Challenger School

Great academic program but could use more extracuricular / enrichment type classes. By further cutting down on those, the "fun" will completely disappear from "learning and fun". Sad.
(Heard that music and PE teachers are being downsized at some schools.)

Posted 05/16/08 | Report Abuse

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My boy is 6 now and joined Challenger for about 4 months. We noticed that he has difficulties on developing his thinking power. He has good memory and always curious, if someone can catch his attention.
Before joining Challenger, we have been called by the kindergarten several times for his class behavior such as talk back to teacher, goofy around the classes We were also told that he can not focus (for 3 minutes or longer) and has problems on learning. We were also advised to spend more time with him and help him on his academic works. Weve tried all the ways we can possibly think of and get almost no result. After a year of hard working, we know we need different help.
With the concern of too academic oriented and my friends recommendation, I send my son to Challenger for the first grade. Since then we experienced a wonderful team work with school and turned the kid around.
Challenger has a very good training and evaluation system. They are also very good at dealing with kids. Weve been called in at the end of the first month for a parent conference with the teacher and principle. They told us the difficulties the kid has such as lack of confidence, mind only playing, and what we can help. They suggested sit down with the kid the same time and same place everyday for about 30 minutes and try do some reading. In two weeks, we finished 3 books the school recommended and experienced our first big surprise.
At the end of the second month, the teacher told us that the kids phonic falls behind and prevents him from concept construction and class attendance. The teacher recommended a tutor who is the teacher from the other first grade class. She trained the kid with the famous Challenger phonic kit 3 hours a week. The two teaches met frequently on discussing the weakness and next improvement.
With the concern about too much pressure may crack the kid, I told the two teachers dont worry about the tutor ending day as long as we see progress there. After 5 weeks work out, the tutoring teacher called me this Monday and told me that the class teacher want the kid run by himself for the rest of the semester.
Im so amazed to find the friendship between him and teachers, his confidence, and his achievements have been developed. The kid can finish all his homework in one hour without any help. He also starts to clean his own room and share family chores. After his confidence build up through academic training, he want to learn more on fine arts.
If you are patient enough to check out what I said in the title, I hope you are somehow convinced the respectable methodology and system Challenger has built up for developing kids. They have very professional staff there. Leave the training to the experts, my family saved the frustration and uncertainty to each other and become much happier. In my opinion, kids should be benefit from a certain period of serious systematic training. How long may depend on each child. Me as a parent, decide how much to do is far easier than identifying what to do.

Posted 11/15/07 | Report Abuse

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My daughter enrolled to the pre-K program for less than a year. By now, most of teachers can call my daughter with her name. They do pay attentions to individual kids.

She had problems when she first attended a new school before, but she is happy since the first day attending Challenger.

Some feel that this school is too academic-oriented. So far I have no problem with this. There are a lot of Indian and Chinese kids in this location.

She is enjoying her school life.

PROS: Great academic focus
CONS: The population of kids are not diversified.

Posted 08/01/06 | Report Abuse

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Challenger Schools as well as montessorri schools really focus attention on learning. This particular Challenger School is really nice because kids don't need to think about fashion - they wear uniforms and concentrate on learning. There are lots of fun classes, like dance, for example. not too many schools offer dance. I really like Challenger School and do suggest you check it out.

Posted 11/09/05 | Report Abuse

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This school has a good Phonics program. Cildren as young as 4 are reading at school. Science, Math, Music are other subjects that are taught quite early.
This is a great school to start an education because once a kid begins here, he will be very well positioned in a public school.

PROS: Great academic focus
CONS: Strong academic focus does not spell fun for many kids

Posted 11/08/05 | Report Abuse

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