Empathy Reviews 

We recently went on a tour of Empathy School and, afterwards, felt we'd made the right decision not to enrol our child. While the school grounds are spacious and have a quirky charm, the tour itself left us with a number of concerns.

The biggest issue for us was safeguarding. We'd booked the tour in advance via WhatsApp, but when we arrived there was no one there to greet us. In fact, there didn't seem to be any obvious reception or check-in point. We were able to walk straight off the public road and onto the school grounds and spent around 5–10 minutes wandering around before anyone approached us. During that time, we had unrestricted access to the site, and my husband even walked into an empty classroom while trying to find a member of staff. We weren't trying to go unnoticed—we were actively looking for someone to speak to—which made us wonder how easily someone with bad intentions could gain access to the school. Throughout the tour, we repeatedly passed a child who appeared to be wandering around the school alone looking lost and confused. We don't know the circumstances, but seeing this continue throughout our visit added to our concerns about supervision.

When we were eventually greeted, the welcome felt rather perfunctory. The member of staff who met us wasn't particularly warm or engaging, and showed very little interest in us or our son, who had come along to the tour.

A Grade 5 teacher then gave us a brief tour of the school. He was polite and friendly and, to his credit, did try to answer our questions, but admitted he couldn't really answer many of them. The tour mainly consisted of him pointing out different rooms: "This is the art room", "This is the science room", and so on. When he asked what Grade our son was in, I hesitated because he's homeschooled. He then commented that I seemed "nervous" and "tense", which felt like a rather odd thing to say and made the interaction slightly awkward.

At the end of the tour, we sat down with a member of the admin team to ask more about the school's educational approach. We were hoping to understand what made the school different from a mainstream school.

I mentioned that the owner refers to links with Harvard when describing the curriculum and asked whether the school was academically focused. I was told, "No, it's a nature school." I then asked how much of the children's time is spent outdoors in nature on the school grounds. The initial answer was around 20%, which was then revised to 30%. That didn't strike us as particularly different from many mainstream schools.

I also asked what curriculum the school follows and was told that learning is project-based—for example, if the topic is "the ocean", then maths, science and other subjects are taught through that theme. Again, this didn't sound especially unusual to me. I taught in mainstream schools for nearly 20 years, and thematic, cross-curricular learning is something many schools already do. We had been looking for a genuinely progressive alternative, but the school came across as rather disorganised and lacking a clear educational identity.

We left impressed by the space and the interesting layout of the school, but ultimately disappointed and uninspired by the tour.

We appreciate that we visited during the summer camp and understand that any school can have an off day. Even so, we'd have expected a more organised experience and greater enthusiasm from staff about the school and its educational philosophy.

Perhaps the most telling aspect for us was the overall lack of connection we experienced between staff and our son during the visit. Apart from the Grade 5 teacher asking him his name, whether he enjoyed woodcarving and whether he liked rabbits, we didn't feel there was much genuine engagement with him as a prospective pupil. We appreciated that the Grade 5 teacher did make an effort, but the interaction still felt quite awkward and didn't create the sense of warmth, ease and connection with children that we had hoped to find at a school called Empathy School.

The other three staff members we encountered during the tour, including the admin member we spoke with afterwards, did not acknowledge our son at all. For us, this was the most disappointing part of the visit, as we had hoped to see a school culture where children are naturally noticed, welcomed and valued. Unfortunately, this was not what we found, and alongside the safeguarding concerns mentioned earlier, it ultimately became a deciding factor in our decision not to enrol our son at the school.

if you want to put your kids for middle school in EMPATHY , or probably even any grade , please dont , middle schoolers were very arrogant and annoying , and the school discriminates local indonesians , i was a student here in 2024 , when i came to Wood school and Ubud high i met ex empathy students, ALL OF THEM SAID “i hate empathy.” “i’m sick of all the people there!” , Teachers in empathy aren’t strict enough and don’t understand bullying OR EVEN EMPATHyY that well , and the parents have to pay 11 fricking million every month for a terrible school, please don’t put your kids here , for little put them into Wood school , for junior students put them maybe into Ubud high school, Lighthouse academy, Or even spark bali, Just not EMPATHY.

We spent several months in Bali and our daughter attended Empathy School during our stay. Our experience was genuinely wonderful.

Our daughter loved going to school, made lovely friends and felt happy and safe in the environment. We found the team attentive and the atmosphere caring and community-oriented.

What made the experience especially unique for us was how much effort the school puts into creating a real sense of community among families. Weekly parent gatherings, meditation mornings with Buddhist monks from a local meditation center, coffee sessions with the director to openly discuss topics around education and parenting, weekend activities - all of this created a very special environment, not only for children but also for parents.

