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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]

Your view of education seems narrowly focused on academics. Private schools, especially in the elementary years, tend to have richer arts offerings, more time spent on arts and "specials," more assemblies and cross-grade activities, character education, more outdoor time, smaller classes, and a cozier, more "customer-service" orientation (ie, if you email the school, you get a quick response, problems are solved pretty quickly, everyone knows your kid and your family). It might be academically better (depends on your public and probably varies by teacher/area) but it's also just different.

When you get to MS, you do start to see sharper differences academically, I think, but again, it depends on the specific schools (and we had a pretty crummy experience with math instruction at our private school--our public is much stronger in that regard). I think you are kind of creating a problem that doesn't exist. Your kid sounds happy. The issues you worry about (not developing resilience or facing challenge) seem like projection from your experience or your spouse's experience. If your child graduates from HS without ever having faced challenging academics, that could be a real issue. But I would say that it's normal for a smart kid not to have run up against anything challenging academically at this point. In fact I think it's more normal than not. [/quote]

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