Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We are struggling with whether to keep our child in the base school or go to the center. We had been leaning toward staying but the cohort is small and the program is brand new, so we are a little concerned there won't be a peer group. The principal said they are doing the cluster model. Reasons we were leaning toward staying is that our school has immersion, our child is very happy there, and we have other kids in the school. Our DC is not complaining that she is bored currently.
The vast majority of benefits of AAP is cohort of children yours will be with. You already have a similar vein of that in immersion, so the difference is going to be rather negligible. Immersion (some programs) are competitive and attracts like-minded type-A parents who are educational focused to know about it and apply ahead of time. If your child is doing well, I wouldn't move them.
This. The immersion programs attract parents who are focused on language development or don't want their kids at their base school. You end up with involved parents who are focused on school and the kids tend to reflect that. I think the majority of the students accepted into AAP at our ES were in the LI program. Very few left for the center, the few who did were struggling socially. They struggled at the Center as well; they were not easy to get along with kids.
DS asked to move to the Center in 5th grade because math was boring and he wanted faster math. We told him that the curriculum for Advanced Math, that he was in, was the same at the base school as the Center so he decided to stay at the base school. He moved into AAP in MS with no issues, straight As in all the AAP subjects and Algebra 1 H. He was not hindered by not going to the Center.