Are Esprit ski schools the best option for children?

[dameofdilemma]

Am tying myself in knots trying to keep everyone happy....

We've narrowed it down to Austria (after years of skiing in France, never again).

Dp would like to go to Lech again with VIP ski.
But dd (6) will need ski school. The VIP ski rep didn't recommend the Lech ski school - they had 12-14 kids in each group and it was apparently chaotic.
Other guests in the hotel in Lech told us their kids were spending lots of time standing around in the snow not doing much. Their kids didn't enjoy it.

Lech ski school has the advantage though of being 10am-3pm so a good chunk of learning time without an early start or finding something to do in the afternoon that isn't skiing.

If we go with Esprit to Obergurgl or St Anton - will the ski schools be better (and is it worth the 9am start..)?
Are the Snow Clubs as good as they claims or do kids actually sit around all afternoon watching tv?

Dp won't love the 'basic chalet' (his words) so I can only justify it if its amazing for dd.
If I just throw her into any ski school and turn a blind eye (which dp wouod happily do...), there's a risk she'll hate it and just never want to go skiing again.
She has skied (with private lessons) for 5 days and got on well.

I really, really want dd to learn to ski and like it so eventually we can all ski together as a family.

Esprit use local ski schools but book instructors privately so kids only ski with other kids on Esprit holidays.
There’s pros and cons. The class size will probably be smaller but as they have a much smaller pool of children it’s harder to group together children who are the same age and ability. When we went with Esprit my 5 year old was only little child who could ski so was put in a group with much bigger kids who had less ski experience. His EFS instructor was great but he’d have done much much better if we had put him into an ESF group directly.
Their customer service and kids club was good but I wouldn’t go with Esprit again because the ski school didn’t work for us and we hated the weird meal set up where kids can’t eat with adults. The food wasn’t very good either.

User- thanks.

I think Esprit is a bit of a 'no other option' decision as w,e really want to ski in Austria again but heard not great things from other guests whose children of a similar age were in the local ski schools, the last two years.

We also found the afternoons were tricky as we wanted to ski but dd just wanted to do something else (preferably with other kids!).

Am preparing myself that the chalet and food will be nothing like the VIP Ski experience last year....but then I never go skiing for the food!

It may work better for your family as your 6 yo is a beginner there’s likely to be other children that age in the beginner groups. We skied together in the afternoon so didn’t use the snow club but our son loved the evening kids club. FOOd is important on our holidays!
If you’ve not booked already have you looked at Kinderhoteks? Also I’ve heard good things about Obergurgl ski school and the Crystal/Lehman. hotels in house kids clubs. We are hoping to book something there last minute for Easter.

Also try Chaletline. If you tell them all the things you want they will find it for you. And they were cheaper than booking direct through Esprit and will mediate for you if you have complaints (we had several!!)