Beijing has a burgeoning international school sector offering many different types of school, but under central government rules, none of them is allowed to accept local students. By contrast, public and private schools serving mainland children can admit some international students provided they meet certain criteria - and more than 75 in the city now do so.
The growth of the alternative track has fuelled a trend among the capital's expatriates to send their children to study alongside local students, in a bid to give them a head start in Putonghua.
British architect Rory McGowan and his Russian wife have enrolled their two children in Fangcaodi Primary School, a Beijing state school teaching the Chinese National Curriculum that has been admitting foreign students for more than 40 years.
All children at Fangcaodi are taught in Putonghua and the couple took the decision to give Fionn, 12, and Kiril, eight, total immersion in the language after the children had attended a bilingual school teaching in English and Chinese.
American expatriate Helen Rutstein sent her two teenage daughters to an international school - the Western Academy of Beijing - because the girls had attended a string of international schools in other countries.
'But if my kids had been younger when we moved to Beijing, I would have put them in bilingual schools,' she said. 'Perfect Chinese is hands-down the best thing you can do for a child.