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Reply to "New to Private School World, Need Advice – Rising 4th Grader"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. Ok thanks everyone. I really appreciate the responses.

Serious question then - why private school if they don’t differentiate any better than public?

He’s in a Spanish immersion school, which we hoped would help enrich him a bit… and it has. But with Covid learning interruption they are still doing kindergarten level Spanish in third grade. He picks up languages very quickly so it’s another thing that’s now way too easy for him.

He’s a normal kid.  He doesn’t want to take extra schooling on weekends or after school. He wants to ride bikes with friends and play with legos - and I value those things for him too.  I do understand there are other ways he can learn to overcome a challenge - he’s been interested in starting guitar lessons, etc. - but there is a uniqueness to the school environment, and with the sheer amount of time spent there, I was hoping to find a place where he could actually be challenged regularly.

Thanks for the feedback though.  Back to the drawing board I guess! [/quote]
Each school will be different. However, focusing on LS, the lack of differentiation is compensated for by having smaller class sizes so every student gets more individualized attention and the overall level of each kid will be within the same range and higher than public which will allow for the class to cover more material in more depth.

Also, most schools don’t do testing so teaching and curriculum is structured around learning instead of the tests. This is related to the level of the students in that in public schools/teachers are evaluated based on how many students meet minimum standards which means that there are incentives to ensure that resources and attention are focused on lower performing kids and higher performing kids frequently can be ignored. In private you can guarantee that your kid won’t be ignored. For some kids it doesn’t make a big difference, they work independently in any case. For other kids this can make a big difference.

My feeling is that K-3 really doesn’t matter, so long as your public option is not a Title I school although even Title I ESs can be fine. At 4th is when learning organization and study skills becomes more important. You will see many privates focus on this at that age over actual instruction, which I think is good. Learning how to learn is probably the most important thing that kids can learn.

However, each school is different, each kid is different and YMMV.

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