School Starts Again

My husband and I can’t say enough positive things about Building Blocks. Our son Eric is now halfway through his SK year, having been with the school since he was in preschool. Every year we have marvelled at the wonderful teaching staff at this school. All of them genuinely care for the children and work on their development as individuals. When we enrolled Eric in preschool, we were looking for a place where Eric could make friends and develop socially (as an only child, Eric was quite shy with other children). After seeing the quality of the preschool program we then enrolled him into JK, where he started to learn phonics at a rapid rate. Now that he is in SK, our son is able to sound out many three-syllable words and can read books on his own! He has a fantastic academic foundation going into grade school.

More importantly, our son is now an independent and confident child who makes friends easily. This was not an easy process. During JK, our son went through a period of a few months where he was aggressive towards the other children in his class. He has always been big for his age, and he was intimidating the children so much that none of them wanted to play with him anymore. You can imagine as parents how difficult this was for us. We are absolutely convinced that if Eric had been in another school, he would have been labelled the class bully and become isolated. Any teacher in the public school system (with 20+ children in the class) would simply not have had the time or energy to deal with it. Luckily, my son was at Building Blocks. Mrs. Freer, Ms. Kuehni, and all the other teachers and teaching assistants worked patiently with Eric and with us to help him develop his social skills and empathy. They incorporated the concepts of personal space and bullying right into the daily curriculum. At the same time they supported the other children so that everyone could have a positive experience at school. Thanks to the sustained efforts of all the staff, our son made a complete turnaround. We clearly remember the day my husband dropped off Eric at school and heard the other children excitedly calling his name in welcome, wanting him to play with them. What a contrast! We were ecstatic. In SK he has continued to build on his friendships with all the children and enjoys every day that he goes to school.

We will be forever grateful to the teachers at Building Blocks for their dedication, professionalism and care. They have brought out the best in our son. My husband and I highly recommend this school to any parent. Our only regret is that our son will have to go to another school for Grade 1!