Ten More Things You Should Consider This Back to School Season

It’s back to school season again and its that time when schools are throwing their doors open for new intakes, despite the Ebola outbreak. This post is to give you a head start so you are fully prepared to tackle the challenges of picking out the best school for your child.

Ten things to consider when enrolling your child in a new school

I hope to share with you some valuable “school hunting “guides when next you go for ‘school shopping’ for your kids. You don’t have to be a parent to read this; the information should be at your fingertips.

The first question you might want to ask will be, why change my kids school? It could be due to any of these: 

• Change in environment due to work or travel
• Poor performance in previous school
• Another could be a change in status, may be you won a lottery or hit the jackpot, a job raise or anything that normally change status.
•  maybe you just felt a need to change

 TEN MUST HAVE FOR YOUR KIDS NEXT SCHOOL 
                                                                    
1. PROXIMITY TO HOME: while your teenage kids may frown at this, this aspect is very vital if you still have younger ones aged 5 – 12. If you have a combination then a suitable fair enough distance is okay. If you can always drop them off and pick them after school, its fine if not make sure the school either has transport facility or near the home for ease to the kids.                                                                                                                                                                                                      
2. RECREATIONAL FACILITY: these are those facilities every good school must have. The school should be spacious to accommodate the pupils or students and it should contain a sport center, soccer, table tennis, basketball or any sporting facility. A school without recreational facility is going to be one boring school for your ward.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

3. SERENITY OF ENVIRONMENT:  a noisy school means lots of distraction. If you want the genius in your child to flourish, you must mind the environment the school is located in. Be on the lookout for trees, gardens, small plants, grasses and all those stuff that makes you feel close to academic paradise. Schools void of this reminds me of ghost haunted schools, and you don’t want your kid telling you ghost stories of his or her classes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

4. BALANCED CHILD – TEACHER RATIO: this is the ratio of the number of pupils or students in a particular class to the number of teacher, or it can mean the number of student that takes a particular subject to the number of teachers available to handle that subject. A balanced ratio always has the advantage of the students at heart.
Fifteen to one is ok for younger kids who are constantly demanding for attention while twenty five to one is okay for the more independent adolescents. A balanced ratio means that each child can get the undivided and constant attention of the teacher should situation arise. It is also easier for the teacher to create bonds with his/her pupil’s family, an important aspect of child growth and academic development                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

5. YOUR BUDGET: this is where it gets though, good schools can be very expensive, and so you would need to balance your needs with your purse. A good way to salvage this is to have a special savings or payment package or arrangement with a bank, some few banks now operate children’s savings account specially for things like these. Remember, that you must cut your coat according to your size                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

What to consider before enrolling your child in a anew school

6. LICENSING AND RECOGNITION OF THE SCHOOL: make sure the school you are picking is recognized by the authorities and is duely registered. A good way of finding out especially if new to a community is to ask the next door neighbours, what kind of schools do you have here? A recognized school would offer a recognized certificate, so take your time. Most schools around are recognized though, so not much sweat in this area.

     7. THE OTHER STUDENTS YOUR KID WILL BE SHARING CLASS WITH: okay, this doesn’t look a good reason enough, hey EXCEPT you want your kids to come back home speaking swear words and curses and swear languages and slangs, then give this a serious thought. The kind of peers your child will be interacting with should be of great concern to you because in his growing years peer pressure will be a great influencer of decisions. The other kids will also give you a peek at the status of the school and status of the families that have their wards in the school, an extra point if you are into sales or marketing, those PTAs and Open days should be NOT MISS days for you.

     8. ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN EXTERNAL EXAMINATIONS: this will help you judge the quality of teachers and how much dedication they pay to the success of their pupils. You can get the information from the schools administrative office or just ask the principal, another source of such information is a prospectus or brochure of the school. A good pass mark would guarantee you that your son or daughter will have good teachers and pass all his/her internal and external exams and test.

     9. EXTRA CURRICULA ACTIVITIES: check around ask around what the school permit or does as extra stuffs for the kids. Are there activity group like MUSIC CLUB, SPORTS CLUB, JETS, PRESS, YOUNG FARMERS, RED CROSS, BOYS BRIGADE, GIRLS GUARD etc, does the school allow for traveling or going on excursions. These are fun stuffs that will trigger the passion in your child. Extra curricula activities compliment the main subjects, they help guide many people into areas of passion. A school with activity group will develop your child and help in passion and talent discovery.

5.10.MORAL STANDARDS AND WORK ETHICS: am sure you don’t want to send your champ to a school where lateness and indiscipline is not frowned at. Discipline should be the hall mark of your choice school, a school where there are good rules that are upheld. I also suggest a school where religion is taken seriously, yeah I mean religion. We should teach our kids about religion and even allow them learn at school.

I hope you have learned some very simple and practical steps and criteria to look out for when going for
your next school hunting. I seriously suggest that the moms go about this business, don’t leave it to daddy, he
may not come back with what suits the children.

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Thanks, your friendly academic writer Jude!