Frontiers Academy – Private School

A well-​known business professor in the UC system said that if children today want to prepare to succeed in the «real» world, they should speak Mandarin and Spanish. I enrolled my daughter in Frontiers Academy because they are one of the only immersion schools that teach both Mandarin and Spanish. Even though we only speak English at home, she is flourishing. She started at 6 and speaks and reads both at a high level. Also, at the age of 7 she is reading English at a 4^th grade level. I’d say this is the best opportunity for kids in Orange County.

My philosophy has been languages while they are young and don’t perceive the acquisition as a difficult process. My children are exposed to 5.
We came to Frontiers from another Chinese immersion school a little not too long ago. I wished we came earlier, but I was a little skeptical about the school at its infancy. All it took was a visit to be proven wrong. The school uses proven to work curricula (on billions of children) for all subjects. (unlike our previous Chinese immersion school that was all secretive about their gone commercial homeschooling program, developed by an engineer mom). The teachers are both professional and passionate about their subjects. This might sound like a cliché but is indeed my personal experience. I sat down with each of them and listened to their talk on the school material and enjoyed them sharing randomly collected students’ work from the wall. Nothing stroke me as them being prepared to catch me as a paying client — the classwork on the wall was from the week and some of the papers were directly from the students’ folders.
The program is highly transparent. At any point in time you could place your hands on what your children are and will be working on, should you wish to know. No secrecy about the test scores on the evaluation exams either.
The classrooms are bright and very clean. The preschool classroom has direct access to the sinks and the bathroom. Hygiene and social manners are highly encouraged. The teachers are not just educators — they actually know about children’s’ psychology. This is what made the real difference for us, as we have a very compliant and studious daughter and a very rebellious, strong-​willed son. He is thriving now and showing all he can do (reading level 2 books in English at the age of 5, singing in Chinese) whereas at his previous school they could not get him to share his knowledge. Both kids find Frontiers more challenging but also like it more. Therefore we do as well.