EDUCATION MATTERS—SANFORD SCHOOL'S PRIVATE SCHOOL BLOG

The holiday break is finally here, giving our students time off from school to enjoy being home with family and friends. While breaks are intended to be a time for rest, they are also often a time of get-togethers that extend past bedtime, long car rides to visit relatives, and second (maybe third) helpings of holiday treats. As we interrupt our normal school and work schedules for a few weeks, it is important to pay attention to healthy routines for our bodies and our minds.

There are several ways to make a private school education an affordable option. 

One way is through need-based financial aid.
Prospective families are often surprised to learn that many higher-earning private school families receive some form of tuition assistance simply because the tuition costs are so high. For many (or most) families, it is a true sacrifice to send a child to private school.

A second option to help make tuition more affordable is through merit scholarships.
These scholarships do not take financial need into account. They simply allow your child to shine. Private schools approach merit scholarship awards in a variety of ways. Some schools will base decisions on standardized admission test scores. Others may look at a child’s academic success in the school they currently attend. Still, others may choose to look at the bigger picture. Luckily, we understand this and want to help. 

Why choose a PRIVATE SCHOOL?

• Seemingly endless and individualized opportunities in arts, athletics, club activities, and leadership
• Exciting and engaging academic programs
• Small class sizes of motivated students
• Teachers who love their work and care deeply about each student
• State-of-the-art facilities on beautiful campuses.

While many children would thrive in an environment like this, often the high tuition cost is a significant obstacle for families—how can we pay for private school before our child even goes to college?

The parent-teacher relationship is Key in your child's success

A positive parent-teacher relationship is vital to a child’s success in school. Parent-teacher conferences provide an opportunity to strengthen the home and school communication. You and your child’s teachers are a team, and a conference is similar to a team huddle where a game plan for success is being reviewed and, if necessary, revised. Both the parents and the teacher are highly invested and interested adults who will use the meeting time to exchange information that will ensure that your child’s academic and social-emotional well-being are moving forward. This spirit of collaboration and cooperation between home and school will go far in enhancing your child’s opportunities for success. There are a few strategies that parents can do to ensure that your private time with your child’s teacher is used to its maximum benefit. 

From academics to athletics, teaching style to use of technology, and campus facilities to classroom culture, it’s important to get to know a school before you decide if it’s the right fit for your family. One of the best ways to do this is by visiting a school during an Open House.

WHAT is an Open House?

An Open House is an opportunity for multiple families to visit a school at the same time and see the full range of activities that a school offers, both in and outside of the classroom.

WHo should go to an open house?

An Open House is a family affair! Parents/guardians and prospective students are invited to attend an Open House. Typically schools treat Open House as an “all hands on deck” type of event, which means that teachers, coaches, parents, and current students will be available to talk about campus life, so bring anyone who might have questions about the school.

Many schools take the time to highlight the amount of diversity on their campus, and with good cause: time and again research shows that all students benefit when the student body is diverse. Below are four reasons that it’s worth your while to take notice when schools affirm that diversity matters.

 Who likes to do homework? We all have work that we need to take home in different forms, but it helps us to prepare for our next day, week, or month. Most students have nightly work, preparations for projects or tests, which is designed to prepare children with the necessary skills to succeed at various levels of educational development. Daily homework should reinforce skills learned in the classroom and preparing for tests/projects should require time to plan and work.

Each student is a unique individual, and how and when he or she works needs to be specific to them. What may work for your first child may not work best for your second child. Plan, plan, plan and be sure to have a good home-and-school partnership to ensure success for each of your children.

Here are a few quick tips on how parents can help with homework:

• Provide a quiet, distraction free work area such as a desk or table with good lighting and no distractions.

• Routine time to work—it’s a good idea to schedule a similar time each day to do work so each child gets into a routine.

• Help your child create a homework plan each night—if you know that one night is busier than others, help your student plan out how to get the work completed and/or work ahead for the next busy night. A visual calendar helps with this organization skill.

• Parent-teacher partnership—know the expectations of your child's teachers so you can help reinforce those expectations at home.

• Have the student do his or her own work—let’s face it, you’ve already completed the grade your child is currently enrolled in, so it is his or her turn to learn and do the work on their own.

• Role model—if your child is working, you can be working too. You can be prepping for dinner, balancing your checkbook or completing any other adult work you may have.  This sets a great example of good work ethic for your child.

While exciting and hopeful, beginnings can also be frightening and uncertain. A student’s freshman year of high school is one of those hopeful, yet undetermined beginnings. You can be anything and do anything which is as much daunting as it is exhilarating. The next four years will help prepare a student for whatever the future holds, so it is very important that it go as smoothly as possible. With awareness and foresight, all of the stress of beginning school can be replaced by the excitement and joy it deserves. To ease the transition from middle to upper school, incoming freshmen should try:

It’s that time of year! Though I am not talking about the holidays, the beginning of a school year also means a lot of shopping for parents. With the impressive amount of tasks that need to be accomplished, coming up with a comprehensive list of all that needs to be purchased for the upcoming academic year is something that most parents just don’t have time for. Here is a basic list to help guide any parent and child in their search for school supplies.

Back-to-School Checklist

New shoes, sharp pencils, and fresh starts: the beginning of the school year offers students the opportunity to improve study habits, forge new relationships, and acquire new skills. It is a time of immense potential for discovery. As such, it is very important to hit the ground running. Not only does conscientious preparation enable a student to capitalize on this fresh start and avoid playing catch up for the rest of the year, but it also minimizes the back-to-school dread and angst some students experience.

Here is a checklist that can help to make this preparation easy and painless.

• Buy Books
  Purchasing the upcoming year’s textbooks is obviously crucial to a student’s success in school. It is every child’s nightmare to show up to school already nervous only to realize that they don’t even have the right materials to succeed. This is a very simple task to accomplish early as there tend to be emails to parents or links on a school’s website regarding the purchasing of textbooks.

• Do Summer Reading
  One sure way to win a teacher’s approval and ease the transition from summer to school is to make sure all of a student’s summer work is completed. Just check your summer work syllabus to make sure you have all of the work complete for the appropriate class before school starts and it will undoubtedly take a load off of your mind.