Choosing your child's school

Choosing your child's school

Decisions about where your child goes to school are very personal, and can be difficult. It’s common and normal for parents to feel anxious about getting this decision right. For some parents, the decision is simple. Their children go to the local public school – the school in the same government zone as their house. Other parents might want to look further afield at other government schools (‘out-of area’ schools) or private schools.
Things to consider when choosing a school

If you’re looking beyond the local public school, think about what will work best for your child’s characteristics, personality, strengths, needs and interests. You might also consider how different schools’ cultures and values sit with your family values and family life.

Factors you could take into account include:

- The facilities the school has to support your child’s learning – such as playgrounds, library, home language support, music programs, clubs and sporting teams

- The opportunities for parent and family involvement with the school, and how communication between home and the school is managed

- The school’s size and number of children enrolled

-The school’s religious affiliation or otherwise

-The location of the school, cost or difficulty of travelling to and from the school, and public transport options
- Your preferences or needs – for example, boarding, or the possibility of educating your child at home

- The connection between the school and the local community

-The schools’ previous academic results or performance in other areas, such as the arts, sport or community engagement

- where your child’s friends are going.

*Many parents worry they can’t afford to send their child to the ‘best’ school in the area. Every school has strengths that will enhance your child’s experience of school. Getting to know what those strengths are and how you can support them will benefit your child’s education.

Helpping your child in school

Nagging and Lecturing

Parents usually don't start nagging children about homework and study habits until there is a problem (e.g., being sloppy with homework, or not wanting to do homework at all). Nagging only makes the problem worse because your child will either get angry at you or tune you out. Instead, try to problem-solve together with your child. Ask them to come up with several ideas on their own for how to improve this situation. Brainstorm about how to make homework more fun. Try out at least one of their ideas and discuss how it worked.

Taking Over

You don't trust your child to get things done right, so you tell them what to do, when and how. This may work in the short run but doesn't teach children to become independent learners who take responsibility for their work. Instead of taking over, help your child figure out what they need to do by asking questions: "What will you do? When will you do it? How will I know? How do you want me to hold you accountable for this?"

Focusing on the Future Benefits of School

As parents, we know how important a good education will be later in life. Just don't expect your children to be motivated by this idea; they are more focused on the here and now and give little thought to the future. To motivate them, focus on the immediate benefits of learning (having fun, developing new skills, and ability to play team sports in school if grades are good.)

Leaving Homework for the End of the Day

If homework is scheduled too late in the evening, with only bedtime to follow and no time to play, children won’t be motivated to be efficient, and also won’t want to go to bed since they haven’t had any fun yet. Increase your children’s motivation to complete homework by giving them something to look forward to afterwards. Favorite TV shows, videogames, talking on the phone, or having a special snack are all great rewards after homework is completed, and may provide the extra incentive your child needs to get through a boring and tedious task.

Insisting on Long Study Sessions

"You will sit here until all your homework is done" - this can feel overwhelming to children and create resistance, resulting in conflict. Instead, schedule 10-15 minutes of study time, followed by a 5-min. break, then another 15 minutes of study. Repeat as often as necessary to complete homework. Children actually get more done that way.

Grounding Children for Missed Assignments and Poor GradesThis is not effective for helping them do better in the future. Instead, use problem solving ("What would help you do better next time?"), offer support, and give them incentives for good performance (extra privileges, special rewards).

Not Communicating With Teachers

This means two-way communication: Let the teacher know early on how they can best support your child's learning (how does your child learn best?) -then ask the teacher periodically, "What's the best thing I can do to help my child with this subject at home?" Don’t wait until parent-teacher conferences to find out how your child is doing, or what kinds of problems need to be corrected.

Over Focusing on Grades and Test Scores

When children get the message that grades are all that counts, they quickly lose interest in the process of discovery and learning, and instead focus only on the outcome. If they can't achieve the expected grade or score, they end up feeling bad which usually does not increase their motivation to do better. Children also need to hear from us that success comes in many forms. Some students will excel in sports, drama, music, or art; some develop excellent leadership skills, good citizenship, become peer mediators, or relate well to animals. Whatever your child's strengths are, be sure you focus on those talents more than you focus on their grades.

Sticking Only to the Curriculum

As long as children learn what's expected of them in school, that's good enough, right? Chances are that this year's school curriculum doesn't exactly match his or her own interests and curiosity (maybe they are into whales and sharks, space travel, jungle life, airplanes, etc). Encourage children's natural love for learning by asking, "If you could learn about anything you wanted to, what would you like to learn?" - then provide them with books, videos, trips to museums, and (most importantly) adult conversations about those topics.

Not Modeling Life-Long Learning

Do your children see you interested and enthusiastic about learning, studying, and achieving? Do you read books at home? Go to museums? Look things up? Talk about new ideas? Remember that our children are always watching what we are doing.

Home Schooling for your child?

Secrets to homeschooling:
• Homeschooling can be complete fun, if you enjoy learning with your kids. You can try to make boring things more enjoyable like providing exciting examples to your child. Let your child learn the way he/she feels comfortable because that is the way they will love to enjoy learning.

• It is essential to devote your valuable time to your child’s learning. Avoid doing your tasks while they are studying because it will help them to concentrate on their studies. Your concentration towards them will be rewarded later. Keep your child’s learning time sacred and do not involve yourself with your friends when they are studying.

• If your child is not doing well, or you are messed up with some problems at home, don’t give up, just try reading. Reading is the best way for your kids to learn and retain. Reading aloud delights little ones. You can record your reading and the toddlers can listen to them again and again while you complete your household tasks.

• Make use of educational products to enhance your child’s capability to learn faster. Such products help your child to gain self-confidence and have a better learning experience. Moreover, practical learning helps your child to judge better and make them good test-takers.

• Many of us believe that children are empty vessels waiting for the information to be poured into them. This is a wrong perception. Homeschooling parents should sit with their children and explore each of their textbooks to get the bigger idea of the picture. Try to understand the purpose of the textbook, chapter by chapter, heading by heading and word by word. Once your child is doing chapter by chapter work, you can bring them back to the big picture and then relate the importance of the information given in the textbooks.

• It is suggested to keep in touch with home school mentors and researchers. These people are a great help to mothers’ homeschooling their kids for the first time. Involve yourself with a group or some good library. Even a good education magazine can do wonders.

• Get into some social outings and trips to enhance the learning power of your child. But do not overdo it, as it might kill interest of learning at home.

• Observing your child helps you to know your child’s best capabilities and talents. Children thrive in an environment that encourages independence and autonomy. Thus proper surroundings and tools should be provided to the child.