should follow some form of international curriculum, be it Cambridge International, IB or one of many others. Accreditation is a good way to quickly see if a school could actually really an international school or not, and if you don't know it already, look up what the accrediting body is, acronyms to look for could be WASC, CIS, IB etc. CIA is fine, I believe from people I know who work there, I have no first hand experience of that school though. ( Also, beware of people, like me, who seem to know all about the schools, often they don't know as much as they claim, do due diligence yourself)