Which is the best school for your child?
 
This is that time of the year when parents get hyper-worried about their children’s admission to a ‘good’ school. Most knock school doors for admission at kindergarten level. But a significant number who could be relocating or shifting their children from a ‘primary-only’ school, look for options in higher classes as well, often up to Grade 8 or even 9.

It is not easy to spot a ‘good’ school. Every school is different. Each is likely to have unique attributes ranging from academic performance, extra-curricular activities, small or big class sizes, large campus and play areas, strong roots in a religion or culture and so on.

So how to pick a great school for your child? Should you go by public reputation? Or would some analysis of what your child likes the most lead you to a great school? OR something else perhaps?

We don’t want to be preachy and lecture you. We have just put together a few points you may keep in mind while going about the task.

    * Take a look at it yourself or call up

A school might have an impressive website or might release a powerful advertisement in newspapers. In any case, these are meant to impress people. They may or may not gel with the reality. Try and visit the school yourself. Is someone there happy to show you around the place? Consider that a good start. An unfriendly attitude to you, a potential parent, does not bode well. If that’s possible, you may also talk to the teachers to get a better idea of what the school is like and how it will suit your child's temperament and abilities.

It is possible that the school doesn’t encourage visits from potential parents. In that case, just call up, tell them you need a minute or two on phone with someone in the admin, and ask questions that call for some detailed responses. Are they polite on phone? Are minimum courtesies extended (Thank you for calling, for your interest in our school, etc)? Tick off schools that get gruffy unfriendly voices to greet callers.

    * If you are visiting, do a dip-stick check for culture

Children may or may not pick up academic skills in classroom; but the school’s culture does impact their minds. A dip-stick method to check the culture of the school could be finding out (yourself, no hearsay) answers to questions like: When you walk-in, do people in the admin make eye contact, greet you and attend to you or are they engrossed in a telephonic conversation, without even offering a seat to you?

What do the bulletin boards look like? (If they have rules, rules and more rules, avoid the school). Do the students appear to be courteous, happy, and disciplined? How are the students with diverse learning needs (e.g., students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency) treated? Do the teachers appear to be smiling and friendly?

    * Resist peer pressure

Just because every parent (or colleague or relative) you know is clamoring to send their kid to a particular school, it does not make it the right school for you. Often, school reputation is unquestioningly accepted and no one tries to find if the claims to reputation are true. In fact, school selection often has an element of the “lemming principle” to it (lemmings are Arctic region rodents that are supposed to commit mass suicide in hundreds of thousands by falling off the cliffs near the sea) and you shouldn't care where the other kids are going.

    * A school producing toppers need not be a great school

A school that filters candidates very selectively and admits only the brightest, need not contribute anything to their growth. It is somewhat like locking up a few lions (from different prides!) in a cage. They get aggressive, bruise each other and one may emerge a “winner”. What is the contribution of the cage in all this?

Schools that promote their success with tests rather than how they educate children are bad schools. A good education process should lead the kids to pass the tests without focusing on them. If you put together some bright kids and get them to go by rules, and pit them against each other in a ranking system, they may all slog and come out on tops. The school doesn’t deserve any more credit than the cage in the case of lions.

    * School management’s attitude – negative or positive?

When you interact with the school management, does every sentence of the school Principal begin with “We can't do that because we have so many kids to deal with, etc”? Or even if your demands are bordering on the outlandish, do they say, “We don't have that now, but do you think we can get that for our kids?” Education, all over the world, is in a state of flux. Any institution that thinks it has got all the norms right and will not change them forever, it a catastrophe in the making.

    * School’s greatness fades quickly, a teacher’s greatness remains

There may or may not be great schools, whatever schools may claim. But there are definitely great teachers and great principals. And given the high rate of attrition among teachers, a bunch of good teachers lending credibility to a school’s reputation, may not be around for long. A great school one year, and a bad one the next… that is very much possible! But a person cannot be a great teacher one year and a terrible one the next.

Therefore, try and spot some good teachers, see how you can get your kid to interact with them in some school. As long as the school doesn’t cause any harm to the child’s mind, the company of a few good teachers will do the trick in your child’s growth. Move with them to another school, if such a situation arises.