Getting into St. Albans

[Anonymous]

I'm not going to say anymore on the matter beyond this:

I think it's rather funny that you assume moms and dads are unbiased when it comes to a $30,000 annual investment and the reputation of their child's school. Some parents love STA. Some are ambivalent. Some can't wait to kid their kids out. And many range somewhere in between those endpoints. Heck, I know a number of families where one parent really likes the school and the other parent really doesn't. I even know one family where their disagreement about the school played a notable role in their divorce. I think people affiliated with the school are automatically biased.

Whoever said I was or wasn't affiliated with the school myself? Whoever said I couln't be biased and have facts? As a matter of fact, I have a tremendous amount of factual information. It's my interpretation of that information that is biased -- as almost anyone's is to some degree or another.

I wish the prospective STA parent the best of luck in their quest for "the facts."

I'd say more, but I just implicitly agreed with a person I respect a whole heckuva lot that I wouldn't engage in an argument abou STA's merits and flaws on this board. But if I ever fully dove into one, I can guarantee that there would be a whole lot of facts.

To the poster of the above message. This is not to engage in an argument but some people here may be interested in what you think are both the education advantages and disadvantages of STA, especially the fact that it is a single sex school. Is it possible for you to provide some of those facts? I don't personally have an interest in sending a child there in the future but this is an interesting topic for parents looking at schools.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Please do post the information you feel would be helpful for others to make an informed decision.

[Anonymous]

Out of deference to the OP, here's a post.

First, let me begin by saying that I have no strong beliefs about single gender education, and I’ve not observed it to really have a significant overall net benefit or detriment to students’ academic development. If you take a 99th percentile kid (of which there are a very great many at STA) and take him as a graduate of STA, GDS, Sidwell, Maret, Landon, Potomac, etc., you can make a pretty safe bet that the kid is going to have done amazing things academically. The academic success of these schools has a lot more to do with their admissions process than it has to do with anything that happens inside the walls of the classroom.

Second, I will say that an all boys school could potentially be a wonderful place for boys. I don’t know so much about upper schools in the area, so I’ll limit my ramblings to the middle grades (4 through 8) that constitute STA’s Lower School. If I were running an all boys school, which I would be happy to do one day, I would start by making sure the boys came to school every day in old, easily washable clothes. Why? Because I think a hugely important part of a boy’s education should be experiential learning. In the past decades, we’ve seen how much better girls fare in American schools, most of which are quite traditional. So why is there this idea that boys benefit from very traditional schools? Nothing in the literature suggests that.

Anyway, back to the clothes: So, boys on average being creatures who learn by doing, they would be outside acting out the scenes they read in adventure and fantasy stories, doing science in the mud or with gobs of messy chemicals, learning about probability and statistics by shooting baskets, and writing about the mad dash through the woods they just had. The boys would be up and moving all the time, and the classroom would certainly not be primarily limited to a stuffy rectangular prism.

I would also make sure the boys spent a lot of time working in partners and teams, and they would consistently be challenged with building things or otherwise physically manipulating things in a way that required reading and writing skills and utilized mathematical ones. Cooperation and verbal communication skills would be woven through everything possible. Competition would be present, but deemphasized. (Boys are already often naturally competitive. They don’t need to be made more so. What they need is to develop better cooperative skills.) The emphasis would be on learning how to compete in a responsible, good-natured way. Unstructured play opportunities would be just as important and present as structured sports ones.

Anyway, I say all this on the one hand just to be wistful. But I also say it to illustrate that St. Albans (and Landon and Mater Dei and The Avalon School) are nothing at all like my pipe dream. If anything, they’re almost polar opposites. All of these schools are very traditional, fairly to very structured, and highly competitive.

As for St. Albans, here are some specific observations about its academic program:

1) Most of the curriculum is test based. Vocabulary tests, Spanish tests, spelling tests, math unit tests, social studies chapter tests, geography quizzes, reading quizzes, etc. are a fairly omnipresent part of the St. Albans experience starting in fourth grade. The measure of one’s learning is most definitely taken in terms of grades.

2) Some partner work is occasionally present for academic projects, but actual cooperative learning as defined by educational research (starting with Johnson and Johnson decades ago) is rarely (if ever) used. This has not always been the case. For example, Peter Barrett (now head of St. Patrick's) had implemented some cooperative learning at STA prior to his departure from there.

3) Students compete for academic awards based on their grades.

4) Students in a class all complete the same assignments, do the same readings, etc. until seventh grade when an honors program is implemented. Students are either invited or not invited into the honors program.

5) The curriculum is extremely teacher directed. Students do not play a part in deciding what novels they read, what topics they study, what math concepts they explore more in depth, etc. (That's not to say students never get to make any choices at all, though. For example, they might be asked to do a report on a current event.)

