Turnbull Children’s Center, San Mateo | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

There are two preschools housed on the Turnbull campus — a fee-based mandarin immersion school and a state-subsidized English speaking preschool. This review covers the fee-based mandarin immersion school. Our daughter attended Turnbull for the second half of her Pre-K 4 year (she is now a 1st grader in the school next door) and our son is in his second year at the school (in Pre-K 4 after completing Pre-K3 last year) and we couldn’t be happier with the education they received/are receiving.

We wanted an immersive mandarin speaking, play-based and not-too-academically-intense environment for the kids. Turnbull is great — from the administrators to the teachers — we’ve found everyone to be caring, conscientious, and enthusiastic. The teacher-student ratio is great — there is a main teacher and two assistants for each classroom of 18 to 22 students. I like that there doesn’t seem to be too much turnover since consistency is so important in challenging programs like dual-language ones. My daughter and son had the same wonderful Pre-K 4 teacher — and I’m hoping my youngest (2 years away from attending) will also have her. She, and the other teachers I’ve interacted with at Turnbull, are very dedicated to their students and I’ve always felt that I could go to them with any concerns I may have.

My son loves going to school. The school year is arranged around weekly units where the students learn mandarin in context. Occasional field trips, regular music and movement classes supplement the day-to-day activities. Every year there are three or four performances where the kids show off their singing skills and classroom work. There is some character recognition lessons, but from what I’ve seen it’s low pressure and meant to enrich the language learning.

Overall, we are very satisfied with Turnbull. The only caveat is that both the Principal and the Enrollment Coordinator are retiring this year. Hopefully, they’ll be replaced with equally great people, but that would be the only question mark I would have going forward.

Wonderful school with amazing, supportive teachers. This school has played a major role in preparing my child for kindergarten. I’m grateful for everything that Turnbull has done for my family.

My nephew goes to that school … I had to pick him and the staff are every friendly and made hehadall his Work and even gave me a few suggestions on how to help with his school work