I think if you are asking this question, and have the cash, it is basically a forgone conclusion that you want private. My 1st grader is not at RH but we have loads of friends there and hear a LOT of great things, even that it is a special place. Regardless of the age span of DCUM posters, it's fair to say we all were raised in an era of 1/2 day k, 2 recesses, and daily PE. That era of public education is gone (and childhood obesity soars).
If I had the cash, my child would be in a Waldorf-like school. But all this said, my child enjoyed K, had fun, and learned a lot. We just supplement with a lot of after school activities and weekend play.
Good luck with your decision. We all want the best for our kids.

My son just finished Kindergarten with MCPS. Came home 3-4 days a week crying that he never got to play. This was especially problematic in winter when they watched movies during recess. (I find that outrageous by the way).

Kindergarteners at my son's school weren't allowed snacks. (All other grades were allowed to have a snack so this made no sense)

My son went from preschool lasting 2 and 1/2 hours with a snack to a day where the bus picked him up at 8:15 and dropped him off at 3:45 and he had lunch and maybe 20 minutes of recess and gym once a week. My son has a lot of energy and this was very difficult for him even though he really liked school. It was just exhausting. We couldn't do after school activities until the end of the year.

The only thing that saved him was that he loves drawing and writing so even though sitting still is tough, he enjoyed it. When it's time for math, that will be a problem.

The centers provided opportunities to play with puzzles but my son said it was pretty boring.

They did read fun books (and my son rarely likes most books so I was thrilled).

Academically, I thought the teacher did VERY well - especially with some difficult students.

I think adding a 15 minute snack and two breaks with 5-10 minutes of exercise or play would have made the say so much better.

Play based learning never really worked for us for the sole reason that it really became an excuse for preschools to let kids roam around. If there is a plan for how activities really do teach something, I think it's great. Very few schools and teachers do this well from my experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Years ago (and still in many, many private schools), K was half-day, play-based - with the goal of "socializing" kids and getting them acclimated to a school environment.

It is highly academic now, especially with the implementation of Curriculum 2.0.

Having said that, however, I don't know if you can fight it - or if you'd want to fight it if this is where we're headed.

Personally, I like 2.0 and having worked with the Common Core at the secondary level, I appreciate how rigor is built into these standards. They are indeed complex and comprehensive - with a focus on critical thinking, as the curriculum tends to backmap from IB.

Now, that does mean that K is much more rigorous than it was in the past. But a good teacher can always make learning fun. And much of 2.0 includes discourse, which often translates into structured, truly collaborative group work.

Again, it's how the teacher approaches 2.0 and scaffolds lessons to meet the needs of his/her students.

19:13's comments seem a bit outdated. Curriculum 2.0 does not emphasize the use of worksheets. It emphasizes problem solving.

Really? It must be differently implemented in different schools then. We've not noticed any let up in the onslaught of worksheets in the past 2 years of Curriculum 2.0. Hoping that changes next year in a HGC, as we've been promised it will. Our child who loves to learn has come to hate school largely because of all the mind-numbing worksheets.

And that is truly sad.

Again, if a teacher isn't at that level, the lessons will reflect that. It is a very difficult transition for many elementary school teachers.

The weeding out should occur at the college level when students begin to choose their majors. Sadly, the university system isn't set up that way.

Anonymous wrote:Former RH parent. I was not happy with the teaching overall there. Perhaps one good teacher in 3 years. I was often in the classroom. "Play-based learning" consisted of kids being told to rotate among "learning centers" by a system of groups for 15 minutes while the teacher gave "reading group" to a small group of children. Basically, all kids got one small group lesson of 15 minutes or less in reading a day and the rest of the time they spent goofing off in the "learning centers". An example of learning center might be using stamps to copy "spelling words" from a weekly list. Self-directed children might do and gain something from this, but most kids were just playing and not learning.

Lots of worksheets. Lots of cutting, pasting and coloring of very mundane worksheets.

Math was a little better, with lessons like picking items out of a treasure chest to learn probability or charting. But, still not really play-based learning.

Recess is kind of chaotic there, and that's the only activity besides PE once a week.

In retrospect, I think RH is not a great lower school. Perhaps better than other publics, but still not great.

We have been out a few years, so I don't know if much has changed with a new principal. But, a principal can only do so much if the teachers and the curriculum are the same. I really don't see an improvement under curriculum 2.0 in either reading or math. Assessments are much more opaque and don't really capture true skills mastery IMO.

You obviously want less, not more play based learning. Sounds like the problem was too much structured learning.

Former RH parent. I was not happy with the teaching overall there. Perhaps one good teacher in 3 years. I was often in the classroom. "Play-based learning" consisted of kids being told to rotate among "learning centers" by a system of groups for 15 minutes while the teacher gave "reading group" to a small group of children. Basically, all kids got one small group lesson of 15 minutes or less in reading a day and the rest of the time they spent goofing off in the "learning centers". An example of learning center might be using stamps to copy "spelling words" from a weekly list. Self-directed children might do and gain something from this, but most kids were just playing and not learning.

Lots of worksheets. Lots of cutting, pasting and coloring of very mundane worksheets.

Math was a little better, with lessons like picking items out of a treasure chest to learn probability or charting. But, still not really play-based learning.

Recess is kind of chaotic there, and that's the only activity besides PE once a week.

In retrospect, I think RH is not a great lower school. Perhaps better than other publics, but still not great.

We have been out a few years, so I don't know if much has changed with a new principal. But, a principal can only do so much if the teachers and the curriculum are the same. I really don't see an improvement under curriculum 2.0 in either reading or math. Assessments are much more opaque and don't really capture true skills mastery IMO.