6) Science is done in the laboratory. Most science activities are labs with pre-set procedures that require the students to write up a formal lab report at the end of it. (Lab reports are homework.)

7) Homework consistently takes many students in fourth and fifth grade 90 to 120 minutes and more by time they reach sixth (and then even more in seventh and eighth). Some students use a study period they receive at the end of the day wisely, and others don’t (which can mean more or less homework).

8) Typical homework assignments the first couple of years tend to be things like completing a math worksheet of 30 long division problems, doing a crossword puzzle with 20 clues, or reading a chapter and answering questions about it. As the students progress, homework really runs the gamut.

9) A large amount of the work production students do is done at home.

10) Math is taught in what one would typically call a highly traditional, rote manner (with the occasional exception of a seventh grade math teacher).

11) The reading curriculum in grades 4 through 6 consists of reading about four or so novels a year. The first two years typically involve quizzes or questions about the readings. By sixth grade it’s not uncommon to do some written responses/note-taking with the reading. Teacher-directed discussions sometimes occur.

12) The writing curriculum consists primarily of assigning the students writing prompts. Students begin to learn about how to incorporate literary devices or styles into their writing typically in seventh grade.

13) What educational literature refers to as “project-based learning” is rare. Students sometimes do the occasional research paper or more open-ended project at school, but any elaborate projects are likely to be homework.

14) The students begin writing term papers, complete with APA or MLA (or the like) citation in sixth grade. I think all the guys become intimately familiar with the Son of Citation Machine website!

15) Specific assignments in grades four through six often vary dramatically with different classroom teachers.

In my opinion, within the context of the academic program described above (in such a scattershot manner, sorry), there is not a significant academic benefit to be gained from an all boys environment.

I’m not going to get into any observations of the social aspect of St. Albans at this time.

[Anonymous]

Do the same observations apply to the academic program at NCS?

[Anonymous]

The NCS lower and middle school curriculum is also quite traditional, but many of the STA observations do not apply to NCS.

Points that definitely do apply include #1, #2 (except for the specific name reference), #4 (except honors program is different), #5, #7, and #9. #10 sort of applies. Some grades are more or less traditional than others.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I appreciate the time and thought you put into your comments on STA/NCS.

[Anonymous]

Who are you????

[Anonymous]

The person with a chip on his/her shoulder!

[Anonymous]

I must admit that STA and NCS sound less attractive now. Are there some good middle and high schools out there that are good for boys? One of my greatest concerns in evaluating schools is that a number of them appear to give too much HW (which means that the teachers are not teaching the material properly at school) and also that so many of the kids need tutoring to keep up since the curriculums are probably 1 year too advanced for the majority of even these very bright children. Can the person with inside knowledge reply to this? Any thoughts about Maret?

[Anonymous]

Interesting what you said about Peter Barret and his time at St Albans. I have heard similar things from others. He is a truly amazing man both for his academic vision and personal approach to his students. I can not wait to see what he does with the St Patrick's upper school. Not too many on this board seem to be highly aware of or tuned in to St Patricks and that may well turn out to be a major mistake for those so rabid right now over the "big 3" schools for PK and K. Ten years from now, when these kids are in highschool, it may well be a whole different ballgame.

One of my husband's best friends had him at St Albans' many years ago. He was a great teacher even back then. He seems to be doing amazing work as head of St Patrick's. St Albans' should have never let him go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of my greatest concerns in evaluating schools is that a number of them appear to give too much HW (which means that the teachers are not teaching the material properly at school).

DD is at NCS in their Lower School. She seems to have little homework and she is doing fine. I think that it depends on the child. If a girl is relatively organized she can get much of it done in school. There are some classes that are taught at a slighly more advanced level but they tend to mix them with slower classes for balance.

Overheard in carpool (where the kids in the back seat somehow do not realize you are listening): "I have so much homework!" "Me too." "Well, actually, I did most of it during flex time in school today." "Yeah, me too - I finished all of it." "But it was a lot, wasn't it?" "Sure was."

So the bark may be worse than the bite, or the child may have many other activities to juggle. We like when it's tough (although homework quantity does not equate with rigor) and sometimes wish it were more so.

[Anonymous]

My fifth grade NCS daughter had anywhere from an hour to more than two hours when lots of projects were due in fourth grade. Every once in a while, like during ERB week, she had very light to no homework. It's very rare this year that she has less than an hour, and it's usually closer to two. She's fairly organized and not a procastinator. Occasionally things take a little extra time because she needs help, but that's normal from talking with most parents.

[Anonymous]

Landon.

[Anonymous]

What significant differences are there between Landon and what has been posted here so far about St. Albans? I know there's the religious piece at St. Albans, but are there other big differences?

[Anonymous]

Academic reputation seems to be much stronger at St Albans.