St. Paul American School Hanoi

Well, that was quick.

On Monday we thought we had schooling for the kids all worked out.  We had purchased some math materials so Noah and Ellie could keep up with their Algebra.  We had arranged for a tutor to come a couple times a week to teach them Vietnamese language and culture.  We had them attend a Vietnamese gifted school so they could meet Vietnamese kids and take art, gym, and English.  And we had made plans to do some homeschooling in our apartment.

But the English teacher at the Vietnamese gifted school recommended we look at another place, an international school right outside town.  Yeah, yeah we thought and kind of rolled our eyes.  We HAD looked at many international school options, but all of them were ridiculously expensive.  The most popular one is the United Nations International School (UNIS), which has a beautiful campus and is well-reviewed.  But it costs $10,000 per semester per student.  Most other international schools were similarly priced (there are 7 or 8 in Hanoi).  We were not getting any financial support from a multinational corporation, so we just assumed international schools were out of our price range.

But we went ahead and decided to visit this new option on Tuesday, and it turns out the school was lovely and it was affordable for us.  And so, next Monday our four children will get on a bus right outside our building and start at St. Paul American School of Hanoi.

This is a picture of the campus.  Four buildings for 250 students.  The school started in 2011 (most of the international schools in Hanoi started within the last 20 years) and they moved to this campus in January, 2015.

Some pictures of the lobby as you walk in, including paper cranes hanging from the ceiling and pictures of the faculty:

The kids do need to wear a uniform: polo shirt and khakis.  Here they are trying on their St. Paul American School Hanoi shirts:

This is Finn's second grade teacher, Jessica Eley.  She is from South Africa.  In Finn's class he will have students from many countries, including Korea, Vietnam, East Timor, and Mozambique.  Although the school is an American school, only about 10% of the student body is American.  The only other American student in Finn's class is Vietnamese-American.

This is Finn's classroom:

Ellie was particularly excited about the library:

Other miscellaneous shots from the school, including the cafeteria, the pool, and more classrooms.  I think this will be a good fit for the kids.