Choosing a school can be a tedious but supercritical task for parents. School plays a pivotal role in the personality development of the child. The quality of education and care delivered by the school can go a long way in crafting the future of the child. Children spend a large proportion of their day in school, with teachers in school, and with their other classmates in school. The school environment can have telling influences on the child. As a result, it is understandable that parents must be asking themselves: “Which is the best school near me?”, or depending on your choice of the board: “Which is the best CBSE school near me?”, or “Which is the best ICSE school near me?”, or “Which is the best IGCSE school near me?”. This blog will help parents find answers to these questions.
First and foremost, there is no “one best school” that exists for all. It all depends on your specific needs as parents and the special needs of your child. Parents can consider evaluating schools on the following parameters while making a choice:
Proximity from home
Travelling every day to and from school should not become an energy-sapping task for the parents or the kids. To ensure kids reach school on time, fresh and full of energy, parents must evaluate the proximity of the schools they are considering. This can be looked at from three angles – Time taken to travel, Effort required for travel, and Convenience for parents. The shortest distance may not always be the most convenient. A kilometre extra but on the way to the parent’s office could be much more convenient than a km less in the opposite direction. CBSE school or an ICSE school, overall time and effort expenses must be considered while evaluating this parameter.
Safety & Security
Our precious children are going to be at school for a fair portion of every day of the week, away from their parents. Parents must carefully evaluate the safety and security parameters while selecting a school for their kids. Focus on health & wellness and response readiness for medical and other emergencies must be critically evaluated by the parents while selecting the best school for their children. Safety inside the school and also on the route between home to school should be taken into account. If the route taken to reach the school is not safe, it could be a concern.
Also Read: The Evolution of CBSE Curriculum for Primary Education
Management Team & Philosophy
The way a school is run is largely dependent on the philosophy of the leadership or the management team of the school – the director, or principal, could be the relevant designations. Parents need to understand the philosophy behind running the school. A business-driven philosophy will lead to an increase in running expenses for the parents as the school might try to maximise revenues from the students. An academic philosophy-driven school will focus extensively on classroom rote learning. Ideally, a holistic development philosophy entailing alignment of mind, body and soul would be an ideal combination for child development.
Focus on holistic development
The school should not be unidimensional in nature. There are certain schools which are excellent in academics, but mediocre when it comes to focusing on sports and other extracurricular activities. A balance between Curricular and extracurriculars is an extremely essential quality of a good school. To evaluate the holistic development parameter, parents must look at:
Academic Level of the school
This could be evaluated through the academic achievements of the school in the past, the quality of teaching staff at the school, the quality of the curriculum, rigour of evaluation, and other personalised child support framework such as doubt clarification sessions, practice sessions, etc. Another key element of the academic level of the school is indicated by the academic infrastructure such as classrooms, libraries, laboratories, etc. Parents must visit these facilities on campus to evaluate their quality and upkeep. Equipping the academic infrastructure with technology could be another contributing factor to the academic level of the school. The final factor determining the academic level of a school is the quality of teachers. Parents must check the profiles of the permanent teachers on the payroll. Parents must be careful and not be swayed by fancy profiles of ‘visiting’ teachers who may teach the students on an occasional basis. Parents can also choose to interact with the principal and a few teachers to try and gauge their appropriateness about the unique needs of their child.
Cultural Activities
Focus given to cultural activities in school is an essential pillar of the holistic development framework. This focus could be visible from the frequency of cultural events happening at the school in the past year. The kind of infrastructure in school that is dedicated to cultural activities such as a music room, musical instruments, dance room, auditorium for cultural performances, art & craft studios, and appropriate presence of staff such as music teachers, dance teachers, drama teachers, art & craft teachers, etc.
Focus on sports
The third and very critical pillar – is sports. The best CBSE school, IGSE school or ICSE school will always have state-of-the-art sports infrastructure, both indoor and outdoor sports. Indicative items could be a playground, for football and cricket, a basketball court, a tennis court, a swimming pool, etc. Equally important is the availability of indoor sports infrastructure such as a badminton court, table tennis, tables, and board games. Along with the required infrastructure, parents must also look for the presence of regular sports coaching staff to train and coach students on various sporting activities of their choice.
To close the loop on holistic development, the school must have a framework for active engagement between teachers and parents. Parents must evaluate this framework for its effectiveness and feasibility.
Utilities and Amenities
Apart from the infrastructure relating to academics, culture and sports, the best schools possess state-of-the-art infrastructure in terms of the entire campus as a whole. Factors such as a well-equipped canteen with quality eatables, hygienic washrooms, clean corridors, green gardens and places for children to socialise in between class hours could be equally critical to make children’s stay at school fun and engaging.
The Commercials
Parents make all kinds of sacrifices for their children, however, the school fees and other expenses must be affordable and not blow a hole in your wallets. Otherwise, it will lead to financial stress for both the parents as well as the children. Parents must consider all the possible expenses that come with enrolling in a particular school be it a CBSE school or an ICSE school. Both fixed monthly/annual fees along with additional ad-hoc expenses must be carefully considered and scrutinised. Once your child enrolls in a school, it will be near impossible to change soon. Hence, it is important that parents thoroughly vet the commercials involved.
There is a widespread belief that children walk to school but then run back home. Implying that children hate going to school. We have all been in that boat and can vouch that there is some truth to it. Euroschool has taken ample care of all these considerations and offers the best-in-class combination of all the above-mentioned factors and more for parents and children. We boast of a state-of-the-art infrastructure with best-in-class facilities for the holistic development of your child.
