Recommendation Letter #2

Village Gate Children's Academy's (VGA) provides an exceptional and successful educational experience that sets itself apart from other schools. VGA's teachers design a unique learning plan that creates a natural and flourishing education for each individual child. VGA's grounds (building, landscape and location) and the culture the teachers create, provides a safe and organic environment with a desire to learn more!

VGA's location, point this school in an extraordinary direction unlike any other we experienced and researched. Two houses on a stunning and large property that includes climbing trees, gardening beds, hoses to water plant/gardens, and an abundance of space to play and be a child. How fun is that for an adolescent, not your basic school yard but rather imagine Little House on the Prairie. Additionally, the location sits directly behind one of Encinitas's beautiful parks with playground and baseball fields. Come for a visit and you will fall in love.

As for culture, you will be hard-pressed to match the school's style and attention for your child. We cannot say enough about the school's approach in teaching and guiding our child. Not only caring, it is the unique style of putting children together from three grade levels with two teachers per school house and allowing them to be dynamic, mature, self-directed individuals to peruse their universe. At VGA, learning is the first goal. Because learning happens at various levels and progresses at a pace specific to each child, Montessori allows progress at a pace with others but also not rushing ahead if more time is needed on a particular directive. It is what takes place in addition to the didactic learning that is more powerful and transformative within the VGA environment that this school has perfected. From this distinctive environment, our child is provided with the ability to gain self-confidence, respect, and desire to work with others and learn on his own. I remember a world of teachers teaching through direct dialogue. The only issue is the dialogue was one-directional and then of course you had to memorize everything after the teacher was done with their instructions. That technique works for some, but does it provide the distinct model your child needs to grasp the concept of learning in a practical manner? Most schools teach in a format of memorizing the information. If you read why employers feel our school system is faltering, experts believe students are becoming robots and whatever they have to think through is not instinctive in their thought process. The Montessori environment teaches conceptually and this school provides a place for our child to grow not only through the Montessori style of teaching but also through the mission of the school. Some of the most creative minds in the greatest companies of our times have stated Montessori as the reason for what they have become, what they invented, and why they are so successful (Larry Page and Sergey Mikhaylovich  - Co-founders of Google, Thomas Edison, Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon, Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia, just to name a few) https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-innovators-who-went-to-montessori-school-2014-3

When deciding the path for your child's education, it encompasses several phases: pre-school, elementary, middle, high school, college, and postgraduate work. If you consider the most basic building block years for your child's education, pre-school through elementary school provides the most important foundation of how to learn - choosing VGA promises to provide you with a wonderful environment to place your child. We are happy to speak with anyone who wishes to ask questions. We have one child and no affiliations with VGA other than our child attending the school. We did have our son at another private school, which does give us a basis for comparison.

Thank you, Kim and Paul Kaplan.

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