Pre-school

Jason and I have decided on a pre-school for Sofia. There are Czech pre-schools here but we have opted for a private English pre-school. While we know that kids pick up languages easily we just aren't prepared to put Sofia into a new situation where not only is everything new but noone speaks English. We figure she will have enough changes to adapt to without adding that. After making that decision we did our research to find all the English language preschools that were easily commutable. That left ten potential preschools. We crossed one off the list immediately since they wanted about $17,000 USD a year for preschool!! The rest were all more or less in the ame ball park for price ~$500-$900 a month. Some of those only offered full day programs. We felt that Sofia wasn't quite ready to start school with 5 full days a week so we crossed those off the list as well. We visited a preschool that was walking distance from our apartment and another that was a bus trip away but only about 25min door to door. The preschool that we could walk to was nice but it felt more like a daycare than a school to me. It also had a long day. It wasn't quite a full day but more like a 3/4 day which I was still unsure about. The school that requires a bus trip was perfect! It is a non-profit christian school which basically means it doesn't cost as much as the other private schools. The school has about 300 kids in it from grades pre-k through 12. The high school kids are in a separate building which is nice. The turn-over rate is very low at this school which is unusual for Prague English preschools. The school requires a 2 year contract from all their teachers and most renew their contract for another 2 years. We have met Sofia's teacher and we know that he will be the same teacher when Sofia starts in the fall. The school is in a nice quite area along the Vltava river with its own play area outside. They have a well thought out curriculum even for preschool. They involve the parents a lot and even have a parent room at the school. If I drop Sofia off and she is having a hard time I can sit with her in the parent room or if I drop Sofia off and I am having a hard time I can hang out in the parent room and then go back and check on Sofia. The teachers in the school are all from the U.S. or U.K. The preschool teacher is from Scotland. So between hearing us, her teacher, the other teachers/administrators in the school, other students from countries all over the world, her friends from playgroup (german, american, french, czech) she will have an interesting accent or maybe no accent at all. Sofia is excited about school but we keep telling her it isn't until September. After living with Graham and Beth Sofia always talks about Alex and Justin going to school and she can't wait to be big like her cousins.