Reply to Australian needing advice on schools

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Australian needing advice on schools"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Reviving a 2 year old thread to plug BISW?  School must be short on enrollment. Everyone knows it’s one of the worst privates in DC. No admissions standards. Everyone gets in. People leave as soon as they can for other schools.[/quote]

I’m the mom who maybe woke up the beast and revived it :). I’m not American and just recently discovered DC Urban Moms and Dads and so out of curiosity searched BISW and came across this thread. I have two kids going to BISW and we are the happiest. Our kids are also very happy. We tried the Catholic School system for two years but as a family never clicked. We then tried another international DC private school that is highly respected and we loved the families there very much but our kids did not like the environment. Too much bullying and meanness that we were not used to (similar to your style of comment except constant :)). This is our 8th year living in DC. We’ve now been at BISW for a couple of years and could not be happier academically and personally. Wish the school had better sports facilities and teams but it is what it is.

So yes, I wanted to set the record straight as a mom of two kids at the school that there are families who are extremely happy there (or we would not be sending our kids there ;)).[/quote]

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on BISW. We are an American family living overseas, and our 3 kids currently go to a British school that uses a mix of the English National Curriculum and IB. My kids are all in Primary still so it is primarily English National Curriculum. We couldn't be happier with our school and with the quality of the teaching, and with the curriculum itself. In our experience, particularly for early literacy and math, the ENC is far superior to any of the various American approaches we experienced ourselves or with our kids before moving overseas. You can have the best school and teachers in the world, but if the curriculum they are teaching is flawed (looking at you, Reading Wars), then you will not get good results.

The British school culture also places a really strong emphasis on developmentally appropriate practices, pastoral care, and building community and collaboration. Our experience with DC privates is that there is a pervasive and toxic level of [b]competitiveness and individualism[/b]. Nowhere is that more evident than in the posts on this forum, where a parent saying that they are completely satisfied with their non-Big 3/5/10 school is met with disdain, ridicule, contempt, and gloating.

We will only be in DC for one year, then we will move overseas again to another British school. So for the continuity of our kids' education we are seriously considering BISW. If you can give any more insight on the school, particularly the primary level, I'd love to know. [/quote]

Pretty sure that these are the two qualities which made America the most admired, respected, and successful country in the world.[/quote]

That is true but at the price of our kids’ mental health. We have a mental breakdown pandemic in our schools but rarely gets attention and maybe it starts from the families and parents. We need to find ways to maintain that competitiveness and edge in a healthier way for our kids. Topic for another thread but as a school counselor, I’m interested to learn people’s views.[/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