You've relocated to Jakarta, Bali, or another Indonesian city. Your children are enrolled in a British international school. You're paying substantial fees for an education that follows the English National Curriculum. Everything should be straightforward.
Then your Year 1 child comes home confused because the science lesson about seasons described winter as "cold and dark with short days", which bears no resemblance to life in tropical Indonesia, where temperatures stay steady all year and daylight hardly changes. Or your Year 4 child struggles with a worksheet about pond habitats full of frogspawn and newts they have never seen, while the rice paddies visible from the classroom window go unmentioned.
This is the particular challenge of supporting British curriculum science in Indonesia: helping children master content written for a very different climate and countryside, while living thousands of miles from the context that makes it obvious. This guide is for UK expat families, Indonesian families who have chosen a British education, and third-country families alike.
Understanding British Schools in Indonesia
Indonesia has a number of international schools that follow the English National Curriculum, concentrated in Jakarta but also found in Bali, Surabaya and other cities. The British School Jakarta is the best known. Check carefully before you assume, though: several well-known international schools in Jakarta and Bali follow the IB or an American programme, not the English one.
Schools that do follow the English curriculum are typically:
- Genuinely international, with many nationalities and often a large Indonesian group
- Aligned to UK standards in curriculum and assessment, and often inspected under a UK framework such as ISI or BSO
- Staffed by international teachers, many from the UK but also from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and elsewhere
- Expensive, with fees that are substantial at every year group
The quality of science teaching varies between schools, even those using the same curriculum. Some adapt brilliantly to Indonesian settings; others teach as though they were still in Surrey.
The Contextual Challenge: Teaching British Science in the Tropics
The English science curriculum assumes shared experiences that do not exist in Indonesia. Knowing where the gaps are helps you fill them.
Seasonal Differences
Year 1 science includes observing changes across the four seasons and how day length varies. (Why the Earth's tilt causes seasons is not taught until Key Stage 3; Year 5 covers day and night and the Earth's orbit.)
Near the equator these ideas are abstract. There is no autumn leaf fall, no hibernation, no spring blossom. Day length changes by well under an hour across the year. Indonesia has wet and dry periods, not four seasons.
How to bridge this gap:
- Use videos and photos of UK seasonal change; the BBC's "Springwatch", "Autumnwatch" and "Winterwatch" series are excellent
- When visiting family in a temperate country, point out the seasonal signs
- Talk about Indonesia's wet and dry seasons as a different system, driven by the monsoon winds
Flora and Fauna Differences
British curriculum examples assume familiarity with temperate wildlife:
- Deciduous trees (oak, beech, horse chestnut) rather than palms and tropical hardwoods
- Foxes, badgers, hedgehogs and robins rather than geckos, hornbills and orangutans
- Pond life (frogspawn, tadpoles, pond snails, water boatmen) rather than the life of a rice paddy
- Daffodils, roses and tulips rather than orchids, frangipani and hibiscus
A child may memorise that "deciduous trees lose their leaves in autumn" without knowing what deciduous means, because they have never seen it happen.
How to bridge this gap:
- Find Indonesian equivalents: mangroves show adaptation to a habitat, and rainforest shows the variety of living things
- Visit Taman Safari, Bali Bird Park or Jakarta Aquarium to look at how animals are suited to where they live
- Use nature documentaries about UK wildlife to build familiarity
- Encourage a project comparing a UK habitat with an Indonesian one
Temperature and Weather Concepts
Several topics assume experience of cold weather:
- States of matter (Year 4): ice forming outdoors, frost, snow
- Materials (Year 5): why we wear warm coats, which materials keep heat in
- Weather: fog, frost, sleet and hail; some children have never felt a temperature below 20°C
How to bridge this gap:
- Use the freezer as a laboratory: make ice, look at the frost inside, freeze water in a sealed bottle to see it expand
- If you travel to a cooler place (Singapore's Snow City, the mountains, or a temperate country), treat it as a science trip
- Talk about air conditioning and refrigeration as the everyday cooling science of Indonesian life
Indonesia's Own Science Opportunities
Some curriculum content feels distant from Indonesian life. In return, the country offers science experiences a child in the UK can only read about.
Volcanoes and Rocks
Indonesia sits on the Ring of Fire, with around 130 active volcanoes. This is the Year 3 rocks topic in real life:
- Visit a volcanic area safely: Tangkuban Perahu near Bandung, Mount Bromo, or the education centres near Merapi
- Look at why volcanic soil grows such good crops
- Connect to the curriculum's rock types: igneous rock from volcanoes, sedimentary rock from the coast. (Earthquakes and plate tectonics come later, in Key Stage 3, but children here will ask, so answer simply and with care for recent disasters.)
