Stratford School

Startford Palo Alto is a great and wonderful place for children and also as a work place! I had the privilege to work here for the school year of ²⁰¹⁴⁄₂₀₁₅
I have nothing but wonderful things to say and feel very privileged to have worked with a wonderful group of teachers.
As a new mother I would not hesitate a single second on bringing my child to Startford school. After previously working in a play based childcare for 8years I noticed the complete difference in the development of children.
Overall wonderful school!

I owe a review for this school for a while. This is a well established private school with great reputations. My son started at 3 in their pre school program as soon as he was fully potty trained. Wonderful curriculum and the kids got the opportunities to be exposed to all sorts of things like arts, music, literatures and so on. Usually they had music classes beginning with the teacher playing the piano, all kids loved to dance around. Every Wednesday, the beautiful Spanish teacher would go to their classroom to teacher their Spanish. For older kids, they have this huge playground; for younger ones like preschoolers, K, they have this exclusive playgrounds with sands, a wooden train, swing, slides attached with the back of their classrooms, very safe and secure. Every month, they have one particular theme. E.g. if van Gogh was born in this month, they would have classes talking about van Gorgh or even imitating his art works. All the staff of this school are nice and watchful. If they see younger kids play with older ones, they would politely separate them to avoid any conflicts or injuries. And the principle, definitely top notch, an intelligent, charming and fully educated lady who is always willing to communicate with parents.

My child attended the pre-​school summer camp program, coming from a play-​based preschool, we had reservation towards structured academic-​based program. To our surprise, my 3.5 year old really thrived here. There was very little crying on the first day and throughout the entire summer program, we chose 3 half-​day so our child didn’t have to be in school all day. The knowledge and confidence our child gained from the short time there was very impressive, teachers are caring and energetic. Principal is very warm and communicates very well. Parents get emails and pictures of children learning and playing at school daily, weekly emails about what’s happening at school are also timely and informative. The only thing would be better is to increase diversity in classroom, but it’s not determined by teacher or school, tuition cost and structured program somewhat determines the make-​up of student body. We would definitely come back to Stratford school again next summer and would recommend it to our family and friends.

Fantastic school! Teachers great… principal is top notch, facility is good, flexible. Perfect balance of early learning opportunities … I love it for my kids, they have really learned a lot and picked up the right habits and have been transformed.

My child started in a half day preschool program this year and I must say that the teachers in the class seem very arrogant and lethargic. When I toured the school I was very pleased with the campus and the classrooms, also the director is very nice and genuine in her approach. One of the teacher in this class Ms. Añu especially is unable to execute a fun and creative learning environment in the class and is always very judgmental towards children and parents. She treats the class like a daycare of her own and does not seem to enjoy teaching. Every morning almost same activities are set out for the children to play and the teachers are busy talking or doing some other work. My child is already feeling bored in the class!! May be a teacher with fresh ideas and lots of energy will put the pieces back in the puzzle!

The school is large, big classrooms, bright and super clean. However, the school is really big on pushing rigorous academics, and less on social and play skills. There is no time for children to work on their social and play based skills since it is so rigorous. What was really strange was that none of the children seemed happy, there were no big smiles or enjoyment on their faces in and outside of the classroom. We, my husband and I observed this for 8 months with our child and with others. Usually at this age, kids smile and have fun, not here everyone is very serious. Children look like robots. My child is not a robot. He is a critical thinker, who thinks outside of the box and loves to learn, and this environment was not for him. Children should not be stressing out about their work at 4 years old. I also wished it was economically, socially and culturally diverse. There are very little to no African American, Caucasian or Latina/​o children. When I asked the director about the diversity she said, «we can’t control who comes to Stratford and who does not.» I immediately thought yes you can by being able to give scholarships or give single parents a break on their tuition. I am sure this school would be much more open to an economically diverse class enrollment if they examined this carefully. However, her response told me they don’t really care about diversity. All I can say is think about how you want your child to learn. If you like the robot model bring your child here, if you want your child to get a well rounded holistic approach to learning, this is not the best choice.

My daughter goes to Jr. K here. She did preschool at Stratford fremont. She was academically on high side in preschool but being youngest, she had to develop socially and we were recommended to this school Jr. K program by principal of stratford fremont.
Initially we were reluctant to commute and sort of slow down our child by a year. But in hindsight it was the best decision as parent. This school is fantastic. Teachers are caring and great. Ms. Sheena of Jr. K program has done marvellous job with all the kids in her class. My daughter can read 1^st grade books now, can do simple arithmetic (additions, subtractions) easily and additions and subtractions of large numbers on number line easily.
She has blossomed very well. Arts, science, you name it. I would highly recommend this school for Jr. K program. We have decided to enroll her here for K program as well rather than moving her to fremont campus.

I’m a new teacher at this school and, I have to say, it has been a wonderful experience thus far. I have never worked with a more intelligent group of educators and students. Great place to work!

my daughter is in 1^st grade, we started here last year on Kinder, and I can say I visited lots of private schools in peninsula and was not very happy with any of them and even started my daughter with hesitation at stratford, maybe because we started at Bing preschool and I compared everyplace with the high standard of Bing.
anyhow, I can say now I love Stratford in palo alto, even more than last year.
Being said, parents spend all their time, money and resources on their kids school and they always persist that their school is the best in the whole world, let me say, it is wrong, each school needs to fit each child and their family and a lot of other circumstances, so what I say now is about a school that fits my daughter and she goes to it with happiness and love every morning.
their curiculum is very balance and exellent:
1. academically, they are very advance, my daughter was always entheusiastic about reading and writing, but I can say I give the credit to school and their kindergarten, I did not recognize when she started reading chapter books, and now at grade 1, she is reading chapter books which are for grade 4 and 5.
Penmenship, they really care about it and want to make sure every single letter is written in correct way.
and they advance the kids to higher level in a very smooth way both in writing and spelling as well as in math.
2. art, lots of art and crafts daily, knowlege of my daughter about famious artists is amazing, the other day she gave us a lecture about picaso and the way he was drawing!
3. drama and theater, two big show per year, amazing preparation.
4. singing and music, twice a week, great work
5. recitiation, every week they have a poem that needs to be memorized and play it with practice on body language and expression, very intersting
6. very reasonable homework this year at first grade, maybe a little more at kinder but that made all the difference in their fundation, saying that I am not against homework, I think kids need to have it.
7. teaching a lot of moral points to kids and how to be a good citizen, my daughter talks about bullying and how to prevent it at this age.
8. very organized and smooth classes with attention to routins, since kids thrive on their routins. and specially this year we have amazing teacher at grade 1.
9. staff are very friendly, they know all kids by name, it really gives you a feeling of community. and there are lots of festival activities throughout the year.
10. big and nice campus
11. and one very more important issue that I really value is parents can attend the class room, and any other activities of child, this means a lot to me.
at the end of the day it comes down to teacher, and we had great teachers sofar at kinder and first grade

This place has the best pre-​K program in the whole Bay Area.
The teachers are WONDERFUL! The director is marvelous…
All the teachers in the school know all the children by name, it’s so amazing how much of a community feel it has.
My children love Stratford and so do my husband and I.
We HIGHLY recommend this school…
Thanks for reading…