Gan Ilan

I believe that preschool-​age children need to know they are treasured and that any social/​behavioral development that teachers can foster in them has to be founded on that. When I pick my child up from preschool, and I ask the teacher how his day was, I expect to hear who he played with or what his activities chose, not a play-​by-​play of each moment his behavior needed correcting (or, «he behaved great today!»), but that is what I got every time I picked him up. I was repeatedly talked to about my son’s behavior by his teachers, and each time, what they told me about his behavior sounded normal for his age, and I thought that any preschool teacher ought to be able to handle it in the course of their day without having to talk to the parents, and that it would likely be better if the classroom management had been better.
We left in June and started him at a new school. Just recently one of his new preschool teachers said, «He’s such a respectful boy, using his words so nicely with his friends.» Either the preschool teacher is able to see the good in him where his last ones weren’t, or he behaves significantly better at the new school than at Gan Ilan. Either way, it was a reminder of why we left Gan Ilan.
So why didn’t I only give one star? He was physically safe there and he came home with lots of art projects. He made friends and he liked the teachers — they were plenty nice, actually. (Perhaps they were too nice and that’s why the classroom management was lacking.) The Jewish education was pretty impressive for a preschool level — creation and Passover were evidently covered in detail. Shabbat was chaotic and stressed me out — perhaps the two three-​year-​old classrooms should have remained separate instead of combining.
If going to a Jewish preschool is important to you and this is convenient to your house, it may be worth a try, since the Jewish curriculum was good. Calm, compliant kids will probably do better here than spirited children. I know kids who are doing well there, but it was disappointing for us.