We also really appreciated the healthy vegetarian food, which was delicious and clearly prepared with care.

For our family, Empathy School felt like a warm, joyful and somewhat timeless place where children are encouraged to learn through play, nature and connection. It became an important part of what made our Bali experience so memorable.

Our family’s experience has been overwhelmingly positive and we remain deeply grateful for the time spent there.

Our experience with Empathy School International was a profound lesson in the devastating misalignment between "marketing" and "reality." Despite an upfront payment of IDR 81,096,524 (~$4,600 USD), the premium education promised was replaced by systemic disorganization, professional abandonment, and a disturbing lack of care for our children’s basic well-being. From an orientation that never happened to "leadership" that prioritized personal leisure over professional commitments, the administration was consistently dismissive of valid safety concerns.

The most alarming failures involved fundamental safeguarding and child protection. We witnessed repeated instances of unsupervised students and unaddressed bullying, but the breaking point was the school's gross breach of data privacy. The institution actually recorded and shared footage of our children being harassed on their public Instagram account without our consent. Furthermore, despite promoting a "healthy vegan" curriculum, our son was served nothing but soup and rice every single day, eventually leading him to stop eating lunch entirely because of the nutritional deficit.

We are currently pursuing legal action to hold this institution accountable to the fullest extent of Indonesian Child Protection Laws and Law No. 24 of 2009 regarding the legal standing of our contract. We are sharing this as a formal warning to any parents considering enrollment: "Empathy" may be the name on the sign, but it is nowhere to be found in their practice. We had a professional and ethical responsibility to correct the record for any family who may have considered this school based on our previous promotional content.

We were eyeing this school for a long time thinking that it lives the values that are close to our hearts. One of them being EMPATHY. We joined towards the end of term 3 for which we paid prorated. We also prepaid for the whole term 4. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances we need to fly back to Sydney as my mother-in-law is seriously ill and requires emergency surgery. My husband approached Eric, the founder of the school on April 2nd 2025 (in the morning) explaining our unique personal circumstances. We were fully aware of the school's non-refundable policy but since Eric is always talking about teaching his students empathy and the importance of leading by example we were hoping that he will be making an exception and showing us some empathy. How wrong we were! As we didn't receive any response from him by the end of April 2nd, as he promised, we had to contact his team members including his admin team and some teachers asking them to remind Eric to contact my husband. On April 4th, we finally got a response from his admin team advising us to contact one of his staff referring to them as his personal assistant. We did just that and asked this staff member to remind Eric to contact us back with the decision. Soon afterwards we received a dry business email from (surprise - not Eric) the school's finance department stating all the reasons why they won't refund our money and advising us to show empathy to their teachers and community instead. We would like to stress out that we tried to reach out to Eric via his personal WhatsApp number without approaching his team members multiple times but he never responded back. After receiving Eric's final decision that wasn't communicated directly to us but through his stuff (because, apparently, as a founder, he can't make a decision on that himself!) we posted about our experience in the parents WhatsApp group but were of course kicked out from there promptly. In the group, Eric accused us in a few things that we didn't have a chance to respond to: 1. Eric accused us that we don't handle the matter privately while he was repeatedly ghosting us when we tried to reach out to him on multiple occasions. 2. His admin team provided us with contact details of his staff member which they referred to as his personal assistant, which we did. In the group, Eric rudely pointed out that contacting this staff member was inappropriate as she is his social media assistant, which we obviously didn't know relying and trusting the words of his admin team. 3. Eric mentioned again the non-refundable policies. Yes, policies...we were fully aware that any fees are non-refundable but hoped that Eric can show some empathy and grace. After all, it's in HIS school name. 4. In the parents group Eric lied! He referred to a mysterious message from us sent at a certain time that said we are not heading back to Australia to visit my mother-in-law. It is a complete lie!

We feel sick in our stomach seeing this behaviour. We encourage everyone to read many reviews on Google where Eric's lack of empathy is mentioned on multiple occasions. This school doesn't live its values and definitely lacks empathy. The image of a dream school Eric sells is just a carefully crafted sales pitch. Don't buy into it!

Been with empathy school for a long time. Very lovely place very relaxing very kid focused. I got to say this is one of the best setup international schools on the island. I haven't seen anything like it anywhere. I definitely recommend it to all my friends.

Empathy School is such a great and rewarding experience for all of us - This is the future of learning and more schools around the world should care for our children and their development this way - We feel blessed to have found it. We can only recommend it to parents who want to foster whole human beings.
Thank you Eric for making this school.