Reply to How to help child succeed at BASIS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For every comment on here finding fault with BASIS, there’s another comment on this thread or a different thread where people are singing its praises or eager to find out if their child will get off the waitlist.  BASIS is clearly great for some and terrible for others.  It’s important and helpful to know what generally makes it a good fit or not to the extent folks are trying to decide for their own child.  But I’m the end everyone has their own priorities and those are not right or wrong.  Just different.

But for a moment, I’d like to get back to the original question on here regarding success at BASIS.  How can parents help their children? Are the parents quizzing their kids?  Do students ever/often form study groups together?  When students receive disappointing “pre-comps” scores what specific measures are taken to ensure they improve by the end of year comps?  How much do pre-comps count for the course grade?  How is the “90s Club” or any other measure of success presented to the students to help them stay motivated and focused?  I heard the school has a spirit week.  Do students feel like they are “in it together” or do they feel more competitive with one another?  Are the most successful students generally successful from the beginning, or is it common for “stragglers” to get the help they need and rise to the top?  [/quote]

As a parent of a kid at BASIS, I’ve heard from other parents that it’s a mix of everything.  Kids who are struggling at the school often tend to leave early (5th, 6th grade, maybe 7th.). The ones who stay seem to get the hang of how the place works, and this may help with establishing study groups because they are mostly aligned with their study habits.  I think the school administration is generally supportive, and the students are generally supportive of each other, with students being less cut throat than what I hear from my friends whose kids are in the top privates.   There are some really good teachers and some that aren’t so good…like any school.  I’ve also seen some kids who are friends with my child start off as average, and then eventually climb into the top 10-20% with hard work (based on the results from awards ceremonies.)

I don’t know how to answer your question on how to prep them for BASIS except for encouraging strong executive functioning skills.   A lot of this is taught at the school and comes with time, but as a parent you can work with your child over the summer by having set schedules at home and encouraging your child to write down what they plan to do daily and checking off completed tasks.  Although I don’t think this is unique to BASIS, it will help your child manage their workload once the school year starts.  [/quote]

You see knowledgeable and helpful so can I follow-up with this: I have seen reports on DCUM of kids who manage to get most homework done during school hours. In your experience is that regularly possible? [/quote]
My sixth grader is incredibly anti school and does the absolute minimum; in elementary school he refused to do any of his projects, which was the only homework. At Basis, he spent most of 5th grade playing video games and I haven't seen him do a minute of schoolwork this year. The thing is, he learns enough and does enough work at school that he's passing, with not completely awful grades. For us, that's success. The bare minimum at Basis is adequate, which I don't think is true at most other schools. Kids with higher standards might choose to do more work. [/quote]

We’re a very happy BASIS family with two high-achieving BASIS kids.  That said, I appreciate this post, as I have a third kid who’s not academically inclined and who does the bare minimum (sometimes less) in school.

Despite the sibling preference and the ease that would come from having all three at the same school, we opted not to send our youngest to BASIS.  We were concerned that the bare minimum wouldn’t be enough, that BASIS would be an unhappy experience, and that consistently underperforming relative to one’s peers would be bad for self-esteem.  Our child also did not want to go.  If I had felt that coasting along on minimum effort would have led to consistently passing grades, maybe we would have made a different decision.[/quote]

I think that's something that parents do need to consider.  BASIS does work the kids hard.  DS is a BASIS grad, started in 5th and is now in college.  He is a very high performing but special needs kid, still managed to do quite well on 13 APs and got high grades and a good SAT score which got him into a prestigious college with a generous scholarship.  But it was a lot of work, and even now he's still in some ways working through a level of academic burnout in college and feels like he lacked a chunk of the social and non-academic side of school due to all of the work (compounded by the pandemic).

BASIS works its kids hard - some parents who already have tutors and supports will, I'm sure, do quite fine - but there will also be kids who maybe easily got straight A's in their DCPS ES who will find BASIS a bit lot more challenging.[/quote]

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