Fanghorn

Given you all did such a great job with my insurance query here is another one for you. Apologies if it has been discussed before but I have searched back over several months and couldn't find anything suitable.

I am moving to work in NY and will live in the suburbs (probably) - NY or NJ - preference being Westchester County Ny at the moment.

I have a daughter who will be 4 in August so would have gone to school in the UK next September (when 4). In the US the school age is 5 and from what I have seen the curriculum can be a bit dodgy.

Can anyone recomend a school that she could attend from 4 yrs old? Or how did you guys get around the problem?

Have thought about International schools (found a couple - one in NY state and the other in CT) or British schools (are there any?) but need to find something ASAP as based on the school position I need to look for somewhere to live - catchment areas etc.

Would like it to be a reasonable commute to Manhattan. Also might end up based in White Plains - hence thinking of Westchester County (good schools apparantely but different to the UK and have the age issue).

Help.

AmerLisa

Our daughter was 4 this past August and we enrolled her in a Montessori school. We're not in New York (or New Jersey) but if you do some research you should be able to find some decent Montessori schools. Anyway, it solved the problem for us. You, more than likely, will not find anything that isn't private for your Pre-K child. Good luck!

Fanghorn

Guess I should have mentioned I will be here for 3 years so want to make sure she goes back into the UK system aged 6/7 but not way off the pace of British kids - although she will obviously have plenty of time to catch up.

CaliforniaBride

You could have alook on here. Would at least give you some info to start with and you should be able to make comparisons with the UK.

http://www.greatschools.net/

AmerLisa

I think at that age she will have learned the basics here and will be fine going back.

Ben

I would agree, and I have found that NYstate schools are not that unsimilar to the UKs. That is to say, for example, there is a high conentration on the metric system in math (although of course they do have to do some imperial/english because this is the US) and they lean towards phonetics for learning to read. And the level of education seems similar too. My 3 went to a good school system in the UK, and I have found the one we are in now (on Long Island) to be just as good, if not better because of the after school activities (a healthy mixture of both sports and non-sports, academic and non-academic).

Many schools seem to have a pre-school intake but they are generally not all day. Check with the local school systems in the areas you are considering and see what they provide for the little ones.

Englishmum

A similar question was raised about three weeks ago (but I guess the O/P's spouse didn't get the job in NYC). Here is the link to the thread as it's too much to re-type LOL! I posted a couple of replies but I did put in a lot of links on post #22 on that thread. Our township has a lot of British and other expat nationals and there is full-time schooling from age 6, whereas in the next town to us they only go in for half-days.

The local towns are very similar to those found in Westchester county, except that property prices are a bit cheaper.....and yes the local schools are good to excellent (Millburn and Short Hills is no 1 public school district in NJ):

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...t=335097&pp=15