Tell me about Math and 1st grade and differentiation. How does it work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, getting off track here (and I am not a PP). My issue with Feynman would be that there seems to be no firm criteria for entrance. In fact it does not appear that any testing at all is required for preschool. Sure, they are welcome to do their thing, but makes me wonder how many of the kids there are really that "gifted" and instead have parents that are just wiling to fork out the extra cash. Anyways....

I'm a parent of a preschooler at Feynman.

There is no IQ test that is reliable for a 3 year old so it's not really fair in my opinion to fault the school for not having firm acceptance criteria when none exists. For older children they do have testing requirements as part of the admissions requirements. Moreover, I don't believe that any private school has firm acceptance criteria. If you spend any time on the private school forums during admissions season you'll see how highly variable the decisions can be.

However, the founders of the school took great care in creating their admissions process. They visited many highly regarded gifted schools and university-based summer enrichment programs throughout the country and spoke to many gifted education experts. They took from these sources the best practices for identifying gifted young children and apply these practices in their admissions process.

I'm sure you understand that I don't want to speak about the specifics of my child's situation and acceptance. I will say that we completed a very in depth parent questionnaire. The director and teacher at my son's former daycare/preschool program also participated in the process. The director of the other program had many discussions with Feynman School during the admissions process. And they submitted a very detailed educational and social skills evaluation along with a written recommendation. I signed a voluntary waiver to allow this evaluation to be sent directly to the school without my prior review. My child also participated in an observation session where they watched him in free play and also did various activities with him involving patterns and problem solving among other things.