My husband and I could not be more pleased with our daughter's experience at Friends' School. She matriculated last year as a preschooler and has returned this year as a "Pre-K" student, a distinction from the "morning 3 year old class" that seems to be very important to her! We plan to return next year for Kindergarten.
Our daughter has blossomed tremendously during the past year and a half and I attribute a lot of that growth to Friends'. From preschool through 5th grade (and soon to include middle schoolers with a 6th grade opening up in Fall 2016), the entire community--from teachers to faculty to fellow parents--works hard give each child the tools that he/she needs to grow in mind, body, and heart. Academic instruction is creative, hands-on and personalized to each child's needs. Preschoolers spend roughly half of their 3-hour day outdoors in the AMAZING schoolyard, and elementary students get multiple short recess breaks in addition to the traditional lunch/recess combo. This added "play time"--even for older elementary students--has been well-researched and shown to enhance student's ability to focus and better process information during direct instruction.
Character growth is a huge part of the school's culture and a main attribute that drew our family in. We want our daughter to learn how to be a kind, empathetic and thoughtful friend while she learns reading, writing, math, etc. The social/emotional curriculum at this school is second-to-none. Teacher spend a great deal of time helping children navigate tricky situations with friends and challenging group dynamics. It is my hope that by learning these skills early on, our child will be able to concentrate on school down road rather than be all-consumed with peer dynamics.
The degree to which teachers--and even staff--get to know each child at the school is astounding. Our daughter is on the less coordinated/athletic end of the spectrum and used to avoid a lot of physical play. Her teachers introduced to her the idea of "body challenges" and the idea that any time something is hard, that's actually great, because it means you have a chance to "grow your brain" or "grow your body" by practicing. In addition, our child doesn't like to fail. The teachers have emphasized resiliency and talk about "bouncing like a ball" when you don't achieve your goal the first time rather than laying down "flat like a pancake" in defeat. The change in our daughter has been wonderful to behold. She now enjoys "body challenges" and "growing her body" by trying new, hard things on the playground with her friends.
I truly could not say enough great things about this warm, tight knit an caring community. The families are great, the staff is wonderful, and the faculty is THE BEST.
Definitely worth taking a look if the concept of "educating the whole child" is of value to you and your family. This place nails it. read more
