Choosing the right school for a child is one of the most challenging tasks for any parent. It even becomes trickier to choose a preparatory school. This is because a preparatory school education is critical for any child; a preparatory school is the first step your child enters the world of learning. So you must carefully evaluate a preparatory school before you enroll your child.
Since there are a plethora of preparatory schools in the UK, it becomes quite hectic to pick the best. But with proper evaluation, you can easily find one. Here is how to evaluate the best preparatory school in the UK.
1. Get more details about the school as possible
For you to evaluate the best prep school in London, you need to gather all the information about that particular school. Some of the crucial things you need to look for are:
- The school’s philosophy; the beliefs that guide its program and teaching approaches.
- Check if the school has any services available such as an on-site nurse.
- Their curriculum
- The structure of their school year
- Accreditation. This is very important.
- The background and qualification of their teachers
- Find out how the school handles emergency cases; how do they notify parents in case of an emergency?
You can find all this information on the school’s website. But if the school doesn’t indicate the above details on their site, it may not be a good sign. You can visit the Hurlingham school website to get an idea of how informative a preparatory school should be.
2. Visit the school
You can only know more about a school by visiting them. You need to get a better idea of the kind of environment that will surround your child during school days. What is the ambiance of the school? How do the teachers interact with the little ones? How does the school handle different learning styles? How do they handle children with special needs? These are things you can know more when you visit the school. Speak to the principal and a few teachers, as well. Other details to look for include:
- If the school has extracurricular activities.
- How they communicate with parents.
- The turnover of staff
- Rules for playground activities
- How they grade the children
- The classroom sizes
- Some of the school’s greatest achievements [if any]
3. Make your decision
After visiting the best preparatory schools in UK, and you’ve probably gathered all the information you need, you can now make a decision on which school is best for your child. You will filter out any school that doesn’t meet your personal requirements and carefully go through the ones you are left with. From there, you can apply as many as you need so that you get your child into at least one of them. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to apply to at least three best preparatory schools; that way, even if your child doesn’t get accepted in the first two, you can still get a chance in the third one.
Final words
Choosing the right preparatory doesn’t have to be that difficult; with the right step, you can easily find the best preparatory school. Just remember to gather more information about the school and then visit the school to get a glimpse of how it operates. It’s also worth mentioning that parents should consider their children’s needs when choosing a preparatory school. After all, it’s the child who will be learning at that particular school.
