Spirit of Math Schools High Park

My child has spent one year in the SoM program, here are my thoughts on the High Park campus and program in general.Content and Teaching (4 of 5 stars), the material that is taught to the kids is very thorough and challenging. It requires their 100% focus in class and during homework, and a good amount of parental help at home to complete the work. It's tough for the kids to ramp up to the level and pace of the math which is taught, however, when they do, it's an absolute pleasure to see them putting the skills to use at a level well beyond what you'd expect of your elementary school child. We send our child to SoM specifically to become math literate and be prepared for putting those skills to use in an increasingly math/science/technology/business oriented world. The teachers we've worked with are capable, clear and helpful to the children, and responsive to parent inquiries on the subject matter. The only downside is that the volume of homework can sometimes be overwhelming. I get that the program is designed to challenge even the strongest math students, but given their efforts to grow the program and make a broader impact in terms of math literacy, they might be able to offer some tiered/optional material.Administration (0 of 5 stars), the High Park campus struggles heavily here. Emails go unanswered. There is no easily accessible calendar indicating which days are on/off. Email broadcasts have important facts and actions required buried in linked ~10 minute Youtube videos. Classes start before the school year starts. I would kindly recommend that SoM tries to make their program more accessible and friendly to parents from an administration standpoint, especially in the elementary grades. We're doing our best to help our kids show up ready for learning and to help answer their questions at home. We want to work with SoM to help our children succeed, but would benefit from simpler access to information and timely responses to our inquiries. I've recommended SoM to other families, but due to disorganization and unclear/dropped communication, those families felt uncomfortable spending thousands of dollars with a company who seemingly cannot get their act together, that they went elsewhere (eg. Mathnasium).Our child is back again with SoM this year for the content and to level up their math knowledge, but we definitely hope to see the campus level up their own organization skills.(2020/09/08 Edit: A calendar was provided with the children's binders this year, that's great. It should also be posted somewhere online. Also, SoM made staff available for binder pickups on Labour day. I've adjusted the admin part of my review from 0 to 1 stars accordingly)(2020/10/30 Edit: After SoM decided to stop in person classes, I withdrew my child who is not really suited to the online learning model. I responded to the campus admin's email clearly indicated our desire to withdraw and explicitly asked to cancel the pre-authorized payments. I received a confirmation email and my child was removed from the course, eg I couldn't access anything online. However, the next billing cycle I was hit with a withdrawal. So I'm moving the admin part of my review back down to 0 stars)

Our children are in grade 1 and 2 math program. This is our first year trying this program and we are so pleased with the challenging program that helps our children develop critical thinking, problem solving, and math fluency skills! It really makes math come alive with all the practical applications. It also helps them to develop discipline, self-control and time management skills. Good communication from the teachers and admin as well.