| |
Your child's private school kindergarten application will probably require letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation seem like they would be a pretty important part of the kindergarten application — but they are also probably one of the things least in your control. At age 4, your child probably doesn't have hundreds or even tens of candidates as to whom to ask for these letters. If he/she is in preschool, you are almost definitely going with letters from his/her preschool teachers. And if not, you're looking at letters from teachers or coaches from other activities in which he/she participates; and after that, you're improvising a bit. Additionally, lots of schools require that the recommendations be submitted confidentially, i.e., you don't get to see them! Because of that, there's only so much inquiry or conversation you can have with the folks writing them for your child. So overall, other than asking for the recommendations early enough and making sure they are submitted on time, no need to sweat these! From what we're seeing and finding, private school kindergarten applications typically ask for two letters of recommendation. These can be "freestyle" letters with no prescribed form or format, a form provided by the school, or a form that has been agreed upon by several schools in a geographic region.For instance, in Northern California, the East Bay Independent Schools Association (EBISA) has a standard recommendation form for use in applications to private school kindergarten. So your child's teachers only need to fill the forms out once, and they submit them directly to the schools. (EBISA also has a standard practice that these forms are kept confidential, i.e., you don't get to see them!) Recommendation forms can be useful to get a general sense of what factors private and independent schools seem to be examining; and they can be models on what to cover for folks who are writing "freestyle" letters. To take the EBISA form as an example: as of the 2009 form, it begins with a checkbox section on “what most consistently describe[s] this child,” with 22 phrases, such as “enjoys large motor activities,” “enjoys small motor activities,” “responsive to teacher directions,” “cheerful,” “patient,” “defiant,” “can’t sit still,” and “slow to warm up”; and it has “always/often/sometimes/never” checkbox sections for other descriptive phrases, divided into areas of “social/emotional development,” “approach to learning,” “language development,” and “other.” Interestingly, the “other” category includes items particular to your child (e.g., “Is willing to participate in room clean-up” and “Separates easily from parent(s) at drop-off”)—but also includes quite a few items about parents, such as “Parent(s) respectful of teacher(s) & school,” “Parent(s) contribute to preschool & classroom,” and “Parent(s) support classroom systems & expectations” (this one includes following rules on pick-up and drop-off). The EBISA form is accessible from the EBISA website’s home page.
[…Click here to go to the top of this page…]
If you have questions, or if you have stories, tips, or examples you'd like to contribute to this page, please let us know by using the "Contact Us" form.
|
