CES environment?

[Anonymous]

I have a 4th grader in CES and I am finding the class environment too lax. Maybe it’s with this particular school but can anyone chime in if they have a sense of the environment being too relaxed? My child is able to listen to music during school, not sure how and why and seems to be on his chrome book a lot even when not working on it for assignments.

[Anonymous]

I call troll....someone angling for a waitlist spot???

[Anonymous]

My daughter's stint in her CES was the best two years of her MCPS life so far - she's now 12 and was not selected by the lottery for a magnet middle school spot. They were the only two years where she was the least bit academically challenged, and the only two years she had all-around *excellent* teachers. The environment was relaxed, but in a good way, to encourage creativity and keep stress at bay. The school had a meditation room, with yoga balls and equipment. It wast just a really healthy and intellectual environment.

Now she's in Algebra 1 and advanced orchestra in 6th grade, but even those are quite uninteresting, since she's familiar with all that material and beyond.

MCPS is really doing a disservice to advanced children by not expanding the number of magnet seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
My daughter's stint in her CES was the best two years of her MCPS life so far - she's now 12 and was not selected by the lottery for a magnet middle school spot. They were the only two years where she was the least bit academically challenged, and the only two years she had all-around *excellent* teachers. The environment was relaxed, but in a good way, to encourage creativity and keep stress at bay. The school had a meditation room, with yoga balls and equipment. It wast just a really healthy and intellectual environment.

Now she's in Algebra 1 and advanced orchestra in 6th grade, but even those are quite uninteresting, since she's familiar with all that material and beyond.

MCPS is really doing a disservice to advanced children by not expanding the number of magnet seats.

Thank you. My son loves it but I didn’t realize that the environment is so relaxed and they are allowed to listen to music and such.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My daughter's stint in her CES was the best two years of her MCPS life so far - she's now 12 and was not selected by the lottery for a magnet middle school spot. They were the only two years where she was the least bit academically challenged, and the only two years she had all-around *excellent* teachers. The environment was relaxed, but in a good way, to encourage creativity and keep stress at bay. The school had a meditation room, with yoga balls and equipment. It wast just a really healthy and intellectual environment.

Now she's in Algebra 1 and advanced orchestra in 6th grade, but even those are quite uninteresting, since she's familiar with all that material and beyond.

MCPS is really doing a disservice to advanced children by not expanding the number of magnet seats.

Thank you. My son loves it but I didn’t realize that the environment is so relaxed and they are allowed to listen to music and such.

At our school, it was not relaxed. Sometimes it was a bit much even; however, I felt DC learned a great deal and became a strong writer because of this experience.

[Anonymous]

4th Grade teacher allowed music during our time at CES. DC loved it.

[Anonymous]

CES was not a good fit for my kid. The teacher was disorganized and seemed to be one of those who should have retired or left teaching a while ago, but remained. My take is that it may be teacher-dependent and the teachers are given autonomy to run the class as they choose. So maybe your DC's teacher is more of a less-structured type. But even in non-CES classes, they are on chromebooks a LOT for assignments and then down time.

Does your DC think it's too relaxed or not working? Is he doing well, learning, and enjoying it? That's really the measure.

[Anonymous]

Seems to vary. My dc’s 4th grade ces class doesn’t listen to music during school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My daughter's stint in her CES was the best two years of her MCPS life so far - she's now 12 and was not selected by the lottery for a magnet middle school spot. They were the only two years where she was the least bit academically challenged, and the only two years she had all-around *excellent* teachers. The environment was relaxed, but in a good way, to encourage creativity and keep stress at bay. The school had a meditation room, with yoga balls and equipment. It wast just a really healthy and intellectual environment.

Now she's in Algebra 1 and advanced orchestra in 6th grade, but even those are quite uninteresting, since she's familiar with all that material and beyond.

MCPS is really doing a disservice to advanced children by not expanding the number of magnet seats.

Thank you. My son loves it but I didn’t realize that the environment is so relaxed and they are allowed to listen to music and such.

Out of curosity, why does that bother you? If a certain child learns best while multi-tasking (like a lot of ADHD folks), who does it hurt for them to wear earphones and listen to music?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My daughter's stint in her CES was the best two years of her MCPS life so far - she's now 12 and was not selected by the lottery for a magnet middle school spot. They were the only two years where she was the least bit academically challenged, and the only two years she had all-around *excellent* teachers. The environment was relaxed, but in a good way, to encourage creativity and keep stress at bay. The school had a meditation room, with yoga balls and equipment. It wast just a really healthy and intellectual environment.

Now she's in Algebra 1 and advanced orchestra in 6th grade, but even those are quite uninteresting, since she's familiar with all that material and beyond.

MCPS is really doing a disservice to advanced children by not expanding the number of magnet seats.

Thank you. My son loves it but I didn’t realize that the environment is so relaxed and they are allowed to listen to music and such.

Out of curosity, why does that bother you? If a certain child learns best while multi-tasking (like a lot of ADHD folks), who does it hurt for them to wear earphones and listen to music?

OP here- i have known about our teacher playing music for the kids while they work on writing and other assignments. I was not aware that it is causing distraction and disruption when kids want to know what music others are listening to etc

[Anonymous]

I wish my 4th graders CES class was relaxed. It’s high pressure all the time.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know about listening to music, but I recall my child’s 4th grade CES class seemed kind of chaotic to me. A lot of moving around, kids talking at different tables and sharing google docs for group assignments and peer review. I guess it’s collaborative.

[Anonymous]

CES was kind of intense for us... good for the kid though

[Anonymous]

It's really teacher-dependent. In 4th grade, ours had one teacher who was very organized and always had her classes under complete control, and the other was more relaxed, letting kids work in whatever ways suited them best, and happy to let the class discussions wander off on tangents as long as they were learning something.

My daughter and her friend miraculously ended up in exactly the right classroom for their individual personalities, but any time the classes combined to do an activity led by one teacher or the other, one of the girls was always miserable. Which type of teacher they click with really does depend on each individual kid's personality.

In 5th, the teachers were also pretty much opposites of each other, too. But I will say that both years were great for my kid.