Newtown Friends School

N/A
25 reviews
Grades
PK-8
Students
237
Type
Private
1450 Langhorne Newtown Road
Newtown, PA 18940
(215) 968-2225

Community Reviews

Read what parents are saying about Newtown Friends School
Newtown Friends school has exceeded my expectations in every way. The teachers are excellent and the middle school curriculum is exceptional. The middle school prepares their students to be successful in high school. Study habits are taught by learning style so students can find what works best for them individually. The school culture is hard working with time carved out for fun. The class trips, clubs and activities allow middle schoolers the opportunity to participate in the school community. I highly recommend this school!
Posted by a parent on 2/29/2024
Our family feels so blessed to be a part of NFS. The teachers are kind and compassionate, the students respect one another and teachers, and the atmosphere is very welcoming. They are generous with the flexible tuition, which helps keep the school well-rounded and diverse. We feel very fortunate to be a part of this community and we cannot recommend NFS enough!
Posted by a parent on 11/29/2023
I honestly cannot believe what our experience has been like with Newtown Friends School. It was recommended to us by an acquaintance whose children attend there and love it. Small classes, progressive values such as inclusivity and diversity, values that so much seemed to reflect our own. It just so happens that our fourth grader was the victim of a crime over the summer before attending this new school. His behavior was affected by this event and, initially, NFS staff, using their language of partnership and collaboration, provided support that had an immediate positive impact.As they expressed a willingness to collaborate with us so did they decide NOT to actually collaborate. The simple recommendation was to keep the support in place and unchanged for a number of months.For whatever their reason, they chose not to do so. This immediately set our child up for failure as they made changes to the support that was working perfectly. Despite our efforts to collaborate, they simply changed it with no regard to what would work for our son. As a result, he was basically set up for failure.Our bright and motivated 9-year-old boy was never in so much trouble as he was at NFS. He was clearly under their critical microscope and their lack of understanding, empathy and unwillingness to work with him was both shocking and obvious.We decided that this school was definitely not a match for him or for our family. The values that they tout are good on paper but our experience is that none of them were genuine and there was no caring about our child, family or experience. "Teaching the whole child", and all of their "partnership", was chewed up and spit out along with us. But they made a point of keeping our.overpayment.Please know that NFS collects tuition fully in advance of the school year being complete. So if you invest in this place for your child's education and well-being, be prepared to lose your money if your child is deemed not good enough by those on high in administration.A sad reflection of Quaker values equating to a complete and total lack of empathy, enormous hypocrisy and obvious greed.
Posted by a parent on 12/16/2022
WARNING - This school has incredibly inept leadership and is not safe. We sent our daughter to this school for first grade with the intention of keeping here there throughout grade school till 8th grade. Oh her second day of school, she was accosted by a male student who proceeded to bully her (kicking her, punching her, telling other kids to alienate her and be mean to her). It was awful! We asked for a meeting with the administration and the teacher to address the situation. They were already aware of this particularly problem child, as he was there the year before for pre-school. There were similar complaints from parents then as well as currently. The head of the lower school and teacher promised that they could handle this situation. Unfortunately, our child came home with bruises all over her legs and on her back. That's how we found out that the teacher had actually changed the seating in the class and had sat the bully next to our daughter. Dozens of meetings regarding this bully were had throughout the year, but the administration did nothing. The lack of integrity and respect to such an issue was mind boggling.Throughout the rest of the year, the bully proceeded to be an issue with many parents, who consistently complained to the administration. The bully was sent home some times and to the headmaster's office other times, etc. Nothing was every done. We, of course, found out that one of the bully's parents is connected to Quaker leadership in the area - so perhaps that's the reason. The fact that this boy was allowed to do what he did for an entire year to so many children makes Newtown Friends an unsafe place.Also, the academics are mediocre at best. Homework for the week is a few pages photocopied and stapled together. Parents constantly complained that the reading assignments were not advanced enough and were more for preschoolers. Also, if you are seeking a true private school experience for your child, you need to look at a school like Princeton Day School or perhaps Germantown Friends. Newtown Friends provide over 50% of students with financial aid in order for them to be able to attend. There is no rigorous test or assessment conducted for admission to the school and the children of teachers and students can attend the school for free. In short, parents paying full tuition are in the minority at Newtown Friends. Therefore, the overall composition of the student population is a bit of a hodge podge.
Posted by a parent on 7/8/2022
As I post this in August 2020, I would like to add that I am so grateful for the way NFS’s teachers and administrators turned on a dime in March to offer online learning with only three days of school missed. I am also grateful for the way the administrators, teachers, governing board and COVID-19 Task Force have thoughtfully developed plans to make in-person and hybrid learning this fall as safe as can be, while offering families the option of starting the fall (and continuing indefinitely) online only if they choose.When our son was in third grade public school, he became very stressed because of all the testing. He is a smart kid, and he did well, but the teacher said things like, “this test will be on your permanent record,” and it stressed him out. It wasn’t only end-of-year standardized tests. There were tests all year: spelling once a week, math every three weeks, science every four weeks, social studies every five weeks (or something like that). Sometimes the cycles would be such that he had four tests in one week. He developed a stutter he’d never had before. It seemed the school had forgotten that elementary school should be about instilling a love of learning as much as anything else. We met with the teacher to express our concerns, then the principal, and finally the superintendent. Their response was: sorry, the government makes us focus on testing. And if you think stress is bad in third grade, it just gets worse in 4th and 5th. There’s nothing we can do.My wife and I had both gone to public schools K-12; in disbelief we found ourselves investigating which private school would be best for our son. We were so relieved when we met with Becky and the administrators at Newtown Friends School (NFS). The school is about instilling a love of learning and creating a nurturing environment where students can grow and explore. The faculty go out of their way to avoid stress. They use a variety of approaches to assessment. The children’s art work we saw in the halls made clear that each child is encouraged to express themselves creatively – it was so different from the cookie-cutter crafts we saw at the other schools we looked at.At NFS, children get individual attention, in classes with 13-21 students. Each class has a sense of community. Parents who want to get involved are welcomed.
Posted by a parent on 8/19/2020
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Newtown schools - Newtown Friends School is located at 1450 Langhorne Newtown Road, Newtown PA 18940. Newtown Friends School is a Private school that serves grade levels PK-8.

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