Raising Kids and Picking Schools

[vapid]

Hi All,

My wife and I have a three year old and a 4 month year old. We are both committed to being in Japan long-term and that inevitably means trying to understand how the Japanese education system works and the finances involved. I suspect education financing could be a separate subcategory just by itself.

I am hoping that some of the other finance oriented expats could share their experiences with raising their children in Japan. And also perhaps share any websites or details on how the education system works in Japan and how expats interact with it.

First some details. While both my wife and I are foreigners, our daughter's first language is Japanese (the company daycare is in Japanese). Therefore we don't mind the idea of Japanese school vs international school (though bullying could be a big concern). My understanding is that there are three main tiers of education systems in Japan we could pursue:

1) Japanese public schools - but we have zero idea on how to find the 'best' schools, or even what qualifies as best. Are there entrance exams? Do we have to live in the local area etc. Any information would be great
2) Japanese private schools - I have always called them escalator schools (like Aoyama or Keio), you get the kid into the pre school and pay some substantial yearly costs, but you effectively have guarantee they graduate from the affiliated university (which is not a bad deal if they are an Aoyama or Keio).
3) International schools - I have some of the students in Minato or Setagaya, but also have no real knowledge of them or how the application or standards operates.

Any advice on schools in Japan and the related finances would be much appreciated.

[RetireJapan]

Where are you based? I suspect the answer to this is going to be quite different in Tokyo and elsewhere. For example, in Sendai where I live, the best high schools are public, and the private ones are less competitive. I believe it is the opposite in Tokyo.

[vapid]

Sorry, didn’t even think to add our location. We live in Tokyo, currently the Shinagawa Seaside area. As we are renting, we are open to the idea of moving if that helps. Also we are considering getting a house since my with will be applying for PR this year and I will follow next year with my PR.

I would still like to hear about other non Tokyo experiences with choosing Japanese schools and the finances involved.

[captainspoke]

I think the first positive for you is that one, and presumably the second child will be in daycare--in japanese. I have sometimes said that daycare is the modern equivalent of the extended family. It will beneficially socialize your kids, and I'd recommend your full support for and participation in whatever activities are going on there. Both my wife and I work, and we used public daycare (not kindergarten, 保育園 vs 幼稚園) thru the 90s, and believe it or not, we still go back almost every year the first Saturday of July for their "bazaar" to meet a parent or two of our generation and say hello to a couple "hobo" that are still there. I feel that this was a huge and valuable factor in our two daughters' development, stimulating, social, some competition, life outside the home, and so on.

Next, from that daycare, there are undoubtedly other parents with older kids who are 'graduating' and going on to primary--these would be good people to talk to, perhaps the most important source of firsthand info that you might have.

We chose a semi-private (semi-public?) elementary for them. It was a mission school (we're not religious), known in town as being a nice one. Generally, smaller classes, and only one section for each year. This can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, kids got more personal attention, and in years 3 and 4 they knew everyone in the school--kids, teachers, and office staff. The curse is that everyone is stuck with each other for those years--a problem student will be in your section all six years, and there's no question who the teacher will be next year (and the next year, and the next...). In the local primary, I think there were 6-7 sections at each year--students get mixed up regularly, and who their teacher will be is an open question.

This school followed the standard curriculum, so they received money from the education ministry. IIRC, it was about ¥25,000/month, certainly more than the local public one, but far less than any true international school. Tho we are not christian, I felt/feel that the environment was wonderful (Do unto others...). Other positives: they were the local go-to school for returnees, or kids like ours; they had sister schools in NZ and OZ, and we had homestays/visitors from there a few times. There was a bus, but it was kind on of my commute, so I would often drop them there mornings.

For middle and then HS, we went public. Middle is based on where you live, so there's no choice. Without having planned it, we happened to be in a good district. HS is by choice, and you have to test in (not determined by geography). So they could've gone anywhere in the city that they could get into. Both made it into one of the better schools, incidentally the same one that my wife (and my sister-in-law, and her kids) went to. Fees for both of these were about the same as for primary--less for middle, but then about the same for HS.

HS "courses": This differs by school, and there are more now, but traditionally there are two--文系 and 理系 (humanities and science). Both our girls chose science (the first inadvertently--she tried to back out but they wouldn't let her).

An aside: Neither daughter went to juku, ever--not a single class. The older one did some correspondence stuff (Kumon?), the younger one was a natural student.

For uni, the older one made it in a couple places, but at the literal last minute (like about now, March 27th-29th, some years ago!), she got cold feet, swore she didn't want to do it, we relented, and she spent a year studying at Sundai in Osaka. The following year she got into 阪大 in chemistry (now working for a big company, and going back to work soon--finishing a year-long maternity leave). The younger one was a whiz, and made it into the second dept. of science in Tokyo first try.

