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Elementary curriculum at Big 3 schools
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Anonymous
| Can anyone speak to curriculum differences at Beauvoir, Sidwell, Maret, GDS at the kindergarten/1st grade level/2nd grade? Is one more rigorous than the other, and it what ways? I'd be equally interested to hear that there aren't substantial differences in what gets taught. |
Anonymous
Wouldn't one need to have attended or sent children to all three to make this assessment? |
Anonymous
| Four, actually -- which is probably why no one has answered. |
Anonymous
Well should we speculate, like most of the other posters on this board? I'll start. First of all, I won't respond about Maret, since they're NOT part of the big 3. I will say, Sidwell, Beauvoir, and GDS have VERY competitive curricula. Ok... who's next? 
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Anonymous
| I'd speculate that all four school would roll their collective/institutional eyes at the notion that kindergarten through 2nd grade should be "rigorous." |
Anonymous
| What do you mean by rigorous? Are they reading Skakespeare in K? I would love to hear from parents with children at any of the three schools listed. We didn't get in and disspointed. I'm hoping that the school we will attend will not be so different in the curriculum that my son will be at such a disadvantage when he apply say at the 4th grade. Thanks! |
Anonymous
| PP, maybe you should proof your parent statement carefully next time . . . . |
Anonymous
If Maret is not one of the big 3, then why is it so competitve to get into (see recent thread on Maret)? |
Anonymous
Because Maret is tiny and has an airtight sibling/other priority policy. |
Anonymous
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OP here. I know there are parents in DC who send their kids to more than one of the schools I mentioned. Perhaps none of them are reading this message! Frankly, we are very interested in GDS but are also concerned by talk of a lower school principal described as "checked out" by various parents I have spoken with. The same parents tend to be dissatisfied by the curriculum, or lack of it, in the lower grades. Since our kids are far away from high school this is worrisome. At the same time, we are very attracted to the school's philosophy, mission, and commitment to diversity. If anyone has a kid at GDS and also at one of the other schools, please do weigh in! You are best positioned to comment on whether GDS is truly a bit amorphous, for lack of a better word, in the lower grades. If so, does it concern you? Do you understand how the school is going to bring it together as the kids grow? Is the early grades curriculum more substantive at Beauvoir or Maret or Sidwell?
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Anonymous
| if you like gds, try to get in there. you should apply to other schools and cross your fingers and hope you have a choice. all of the schools are excellent. They all have strengths and weaknesses. Picking one private school over another is like picking between hagen daz and ben and jerry's. your kids is going to be happy with either one |
SAM2
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OP, of course there are parents here with kids at each of those schools, and of course people have opinions about those different schools and their curricula. But your original question is really just asking for blatant comparison on a very subjective and amorphous basis. First, as someone already pointed out, it's really hard for anyone to make credible comparisons unless she's actually had a child in K-2nd in more than one of these schools. (And if someone has been at more than one of these schools in K-2nd, that's a pretty significant switch, and there's a good chance there's more to that story, which might skew the answer you get from that person.) Second, I can pretty much guarantee that if someone tries to answer your question and "rates" the curriculum at each of those schools, the whole thread will quickly fall into a big free-for-all, because other parent will feel compelled to defend their schools against criticism. If you're looking for useful info, you won't find it this way. I'd recommend: (1) Go to each school's website and read it's curriculum for K-2nd. I recall that most are pretty extensive. (2) Search the DCUM archives. I know there have been other discussions of curriculum at these schools, and also discussions of how rigorous a curriculum can/should be for younger grades. (3) Start over by asking specific and pointed questions about each individual school and it's curriculum. For example, something like this -- "GDS parents, I notice the K-2nd math curriculum posted here ____ [INSERT LINK] is very strong on teaching fractions early. Do your children effectively absorb the lessons that early?" Or else "Beauvoir parents, I notice the Beauvoir curriculum is very extensive and detailed. Do you find it to be a rigorous program academically, or is that detail just meant as a map? Are you happy with how rigorous Beauvoir's program is at these younger grades?" I know it's a lot more work to do all this than just to ask for a simple comparison, but the responses you'll get will be lots more useful. And of course you're free to ignore my advice and proceed however you want -- free to be you and me, and all that. Good luck. |
Anonymous
| OP, you might want to try searching the archives too if you haven't already. I remember a similar thread within the past year where a parent with a child at GDS and Beauvoir (I think) compared the curriculum of the two schools in some detail. |