It is vital to make an informed decision when you choose a school for your kids. With plenty of options, you are in an excellent position to browse through all the information, read reviews, understand the terms of admissions, etc.
Here are some of the best suggestions you’ll get on how to find excellent schools.
Know Your Options
What kind of school do you have in mind? There are public schools and private schools, which are considered some of the best schools in Bangalore. Which one is the best match for your kids? If you want them to study under the NCERT curriculum, you’ll need to look for a CBSE school.
Pick a Location
If you want convenience, then you’ll likely consider the schools close to your home or one that you can easily swing by after work. While COVID-19 has meant that many schools have switched to virtual learning, many still aren’t there. A school near your home is a good option, especially when the kids return to school.
Take a Virtual Tour
Not a lot of parents are making the trip to see the schools in person this year. The pandemic has made many people wary, and if you don’t want to take the risk, that’s all right. Plenty of schools understand. That’s why they offer virtual tours of their campuses. That’s one way to get a look-see on what they offer.
Make the Most of It
For many of the schools that offer virtual tours, you might be surprised to know that most or some portions of the tour happen live. To make the most of your visit, then specify the areas you want to learn more about. Is the school’s sports activities or facilities? What about the school’s extracurricular programs, particularly the ones that offer the students a chance to make a pitch to business leaders? By telling them beforehand, the school can tailor the visit to your needs.
Make a Zoom Call
If you have already done the virtual tour and are only going back to get more information on a particular area like the school’s boarding options or COVID policy, then a Zoom call might be a much better option. Prepare a set of questions, or you can send those questions to them in advance, so they will have the answers you need.
Do Your Homework
There are plenty of resources online, and if you have a lot of time on your hands right now, this is the perfect opportunity to go over them. Check out the school galleries to get a sense of what the school’s atmosphere and vibe are. Look through the school calendar. What activities are still in the works? Which ones will continue and how? Is the school employing creative methods and strategies to pull off those activities?
Go Beyond the Site
Many parents just focus on going over every inch of the school’s site but forget to check out its social media platform. Suppose you want to get further insight into the school. In that case, its subjects and administrative team, its students and the activities it holds, and a whole lot more, then these social media pages offer you a wealth of information. It likely shows the pupils coping with the changes brought on by COVID-19. Also, the style is more informal on these pages, so they give you a glimpse into whether the school is the perfect match for your child’s personality and interests.
Factor in the Lockdown Reaction
How did the school react to the lockdown? That will tell you a lot about how the school operates. If it had a fast response time, if it gave students the best educational experience possible even in the face of the challenges that the pandemic brought on, then that’s a good sign that you’re looking in the right direction. While there are many ways that schools react, the best ones share the same approach: proactive, innovative and encourage clear communication. That is the kind of reaction you’ll want from the school.
Bring Up Mental Health Measures
The pandemic has upended lives everywhere. Parents, staff, and teachers are all scrambling for a foothold in the new normal. An excellent school recognises that and will want to address that situation by providing mental health support to its teachers. In turn, the teachers will look to the students to get a sense of what the children feel. Are they all right? It’s only standard that they’ll be afraid that they’ll be worried about the future or anxious about what’s going to happen. What teachers can do to change that, to help ease those emotions, is to provide support. They will ask the students about how they’re doing. How is their family? How do they feel about the situation? Is there anything that they need help with? A school with an administrative team that recognises the mental health support that teachers and students need easily stands out from the rest.
Ask Around
Don’t be afraid to ask around. Check-in with friends and family. What can they say about the school? If you know anyone who’s sent their kids to the international school that you have your eye on, then reach out to them. Find out what their experience has been like. Is it a good one? Do they recommend the school? What kind of problems or issues do they have with the school? Take the comments and advice you get with a grain of salt. While not every suggestion will be useful, you might find one or two to be particularly helpful. They could be handy enough to point you in the right direction.
Learn About Reopening Plans
Good schools already have a comprehensive reopening plan. They aren’t wasting their time, waiting for the pandemic to go away or the problems to die down, and for everything to return to normal. This is the new normal. Nothing’s going to be the same after this. You want a school that acknowledges that reality. A school that recognizes that the new normal is here to stay can provide your child with a safe learning environment. That’s because the administrative team knows what’s happening on the ground. By being aware of the risks that come with COVID, and how to protect themselves—along with their staff and teachers as well as students—from potential contamination, these are the schools that are in the best position to weather through anything this pandemic might bring.
Check the Extracurricular Program
While academic ranking is essential, the best schools in Bangalore know that there’s more to life than academics. That’s why they provide a range of extracurricular programs designed to develop the pupils’ interests. For instance, students who join any sports events and teams experience being a part of a team at such an early age. They learn discipline and commitment because they need to be there, to commit their time and energy to the team, to practice after class regularly. That’s a huge adjustment and usually the kind that teaches kids how to get along with others better, work in a high-pressure environment, and deal with pressure and stress. By the time they graduate, they would have already learned a lot about themselves, about what they’re capable of, and about how to deal with other people.
Remember Your Reasons
The world has changed a lot since the start of the pandemic. While that means some of the schools on your list have probably changed, too, the fundamental reasons for why you like them, why they’re your top choices, and why they’re on your shortlist remain. What is it about the school that makes it the right option for your kids? Is it the values? What are its mission and vision? Some schools focus too much on their academic standing that they neglect the character development of their students.
The best thing that matters about schools isn’t that they’ll provide the training that your child needs to excel at STEAM subjects. Nor is it the exposure they’ll give your kid in terms of the diverse student population, ensuring that your little one grows up confident and at ease in dealing with people from different backgrounds, belief systems, and principles. The best schools make their students realize that all knowledge is in service of being human, compassionate, and kind. That it doesn’t matter if you know how to calculate complex formulas in seconds if you don’t use that talent to help others. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best in sports if you use that talent to oppress those beneath you. And it doesn’t matter if you are skilled in writing the most stories or reports if you use that talent to hurt others. In short, you’ll want to choose a school that prioritizes what true learning should be about: the orientation of the human heart.