Janney or Sheridan?

[Anonymous]

Local privates rarely if ever differentiate math at this level. And the feeling stalled reaction is pretty common as well -- many parents (or maybe it's just mothers) feel that their kid was learning faster at home than in PreK or K. Some of that is a function of one-on-one teaching (and teaching only what the kid wants to learn/seems to pick up easily). And another aspect can be that schools are laying down a more solid framework for skills-building than parents typically do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you deciding for next fall, 2010?

Our DC is at Sheridan and I concur with 13:38. The teacher : student ration feels very low at Sheridan, which we like.

re: math. My child's strongest subject is math and I feel like he has been stalled in the early grades. He could work at a much faster pace than the Sheridan curriculum will allow him. Teachers give him a little something extra to do occasionally but I don't feel it's real differentiation. Now, I think that would certainly also be the case at Janney too. So that reality probably ought not tip the balance for you. However other private schools might do a better job of accelerating strong math students (but you didn't mention others which is why I asked if your DS is entering one or the other in 2010).

GL!

Thanks very much, PP (and others)! We're still a year out. I asked specifically about Sheridan because it's the one private school we toured where DH walked out thinking, "yeah, I would have really liked going to school here, and it would have been really good for me" -- since DS1 is, at least at this point, a stunningly accurate "mini-me" of DH, that reaction means a lot to us. The lack of math differentiation gives me some pause, though -- which schools might nurture this gift better? We'd certainly be willing to take a second (or first!) look at schools that might make more sense for DS1 in this regard. Thanks again!

I wouldn't assume that schools which push harder in math "nurture this gift better." I'd actually suggest that the opposite might be true. As another PP mentioned, many if not most private schools don't do strong math differentiation until later in elementary school, and the math specialists at those schools can explain some good reasons for that. I can't, not being a math expert. But I have seen how this worked at our school, which doesn't differentiate in math until grade 3, and I can tell you there's been some pretty impressive success among kids there.

Just another way to think about this.

[Anonymous]

Janney. It is free. Put 20k in your child's college fund and trust me, youll be really happy 12 years from now. Spend 5k on really exciting enrichment programs.

[Anonymous]

Sheridan has one class per grade of up to 28 kids in one room. They do have 2 teachers but that is still a lot of kids in one room. I don't know what the class sizes are at janney

[Anonymous]

K at Sheridan has 3 teachers and 24-26 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Janney. It is free. Put 20k in your child's college fund and trust me, youll be really happy 12 years from now. Spend 5k on really exciting enrichment programs.

I have one in private and one in public. Extra enrichment on the side is easier said than done. It takes a lot of driving around and it wears you out. It is hard to really match what goes on in the school. That said, 30K is a lot of money. You will get the core stuff at public school.

[Anonymous]

Sheridan

[Anonymous]

Wrong. No classes have an enrollment of 28.

Sheridan has one class per grade of up to 28 kids in one room.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janney. It is free. Put 20k in your child's college fund and trust me, youll be really happy 12 years from now. Spend 5k on really exciting enrichment programs.

I have one in private and one in public. Extra enrichment on the side is easier said than done. It takes a lot of driving around and it wears you out. It is hard to really match what goes on in the school. That said, 30K is a lot of money. You will get the core stuff at public school.

+1

And at the younger grades, kids are totally wiped by the end of the school day. Yeah, a "boyish boy" will happily play sports after school, but if you think he's going to get much out of an after-school music class (even if he really digs music), you're probably kidding yourself. Maybe starting around fourth grade (if he's not buried under worthless homework assignments), but not likely much before then.

[Anonymous]

"That is just so not true about Janney. "

Why do you say that there is no differentiation?