5 Reasons to Choose a Junior Boarding School

Updated October 14, 2019 | by Robert Kennedy

A junior boarding school offers certain distinct advantages for the middle school aged student. Here are five reasons why you should consider choosing this option for your child.

Boarding schools come in two flavors: boarding schools and junior boarding schools. Boarding schools usually offer 9th grade through 12th grade. Junior boarding schools are residential schools which offer 9th grade and lower. Most junior boarding schools cover 6th grade through 9th grade. A few schools take boarders beginning as early as the 3rd grade. The Junior Boarding School Association lists ten schools as members. Here are five reasons why you should consider choosing a junior boarding school.

They offer accelerated learning.

Probably the most compelling reason to send your child to a junior boarding school is to jump-start his academics. Having experienced, credentialled teachers in middle school is a huge plus for impressionable adolescents. If your son is passionate about math and science, he will have the opportunity to give wings to that passion. That's what a junior boarding school can do awfully well. Junior boarding school students discover that despite all the pressures of adolescence, it is cool to be smart. Learning is challenging and stimulating, and always full of discovery. Your son will have the satisfaction of accomplishing many things at a time when his friends in middle school are being distracted by all the things which distract young teenagers. As you and I well know, most of those distractions have little to do with learning.

A junior boarding school admissions director explains the benefits of sending your child to a junior boarding

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What About Canadian Schools?

Updated November 12, 2018 | by Robert Kennedy

Canadian boarding schools have a lot going for them. Great value, location in a foreign but friendly neighboring country, English speaking, fine academics, all kinds of sporting activities besides hockey and skiing and much more.

Most American families thinking about boarding school tend to stick to schools located within the United States. But, depending on your circumstances and inclinations, you might want to think about Canadian boarding schools. Here are five reasons why.

1. The foreign factor

Canada is not the U.S. It is a sovereign nation with a multi-ethnic population of just over 33 million. Most of the population resides along the U.S.-Canadian border. The three principal cities are Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Each has its own particular characteristics and attributes which you can discover as you explore their websites.

Canada is close to the United States. Most major Canadian cities are short flights from most American cities. So you don't have to fret about getting there quickly if something happens to your child. You do need to have proper identification both to enter Canada and, perhaps more importantly, to return home to the United States.

Canadians and Americans share much in common. The shops and restaurants are similar to what you would find stateside. While you will encounter a lot of French in French-speaking Quebec, the rest of the country uses English. The climate is northern with a short summer, fall and spring and a long cold winter. Vancouver and Halifax, being on the water, have much more temperate weather though it can get pretty cold there too.

2. A different twist to your child's college application

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Girls' School Graduates Have an Edge

Updated July 04, 2018 | by Robert Kennedy

Exciting new research shows that a girls' boarding school can offer your daughter many advantages.

Research shows: girls' school graduates have an edge trumpets the headline on The National Coalition of Girls' Schools site. The research comes from UCLA. This is peer-reviewed research as opposed to anecdotal evidence or hearsay. But first, let's examine the background of single sex education in order to understand the significance of these important findings.

Single sex schools were the only kind of school which existed for many years starting as far back as colonial times. But they were usually boys' schools as girls were still considered inferior and generally not worth educating. As the country grew and education matured with it, coeducational schools became the norm. The idea was to promote the equality of the sexes. Girls would be given the same opportunities as boys to learn and advance.

In theory coeducation is a good idea. But there were many subtle prejudices against girls which had to be overcome. Gender stereotypes, for example, held many girls back. Women could be telephone operators, nurses and teachers but not doctors, lawyers or business executives. And so on. These barriers for women were real in most of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Fortunately things began to change dramatically towards the end of the 20th century. As a result women can now be found in all kinds of jobs and situations which their mothers and grandmothers could only have dreamed of. With these changes came a realization that girls do indeed learn differently. Girls' schools

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Why a Progressive School?

Updated May 10, 2018 | by Robert Kennedy

Sending your son or daughter to a progressive school sounds like a real leap of faith. It is, that is, until you look more closely at the kind of education your child will receive. Then you will understand the idealism in action which progressive schools embody.

Do you have a child who just doesn't fit nicely into a conventional classroom? Are you one of those parents who doesn't see the point of standardized testing? Do you want to let your child explore and discover things for himself in a less structured learning environment? Do you believe that children learn by doing? If you have answered affirmatively to any or all of these questions, then you probably should be looking at progressive schools.

Parents consistently select progressive schools such as Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio Emilia for the pre-school and primary years. However, when it comes to middle and high school, they tend to feel that they have to follow a more traditional college preparatory model based on Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate curricula. Why? Most parents seem to think that test-oriented educational approach ensures their children a better chance of getting into a good college.

Standardized tests are a very common feature of American professional and academic life. It's been that way for the past forty or fifty years. But should children in K-12 schools be subject to standardized testing? You get the feeling that teachers have to teach to the test, as opposed to being able to teach their subjects. Now, most private schools have developed enriched curricula which far exceed the requirements put forth by most of the common high school standardized tests, e.g., SAT and ACT.

Is your child very intelligent? Is she gifted? Does she want to do things

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I Can't Find Any Rankings!

Updated July 10, 2019 | by Robert Kennedy

This cry is heard throughout the land as parents try desperately to compare one boarding school against another.

"I can't find any rankings!" "Which is the best boarding school in Massachusetts?" Hardly a day goes by without somebody asking about rankings of boarding schools. I know that you are trying to figure out how one boarding school compares with another so that you can choose the one which is best for your child. You probably even have tried looking for a site which ranks schools. Well, good luck! If you find one, let me know. There is no ranking system for boarding schools that I know of.

Try it yourself. Google "boarding school rankings" or "ranking boarding schools" and review the results. Yes, you will find several lists of "the best schools." However, what are the criteria used to select those schools? Maybe some of them are a good fit for your requirements. Maybe not. So, let's look at the reasons why this is the case.

1. Boarding schools are unique

This is the main reason why it is impossible to rank boarding schools. Each school is unique. Each school does its own thing. Schools are overseen and managed by trustees and faculty who have a particular point of view. For example, a Jesuit boarding school such as Georgetown Prep has a quite different approach to curriculum and teaching than The Putney School does. Yes, as you look at schools, you can compare basic criteria such as the number of students, what they teacher and the sports programs which they offer.

The broad strokes of the program

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