Public universities: These are one of the fantastic hidden values of education in Japan. For tuition of about ¥560,000/yr (plus living, of course), you can get superb value. They are now very actively encouraging exchange programs, many times within partner school networks. For example, our younger one spent a year in Vancouver/UBC and we continued to pay the above tuition to Tokyo--yes, we paid for int'l student dorm there, but during that time school fees were assessed and paid here as normal. (Out-of-state tuition at US schools, which is what 'foreign' students pay, can be prohibitively expensive.)

Tho I have sibs with kids in the US, the ages of our kids and family lives differ. I was always jealous of a colleague or two who could send their kid to stay with family for a few weeks or a summer. An alternative is summer camps--we explored these but never took that step, and there are probably more options for this now than when our kids were small. Consider this if you don't have the family option (or even if you do).

https://www.bsig.org/monographs
That SIG is one of the best, and you can look thru some of the monographs that are free PDFs to see the situations of many others, the choices they've made, what's happened/developed in view of various factors. These people are like you (and us), raising, or having raised, kids in Japan while wanting to encourage bilingualism, considering schools, and other such options.

Finally, back to daycare. I really think that this was one of the most positive factors in the early and then ongoing development of our kids (they both started at about 2-3 months). Sure, it should be good quality, but (to maybe get controversial), I'm really glad that they didn't have a stay-at-home-parent thru 3 years old, and especially not thru the start of primary.

Whew! I hope this is not too long...!

edit: We're in a city of about 500,000 three hours away from Tokyo.

[StockBeard]

We live in Tokyo, currently the Shinagawa Seaside area.

Hi there, I live on the Rinkai line as well (but with plans to move soon~ish as we want to buy and that area is too expensive for us)

We have kids aged 6,3, and 1 year old. Plan is to get them through Japanese public schools. Most of my non Japanese friends send their kids to expensive~ish private schools. (from 1M JPY to 3M JPY per year. Unsustainable for me as I have 3 kids, unless I seriously reconsider my life choices)

Difference with you is that my wife is Japanese, so our kids are "halves". My gut feeling is that the "bullying" concern you have could be justified. I have a couple of friends in your situation (2 foreign parents), they pulled their son out of elementary school after 2 years, and decided to homeschool him instead. He had gone without problem to public school in France, and in Hong Kong before that, but the Japanese one was apparently a disaster. They haven't given me details, but told me "the bullying is real for a white kid". Your mileage might vary. It probably depends on your kids' personality, random luck, and maybe the color of your skin (just an uneducated assumption here that maybe kids would be more inclined to "notice" something weird with a white or black kid speaking fluent Japanese, than an asian kid in the same situation? Then again personal experience tells me that for kids, the color of their school friends' skin doesn't matter until their parents start mentioning it.)

Personal philosophy: it doesn't matter what school I put my kids in, I believe all schools in developed countries are overall good, with pros and cons that I cannot guess in advance due to random luck, so I'll pick a cheaper option as much as possible (which for now means public schools). However it is important to me that 1) my kids don't spend all their childhood studying and have time to be children and 2) they get reasonable English skills. I believe I'm facing an uphill battle on these two aspects with the Japanese public school system, so on these two points I intend to personally help as much as possible. (for English: movies, board games, and video games are my weapon of choice).

[vapid]

https://www.bsig.org/monographs
That SIG is one of the best, and you can look thru some of the monographs that are free PDFs to see the situations of many others, the choices they've made, what's happened/developed in view of various factors. These people are like you (and us), raising, or having raised, kids in Japan while wanting to encourage bilingualism, considering schools, and other such options.

Thank you for the indepth explanation of what you went through. I really appreciate the information and how you went about the decision making process. It does sound like that there are some restrictions on Public (testing/living in area), so that raises the question of how to identify the better schools.

My wife and also agree that not sending them to juku is important - they should be free to enjoy after the academics are over, but if they want to pursue sports or music, that's fine too. We also think that the Japanese daycare is by far our best decision so far (though not living in Trump we don't care if guns kill kids America seems a good choice too), especially since the daycare is built into my wife's company building so she can access it without issues.

[vapid]

Hi there, I live on the Rinkai line as well (but with plans to move soon~ish as we want to buy and that area is too expensive for us)

Super a retirejapan friend nearby! And we agree completely on the moving idea especially considering buying a place. Though it is hard to argue about the convenience (15m to airport, 5m to daiba, 20m to Disney) and options to enjoy the weekends.

By chance you know what private schools they go to? I'd take a look at the options, though those costs for more than a single child might be too prohibitive.

Thanks for the feedback on the possible bullying factor. From a language perspective, our daughters Japanese would be fine for public elementary, but I wonder what the bullying stems from. But hell if we knew that we could solve Japan's bullying problem! Semi-private or at least a school with a more notable number of foreign kids might be the best play for elementary level.

