REVIEW OF The New School BY parent, Chris Halliday

(4) Student Experience

The New School does an excellent job merging in-classroom academic learning with outdoor learning, real-life experiences and spiritual development. My children have enjoyed this holistic approach employed at the New School. As a result, they are both thriving from an academic and spiritual perspective. My children are not only learning academically at a high level, but they are also being given an opportunity to better learn about how the world, society and nature work around them. The level of knowledge that my children have obtained about the core educational subjects, life, health, spirituality and more is vastly superior to what I would have ever been exposed to as a young student in the public system. Additionally, the New School curriculum is catered to the learning levels of each student. If a student needs a little more attention, he or she will get it. Teachers will assign more difficult assignments if a student needs to be challenged. Most importantly, my children attend the New School, eager and excited to learn daily. For us, the results have spoken for themselves.

(4) School Leadership

I would say that the leadership at the New School has done an excellent job of maintaining a positive school environment. If there is an issue with my children or an event at the school that impacts my kids, administrators at the New School have always done an admirable job at keeping my family well-informed. From my perspective, discipline at the New School is handled effectively and appropriately where needed, and it is unusual that I don't hear feedback from teachers or admin staff when, or if, my children were involved in an incident requiring attention.

(4.5) Teaching

We're very pleased with the quality of instruction at the New School. This quality of instruction comes in various forms, including in-classroom learning, outdoor education, spiritual learning, the arts and more. My children are assigned schoolwork from their teachers based on their individual skill levels, which, in some areas, has allowed them to push themselves beyond their comfort zone and/or what their academic age level might recommend. My children's teachers are excellent communicators, and given the smaller-than-usual class sizes, students at New School are receiving an incredible amount of individual attention, care, support and instruction. My children adore their teachers and are supported by their instructors at a very high level. We highly value the feedback received, and my children are eager to meet their teachers' expectations.

(4) Academics

The academic strengths of the New School come from a belief in creating an academically vibrant community surrounding the school. The administrators at the New School take the time to develop an academic curriculum for the students but also choose to involve parents and other stakeholders to help shape the program. The New School does various things to cultivate this strong academic culture. For example, the school's reading buddy program pairs a strong reader with a younger or weaker reader. As they read together, the stronger reader becomes a teacher of sorts, while the younger one has an older student to learn from and a role model. These sorts of steps will help teach my children how to merge social skills with academic skills. Coupled with strong outdoor learning aspects, The New School is creating truly well-rounded students.

(4) Extracurriculars

The New School offers more than enough extracurricular activities. To name just a few, there are visual arts classes, skating and tennis lessons, after-school STEM classes, and numerous field trips and outdoor excursions. It is extremely common for administrators at The New School to find excellent real-life learning opportunities beyond the confines of the classroom.

(4) Students

The student body at The New School ranges from Kindergarten to Grade 6, broken down into younger and older classes. Although the student body is smaller in size when compared to other schools, the group of students, despite any age differences, is very close, tight-knit and friendly with each other. They are all friends and have started to share and spread each other's interests among the group. During the car rides home from school, my children always talk about their peers, laugh at what happened during the day and talk about what's next. Like all children, there have been some low-level disagreements or arguments, but my children enjoy going to school with all of their peers. They wake up eager to see and interact with their friends every morning.

(4) School Life

My children wake up eager to see and interact with their school community every morning. My children are not only learning academically at a high level, they are also being given an opportunity to better learn about how the world, society and nature works around them. More than enough extracurricular activities are offered at The New School, including visual arts classes, skating and tennis lessons, after-school STEM classes, and numerous field trips and outdoor excursions. The administrators at the New School take the time to develop an academic curriculum for the students but also choose to involve parents to help shape the program. Although the classes are smaller in size when compared to other schools, the entire group of students, despite any age differences, is very close, tight-knit and friendly with each other.

(4) Community

The leadership at the New School has done an excellent job at maintaining a positive school environment, especially when it comes to involving parents in the school community. If there is an issue with my children or an event at the school that impacts my kids, administrators at the New School have always done an admirable job at keeping my family well-informed. The administrators at the New School take the time to develop an academic curriculum for the students but also choose to involve parents to help shape the program. Additionally, the New School provides many opportunities for parents to be involved in school life, whether that means attending field trips, school science fairs and/or in-school theatre and musical performances. We're grateful to see how individual parents are often included in school life.

(4) School Location

Located on a property near the Humber River, the New School treats students to an outdoor adventure every day. When not learning in the classroom, students explore nature in an educational setting that few schools are able to enjoy and access. The school couldn't be located better for those wishing to merge a strong indoor and outdoor learning environment.

(4) Admissions

Other than the need to find an appropriate educational setting for my children, we did not find the admissions process stressful. In fact, the New School admin helped ease our worries as we were streamlined through the process. The administrators at the school were, and have continued to be, very accommodating to our needs, booking us a tour of the school, meeting staff, and providing us with any additional information we may have needed to ease any concerns.