United School of Tokyo (UST)
Reviews & Information

We have been a UST family for five years now and are very thankful for the quality academic experience the school provides at such an affordable cost. The school has dedicated teachers and staff , the administrators take parent-feedback to heart, and the close-knit community of involved families is an added bonus. We have been very happy here.

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UST is a wonderful school that cares about students and is run by dedicated teachers and staff. The program is academically strong and also well-balanced: I love their music and arts programs, frequent field trips and events, guidance program etc. I feel the school really cares about every aspect of my child's development. I also really really like that they put a lot of effort into the Japanese language program. The fees are much lower than other schools, which I really appreciate. I only have great things to say about UST.

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I found out that the ESL teacher is not a certified teacher and claimed she was. They are cutting corners to save money.

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The school claims to be inquiry based, but this simply isn't true. The children are squashed into crowded, poorly resourced classrooms and their education is based around constant standardized testing. There are many poorly qualified teachers. If your child is lucky enough to be placed with a good teacher they may have a successful time au UST. My daughter, unfortunately, was not one of the lucky ones and actually when backwards academically during her 2 years at the school. I have heard that the Principal (who can be incredibly rude to parents) bullies staff, and many excellent teachers have left. They are struggling to recruit good staff. The arts and music programs were fantastic, but this was based on the skills of the specialist teachers who have left. The PE programme appears to have been run by an unqualified teacher, and my child came back with horror stories of injuries left untreated. She also encountered sexism ('you're almost good enough to beat the boys!'). The recess time is insufficient. The children have 30 minutes to walk to a nearby park, and usually only have a short amount of time to play once arriving. There are no swimming lessons. They were cancelled due to covid and due to disorganisation, they failed to resume.

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United School of Tokyo is a good bang for your buck, located in Central Tokyo. It has a tremendous arts and music program and truly develops the whole child.

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