Reply to Tell me about Shepherd in the upper grades

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Thank you to the immediate PP - very helpful.

Currently we are at a school where our children are really the only ones of their race/SES, so we are unconcerned with schools that have larger populations of a certain type of demographic. We are just looking for a bit more of a mix than we currently have, because we don't currently have one and that's not ideal for anyone or any community.

[b]My main question that I suppose the tour will help with is how does Shepherd help higher-achieving children? [/b]I am not talking about geniuses or formal gifted programs, but I am talking about things like are they able to provide a cohort and enriching support for children who read a few levels above grade? This is something we are struggling with right now, and I have hope that Shepherd deals with this type of situation more regularly and therefore more effectively. [/quote]

PP you're responding to here.  Whoa, looks like the thread devolved a bit while I was at happy hour!

To answer the PP who thought I was stereotyping AAs: I'm black myself, and the BBQ comment was in jest.  I was more speaking to how happy I am to have our kids grow up in such a diverse and inclusive community--at least, that's been our experience thus far.  Oh, and I also know Protestants, Muslims, nonreligious people, etc. in SP--so a very welcoming place.

OP, to answer your follow-up question:  I asked about differentiation and "gifted and talented" programs last spring when we were deciding whether to enroll at Shepherd, and here's what the principal emailed me in response.  It sounds like they do a variety of things:

"As long as Shepherd is an IB school there will be no formal Gifted and Talented program.  Programs such as this go against the IB philosophy.  However, we accommodate the needs of advanced students in many different ways and it changes based on the needs of our students.  Some things that we have done or we are currently doing:  small group instruction provided by the teacher, students are grouped via their ability based on various assessments,  small group instruction provided by another teacher on the grade level because the other teacher has students with like abilities, small group instruction on a different grade level because there are no like ability students on the grade level, small group pull out instruction provided by a resource person, differentiated assignments (homework and classwork) and various enrichment opportunities during the day and after school."

She also said all Shepherd teachers have ongoing training in differentiation.  Hope that addresses your question.

Oh, and just another piece of anecdotal info: I know many parents in the lower and upper grades with professional backgrounds--some of whom have MDs, JDs, PhDs, MBAs, Ivy degrees, etc., and many of whom I'd imagine may have had the same questions as you--and they all chose Shepherd.  Just FWIW.
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