Not been checking this thread for a while ... just to add re. OFS, I've also heard mixed reports ... friends who have had their son their from Y2 - Y4 and are happy. But a good friend of mine just moved her daughter from there to the American School, in spite of originally being quite happy with OFS. Also had friends who moved their daughters from there to UWC after a couple of years. (but don't know reason in that case, it may just have been that they realised they would be here a lot longer and the places came through on the waiting list.)
Re. maids - there is a good agency called Prestige in Tanglin Shopping Centre. (Shopping Centre not mall.) Connie is the person to speak to and she has handled a lot of maid hiring and transferring for friends and colleagues.
I would second the opinions here that you should arrive and take your time to find a maid,. I think the cases where you are talking about paying the agency, are because when the women are trying to get jobs here, the agencies pay the fees upfront and get the money back from the employer (air fares, medicals etc.), so for the first 6 months they often get no salary, no days off etc, because they are basically paying that back. That is obviously not essential though - not all families would not expect the maid to pay all of those charges but would pay that themselves.
We hired our maid through a transfer which suited us. Although we had not known her before (she advertised on a board, she wasn't a friend's maid), we were able to meet her, take references etc, and ended up with a wonderful housekeeper/nanny who I hope will work with us for many more years to come.
Most western families give every Sunday and all public holidays off and for a Filipino would pay $350 - $500 per month depending on experience. And some get more than that based on their experience and their responsibilities, either in monthly salary or in bonuses at Christmas/CNY, trips home during holidays etc.
The whole maid experience takes a bit of getting used to ... but once you get here you'll soon figure out what works for you. (If you are going to have a live in you will also have the "fun" of house-hunting ... we had to reject so many flats because the maid's room was too small to fit a full size bed in. Our agent thought we were totally barmy because the first thing we'd do before checking out the rest of the flat was walk to the back of the kitchen and if the maid's room wouldn't fit a full size bed in it, we'd walk straight out again!!
Medicals are every 6 months - government sends a reminder and the maid has to go along for whatever the governments says that time around. Almost always includes a pregnancy test (even for my maid who had been sterilized after having 4 kids!!!) To us it seems like a total invasion of privacy, but my maid takes it in good spirit and puts up with it. (I guess, what choice does she have?)