Tropical Living Things
Indonesia is one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth:
- Look at rainforest adaptations: buttress roots, plants growing on other plants, leaves with drip tips
- Learn about Indonesian species: Komodo dragons, orangutans, birds of paradise
- Explore mangroves and how they cope with salt water and tides
- Visit a coral reef (Bali, Lombok, Raja Ampat) to see marine habitats
Rice Paddies
- Watch the plant life cycle from planting to harvest
- Look at how water is managed: irrigation and terracing
- Find the living things in a paddy: fish, insects, birds
Tropical Weather
- Afternoon storms show how fast weather can change
- High humidity makes evaporation and condensation easy to observe
Practical Challenges for Parents
Limited Local Resources
British curriculum textbooks and workbooks are expensive to import and often unavailable locally. Bookshops in Jakarta and Bali carry limited English science material, much of it IB or American.
Solutions:
- Order CGP books, which are affordable and written for the English curriculum, through Amazon or a UK bookseller that ships abroad
- Use BBC Bitesize (free), and Twinkl or TES for printable resources
- Share resources with other families through the school parent network
Parental Knowledge Gaps
If you are Indonesian or from a non-UK background, the British curriculum may be entirely unfamiliar. Even UK parents have forgotten Year 4 science.
Solutions:
- Go to school curriculum evenings
- Use BBC Bitesize to learn alongside your child
- Do not pretend to know what you do not; look it up together
- Consider an online science tutor that follows the English curriculum
Language Barriers
For Indonesian families and other non-native English speakers, scientific vocabulary is an extra hurdle. Words like "evaporation", "transparent" and "magnetic" can be unfamiliar even to parents with strong conversational English.
Solutions:
- Make bilingual vocabulary lists: English term, Indonesian equivalent, simple definition
- Use a visual dictionary for science terms
- Let children explain a concept in their stronger language first, then practise the English words
- Most international schools offer support for English as an additional language; use it
Time Zones and Online Resources
Many British online tutoring services and live events run on UK time, which is 6 to 7 hours behind Jakarta. By the time a British child is in an afternoon lesson, an Indonesian child is asleep.
Solutions:
- Use recorded content rather than live streams where possible
- Look for Asia-based tutoring in a compatible time zone, or self-paced tools that do not depend on a live session
Supporting Learning at Home: Indonesia-Specific Activities
Year 1: Plants and Seasons
- Plant tropical seeds (beans, chilli, tomato) and watch them grow
- Compare wet and dry season rather than four seasons: photograph the same tree each week
- Visit Kebun Raya Bogor, the botanical gardens, to see plant variety
Year 2: Living Things and Habitats
- Explore local microhabitats: under rocks, tree bark, pond edges (with an adult)
- Compare Indonesian and UK animals: how do geckos compare with UK garden animals?
- Visit a mangrove forest to see how the trees are suited to salt water
Year 3: Rocks and Light
- Collect local rock samples: volcanic rock, coral, river stones
- Shadow experiments: measure a shadow at different times of day (the change is smaller than in the UK, but still there)
- Visit Museum Geologi Bandung, an excellent geology museum with volcano and earthquake exhibits
Year 4: States of Matter and Sound
- Ice experiments: freeze water in different containers and time how long each takes to melt in the heat
- Evaporation investigation: compare how fast a saucer of water dries in the rainy season and the dry season
- Sound exploration: feel the vibration of a gamelan instrument and listen to how pitch changes with size
Year 5: Properties and Changes of Materials
- Investigate local materials: bamboo, palm wood, volcanic rock
- Rust investigation: rust forms fast in the humidity, so compare different metals over a week
- Dissolving experiments: compare dissolving in warm tap water and water from the fridge
Year 6: Evolution and Inheritance
- Visit Taman Safari to see how Indonesian species (Sumatran tiger, Komodo dragon) are adapted to their habitats
- Research the Wallace Line, the boundary through Indonesia that separates Asian and Australian animals
Addressing Common Misconceptions
"Seasons are just wet and dry": true for Indonesia, not everywhere. Use a globe and videos to show that temperate regions have four seasons.
"All rain is tropical rain": Indonesian children know downpours. British drizzle and snow are unfamiliar. Show videos of different kinds of precipitation.
"Cold means air-conditioned": for a child who has never felt natural cold, "cold weather" might mean a shopping mall. Explain that winter in many countries is colder than any fridge.
"All forests are rainforests": a child surrounded by rainforest may not picture a deciduous or pine forest. Use comparative images.
Using Technology to Bridge the Gap
Virtual field trips: Google Earth and virtual tours let you "visit" a UK woodland or coastline.
Live webcams: RSPB nest cameras and pond cameras show UK animals and seasonal change as they happen.
Weather comparison: compare Jakarta's weather with London or Manchester on a weather website.
Documentaries: BBC Earth and David Attenborough series cover UK and temperate habitats well.
Maintaining Continuity Through Transitions
International families in Indonesia often move on, change schools, or return to the UK. Keep a record of the science topics your child has covered, so a new teacher knows they have done "Forces" but not "Earth and Space". Fill gaps as you find them rather than leaving them for secondary school. Keep photos and notes of the volcano visits and reef trips; they are rich material for later work.
The British curriculum was not written with Jakarta or Bali in mind, yet thousands of children in Indonesia master it every year. With some deliberate bridging, yours can too, and they will have stood on a volcano while doing it.