How To Evaluate and Choose a School

Choosing a school is a complex decision that includes the characteristics of the child, family, and schools. School quality depends on many characteristics, not all easily measurable, and not all equally important for each individual child or family. Parents may want to consider the following characteristics when evaluating a school.

Child characteristics - Parents will want to think about their child's personality, learning style, and any special needs.

• Does the child need the structure that a traditional school setting would provide, or does he or she prefer to explore and take more personal responsibility for learning?
• Could she benefit from some type of alternative schooling approach? Does the child respond differently to being in small and large groups? If, for example, a child learns best in small cooperative work groups, then parents may want to consider finding a school that uses this instructional strategy.

Family characteristics - A family's choice of schools will depend on the family's values, in addition to practical considerations such as transportation and tuition costs for private education. Choosing the neighborhood school regardless of other factors may be the best option for many families while choosing a religious school may be the best choice for others.

School characteristics - Parents can ask friends, neighbours, other parents, and community leaders about the reputation of the school(s) of interest. After listening to each person's opinion, parents can decide whether the positive or negative views would apply to their family and children. Parents may want to find out about special areas of concern, such as whether religion is being given undue importance, and whether students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds are well integrated into the school culture and activities.

During the interaction with the school personnel, see whether they are interested in the parents and the child or only talk about the money be it donation or fees etc.

Find out about the activities that the school offers and from which class the activities start.