Reply to Quality of education at Washington International School (primary school)

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Quality of education at Washington International School (primary school)"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I agree with the PPs about having a great experience at the primary school.  My child was there from PreK through 5th and is now at the middle school.  One reason I think people have the impression that math and science are weak is because of the way the IB Primary Years Program works.  There are interdisciplinary units of inquiry instead of separate periods or times for math or science.  Everything is integrated into one unit. For example, one of the units I recall from Kindergarten was a unit on water.  The children studied all aspects of water, and everything was related to that unit - social studies (geography of lakes, rivers, oceans), science (all forms of water - freezing water, etc), math concepts about water, they read stories about water, even the music and art are related to the unit.    This is how IB works.  As a pp said earlier - no science labs in the primary school and I did hear some parents complain about that, although it didn't bother me.  They're getting plenty of lab time now in the middle school.

Students in the primary school start working with a separate math specialist in 4th grade and it continues through 5th grade.  The specialist has been there now about 3 or 4 years and she is the third since we joined the school 9 years ago.  She is excellent and the students all love her.  My child had her in both 4th and 5th and loved working with her.  The first math teacher that was at the school when we first started had a pretty weak reputation, so nobody was sad to see that teacher go.

I always had a good experience with the primary principal, but I know others who didn't.  She usually supports teachers over parents when there are conflicts, but as a former teacher myself, I think that's typically the norm in a private school unless there is something egregious on the part of the teacher.  She knew my child well and when we had discussions about my child, I felt she was spot on about personality and how to positively channel my child's sometimes alpha behavior.

Regarding teacher turnover, I disagree that there is a high turnover of classroom teachers.  We are in the Spanish program and while there have been a few that leave every year, it is really no more than any other school (again I speak as a former teacher who has worked at many different schools).  Especially as an international school, the turnover is much lower than other international schools around the world.

One thing I will point out that I was pleasantly surprised about, is the incredible quality of the English teachers.  We chose WIS because of the immersion and IB  programs.  Starting in 1st grade, each child has two classroom teachers and they switch between them - one English and one either Spanish or French.  My child's English teachers have all been outstanding.  They really instill a love of literature from a very young age and teach kids how to write, very very well.  My child has extremely strong reading and writing skills.  In addition, everything they do fosters analytical and critical thinking skills.  It is inherent in the IB program.  The 5th grade culminating project was incredible - a group interdisciplinary exhibition outlining a world issue.  They brought in math, science, social studies, art, music, community service, etc.  As parents we got to watch most of the groups in the entire 5th grade present their projects in front of an audience and it was extremely impressive.

As you can see we've been very happy with WIS and our child is speaking Spanish like a native speaker (according to all of child's middle school teachers - we don't speak Spanish at home!) and extremely happy in middle school.

Good luck on your admissions process and let me know if you have any other specific questions - I'm happy to answer them.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics