Hi, Form 5 Kuen Cheng student here! Overall experience is all right but be prepared as KC is more academically demanding than most other CIS. For Junior students (Junior Middle 1 - Junior Middle 3 aka Form 1-3), KC is no longer teaching PT3 syllabus and putting more focus on Junior UEC (JUEC), although some PT3 syllabus content (komsas, 名句) will still be taught (be prepared for a lot of rote learning!). At JM3 though, your daughter will not have to take the PT3 exam and only JUEC. Senior life will definitely be tougher. In Senior Middle 1, SPM and SUEC content are taught simultaneously, but in SM2, more focus will be put on SPM, so if your daughter chooses to continue with SUEC and stays for SM3 (a lot of KC students leave after SM2 with their SPM cert), a lot of UEC stuff will have to be rushed and crammed into the brain within that year. Rote learning is still emphasised during this phase. The minimum average mark to move on to the next grade is 60%, which is higher than that of other CIS. If your daughter can maintain at a steady 70%, she will do very fine.

For teachers, KC is equipped with a very broad staff with many teachers, both new and experienced. From what I've observed, most newer teachers are assigned to teach Junior classes while experienced teachers teach Senior classes. Juniors will study more subjects than Seniors as Seniors study more in-depth material of the subjects based on their chosen stream. There are 3 streams to choose from when your daughter finishes Junior Middle 3: Science, Arts & Commerce, and Pure Commerce.

For school experience, first off I have to say that for a school situated in an urban area such as KL, KC has a large campus. Not the largest, but still very large. The tallest building has 9 floors (your daughter has a very small chance of having to study in the classroom on the 9th floor some years later!). However, the facilities are very good and the newest buildings, including the school hall. auditorium and the top-notch library, only finished construction 2 years ago. Lab equipment are also newer and more expensive compared to public schools. There are tons of cocurricular activities to choose from and it's compulsory to choose one once you enter. Students with good grades can opt to take 2 koko's, but I highly encourage anyone from doing so due to workload. Koko's can range from 1-3 activities per week and can last up until 5.15 pm. Assuming your child reaches school at 7 am, that's over 10 hours of school!

Although I do think KC is a very good school (it has 2 canteens that only supports cashless payment!), there are of course some cons. Unlike many other CIS, KC still bans the use of mobile phones. The school is also accepting HUGE batches of students every year which makes the school very populated and lines at canteens very long. I've also heard that school fees will be hiked up by RM 50 next year (450/mo for juniors, 500/mo for seniors). However, it's still a very top school (top UEC academic awards for both JUEC and SUEC) and most graduates and SPM leavers go on to study in prestigious universities including Tsinghua and Oxford. I'd recommend KC to anyone, any day.

There are still tons of things I haven't mentioned so if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Hi, yee2603!

1) I wouldn't say KC is emphasising the English language more compared to other CIS. It's just the usual English lessons with regular teachers. I had 7 periods of English in a week from Form 1 -5 (not sure if they changed or not lah). That's the same numbers of periods as BM and Chinese. Every week there's also 1 English period reserved for e-learning (students sit in front of computers and do IELTS/TOEFL style English exercises online), and another English period reserved for 'Activities' (practical, creative-type assessment, like role play or presentation). These are not found in the other two language subjects. Like any other CIS, the medium of KC is Chinese and most students speak Chinese, of course. There also used to be an English Awareness Month but since last year it has been supplanted with a less interesting and, in my opinion, far less effective English Awareness Week. I'm not sure how they teach English in other CIS, so I can only say what I can say for KC.

2) I'd actually say that KC emphasises SPM more than many other CIS. In fact, KC has a top-notch track record for SPM. From my understanding, other CIS in Klang Valley like Tsun Jin place very small emphasis on SPM. As a science-stream student taking SPM this year, my teachers have been teaching the SPM curriculum for almost the entire year. In many CIS, UEC and SPM curricula are taught simultaneously, even during Senior 2 (Form 5) when students are taking SPM later that year! In KC, Senior 1 students do learn a lot of UEC content (except the science subjects, cause for SPM, the sciences are quite heavy subjects with a lot of details), and it's basically balanced with SPM. But SPM becomes more of the focus in Senior 2. This may not be true for Arts students, as they still have to study their UEC History and Geography during Senior 2. Any CIS would encourage you to take UEC, but KC doesn't force you to, and it certainly doesn't reduce the chances of students acing their SPM by putting a lot of focus into UEC. As a tradeoff, Senior 3 students have A LOT of stuff to rush through for their final year. Every year, tons of Senior 2 students (especially science students) leave KC with their SPM certs to take A-Levels, Foundation, Diploma etc. In fact, I'll be leaving with SPM too!

3) Since last year, KC has a new MASSIVE carpark that's open for parents to park and wait for their children. There are opening hours, of course, which are really specific, for security's sake. You can also park at this really long lorong on the right side of the school. I always go home by public transport so I'm not sure of the carpark opening hours. You can make an enquiry to the school.

4) By school break do you mean school holidays set by the government? In that case, no. Some cocurricular clubs/societies may require your child to return to school during the holidays for extra activities. Some teachers, especially Senior 2 and 3 teachers, may find trouble finishing the curriculum and require students to return during the holidays for extra lessons. Other than that, your child is free to enjoy his/her school holidays.

Hope that helped!