Every parent faces this dilemma at some point. They often waiver over whether to choose the school a few blocks away or the one that flies high in the ranks. Obviously, you can go around town and visit some educational facilities. However, you’ll just see the facade. At the same time, choosing a school is a vital decision, since the choice of the right education is essential for ensuring good future for your child. Fortunately, there’s good news – there are some clever ways to find the adequate school for your kid. Just have a look at the following factors:
Teachers to Pupils Ratio
This certainly influences the quality of education and classroom atmosphere. First, the more teachers there are, the more attention and support your child receives. In schools that employ a lot of staff and teacher to pupil ratio falls within a reasonable ratio, every individual has a chance to receive sufficient educational assistance and improve their achievements. Other than that, it may be a good idea to get figures on the annual staff turnover. Such data seems hard to find, but it’s worth taking the effort to track it. Basically, if many teachers are leaving every year, it is certain that the atmosphere in such a school is rather bad and most probably doesn’t benefit its pupils.
Class sizes
Constant cuts to school budgets inevitably result in rise in class sizes. This presents a huge obstacle for kids, as it lowers the quality of teaching. And even though there is a body of opinion claiming the class size does not matter, teachers may fail to manage huge classrooms in the right way. This means, a kid attending a larger classroom will have lower odds of getting the equal amount of education.
School Popularity & Enrollment Volume
You can easily get an estimate by analyzing the school’s enrollment data over the years. A sudden decline in the number of pupils attending a given educational facility is definitely a warning sign. On the other hand, it’s better to stay away from a school that went through an out-of-the-blue rise in enrollment figures in the last few years. To put it another way, the teachers may not be able to handle that increase. There is also a risk that a once-small school may just not have enough space for many children.
You may argue that these are just pure figures and relying on them solely is not a good idea while checking out primary schools. That’s perfectly right. But, do you really want to waste your time running around town and visiting every facility? If you just stick to these three rules, you will at least cross the ‘bad ones’ out.