Since you are in Tokyo - any estimates on the time/cost for kids schools?

[DragonAsh]

I have two kids, ages 8 and 6. Both are going to a nearby public school - actually the same school my wife went to when she was a kid. I guess international school makes sense for people with kids coming to Japan only for a year or two. But for families living here full time, I honestly think international schools are a stupid waste of money.

Both of my kids were born and raised overseas, so we expected a bit of teething problems early on, especially as my son in particular didn't speak Japanese all that well. He struggled a bit at first - knowing the answer to a math problem but not being able to say the answer in Japanese was obviously frustrating! But the kids and teachers were very supportive, and both kids have made friends and have adapted really well.

I highly recommend not over-thinking schooling. Absent specific / special needs cases, there is almost no evidence supporting the idea that more money = better education. The education system in the US is fine, the education system in the UK is fine, the education in Japan is fine - up until junior or senior high, parenting is by far (like, 10-fold) more important than the school. Money spent on a private elementary school is almost certainly going to be better off spent elsewhere.

On the bullying thing: I've lived in a lot of countries and seen quite a bit of different schools around the world. And in my experience, no matter where they are, kids are....kids. They argue, play, fight, have fun, argue again, will have a big fight and then be playing dodgeball 20 minutes later like nothing happened.

I wouldn't say bulling 'never happen's - but my experience has been that the overwhelming majority of the time, parents assume any issue at school the kids have is because the kids are 'bullying the gaijin'. 98% of the time it's not - it's kids being kids. If the kids pick up on that, they'll also start to assume that anytime they get in trouble or have an issue at school, it's not because they're at fault, it's because they're being picked on because they're the gaijin.

I've seen this too many times to count - in the US, Hong Kong, the UK and yes, Japan.
I've also seen cases that were clear bulling - like I said, I wouldn't say it doesn't happen.
But in the cases I've seen with parents with 'gaijin kids', the parents screaming the loudest about 'bullying' are invariably the ones that are the most annoying and obnoxious parents to be around because their 'little angles' can do no wrong etc etc...


Stockbeard - I also attended 阪大 for four years (1988-92, Economics)!

[robster]

I live in Tokyo (Meguro), with a Japanese wife and two "half" kids, 12 and 9.
My wife doesn't work, and we put both kids through a local private Kindergarten affiliated to a Christian church. We are not religious but chose it because we liked the relaxed vibe and it was reasonable (about 30,000/month). The main downside was that Japanese became overwhelmingly their first language while their English development halted.
Both then went to the local elementary school, my eldest having just graduated, and we were very happy with the quality of the education and the culture/community of the school. It is a well-to-do area which means that most children are from families that expect them to do well academically and go on to university, so in general the children's attitude towards learning was positive. I have heard that this is often not the case in areas of lower income, though that is clearly over-generalizing and I expect there are plenty of exceptions on both sides. Overall i think that public elementary school in Japan is a high standard and excellent value; the only downside again being that their English skills get no improvement at all.

We decided that our eldest should go to a private school from Junior High onwards. The main motivation for me was that I feel (and perhaps I am wrong, but...) that some private schools do a better job of fostering critical thinking, problem solving, independent thinking, creativity, international outlook and English language, etc, areas that the Japanese public education clearly fails at, so while it will cost around 800,000/year I will consider this money well spent if the private school we chose lives up to my expectations on those issues. I am not particularly concerned whether my children gain entrance to a prestigious university, but more concerned that their teen years, basically when they change from children into adults, are spent developing in the right direction.
In order to pass the entrance exams for this school, we sent our daughter to Juku - something that 6 years ago I would have sworn never to do - and know for certain that she would not have passed the exams without Juku. We know of nobody who gained entrance to a private JH without doing Juku. Although it was pretty painful, I also think of it as a once-off, (if not now, she would otherwise have to do it three years later to get into a good SH) and a necessary evil to get the child on the right track. Perhaps a more naturally gifted child could achieve this without the Juku but ours is not that exceptional academically.

We never considered international schools, saw no necessity as we are here for the long haul, and probably couldn't afford it anyway.

[windborn]

I have a toddler, and am now looking at international preschools.
My key consideration is that I want my children to have English as a First language, Japanese as a Second. This stems wanting to provide my children the ability to choose where they would want to live in the future and not be limited to Japan. I feel that having English as a first language provides more opportunities for them to realize that as opposed to having Japanese as a first language. Especially since I made the decision to leave my home country whose first language is English, I feel i should not deprive my children of having English as a first language and the global opportunities it may provide to them.

I know the financials are going to be tough, especially if i have a 2nd child, but hey, who says having kids are cheap?