rnmetty
I am in the process of writing an article on this topic. As an educator, I am always interested in hearing families perspectives on different schools and what is considered good. As a parent and preschool owner, it is always helpful to know how parents feel about schools and what they consider “good”. What I have found over the years is that families will say a school is good, and for some that is enough. For me and others like yourself, I want to know what about a particular school makes it good. So I always ask more questions and I find that many families aren’t sure or don’t really know. This year I took time to visit many West Seattle (both public and private) as well as schools outside of the city. I had several reasons for spending the year visiting schools one of which was to assess schools and report back to my enrolled families. The other was to see what these “good” schools look like. My plan was to do a little write up of each school and hope to provide families with enough information that would allow them to make the right choice for their child for elementary school. What I realized half way through my tours was that my passion for learning and how children learn far outweighed the ability to remain unbiased. So I decided to write an article on what constitutes a good school and what parents should be seen in a school.
Good means different things to different people and it certainly is interchanged with “good enough.” So instead of categorizing a school as “good or bad” and deciding what you feel is good, I invite parents to look at schools through a different lens. What you should see when you look at schools…
The most important thing is that the school has similar values to your families
Schools should have an open door policy and allow visitors at anytime (within reason)- Pathfinder is a great example of this
School should have a mission and vision and all staff should be on board with that mission and vision
Children and staff should be enjoying themselves – they should be engaged with their peers and adults
Outside time, music and singing, movement in the classroom is a must
Children should have the ability to move around the classroom throughout the day
Children should have opportunities to work in groups and individually
Activities and lessons should be developmentally appropriate
Emphasis on process not product
Emphasis on how they are learning not what they are learning
Tone in the classroom should be positive and encouraging (different than praise)
Adult language to children should be accepting, open to different ideas
There should be a focus on social and emotional development
A focus on internal motivation – no sticker charts, fuzzy jars and external type motivations
My goal is to keep this list positive but I did see in one school where the teacher was writing names of children on the board who were talking or not paying attention – not a huge confidence builder
Also, look at what is considered excellent work – many times I have found children are not given enough credit so the expectation level is much lower than it should be
Some of this stuff may be obvious, but I was surprised at some things I saw at “good” schools. This is only a brief sampling and the topic itself goes way beyond this post, but I hope it helps. Oh, and to echo Bostonman – teachers and dynamic can change from grade to grade, but the biggest indicator of success with a school is how involved a parent is with a child’s learning both at home and with the school.