Choosing the first school for your child is not an easy process, especially with the presence of many options of curricula and teaching methods. With these options, distraction and confusion abound, and the question remains: Will you succeed in choosing a school that your child loves, or will you find him wanting to transfer from it in the first week?
The choice is not easy, yes, but it is not impossible either. All you need to choose the best school for your child is to define your priorities, and based on them, you filter your options, which is exactly what we will do in the following lines as follows:
How do you choose the best school for your child?
1. Geographical location
Location is a priority when choosing the right school for your child, and although some schools offer additional transportation services for students, you don’t want your child to spend a large part of their morning on the road. In addition to this being a great effort for him and affecting his level of concentration, it will also affect his sleeping and waking up times and will not give him enough rest. Therefore, we advise you, when searching for suitable options for your child’s school, to take into consideration the schools that are geographically close to your home, and if there are no available options, you should resort to Luxor in terms of distance or the schools that children in the residential area resort to; Even if the distance is long, the company of his friends will distract him from the fatigue of the road.
2. Your child’s needs
Geographical location is not the only element in determining the best school for your child. Yes, there may be a school very close to your home, but it is absolutely not suitable for your child’s preferences or personality type. There are some students who may not respond well to educational curricula that are taught 100% theoretically, and they need schools that apply a more interactive teaching method. The same applies to students who practice a specific sport. The existence of schools that help them develop this mathematics or give the student additional grades for it is a point that must be focused on. The child’s knowledge that school will not hinder him from practicing his hobby will make him want to join it quickly.
3. Teaching staff
Your child will spend a large part of his day with the teaching staff. These people will be directly responsible for raising your child in a healthy manner, or making him hate the educational process and not want it at all. Therefore, the task of knowing the teaching staff and ensuring that they are appropriate for your child’s nature is something that must be taken into consideration. It is important to ensure that the process of appointing teachers in the school is based on selecting those with academic degrees, and to ask parents about their children’s experiences with these teachers, and whether their method is strict or flexible with the students. It is also better to meet some of them during the field visit to the school, so that you can gain more information about them through the way they communicate with you.
4. Type of school
The types of schools in Kuwait differ, and the nature of the options granted differs, whether payment options or the nature of the curricula offered. The most famous schools available in Kuwait are government schools, private schools, and private schools. If you are looking for high-quality schools that care about academic and personal development at the same time and if you want a better future for your child with opportunities to work and study abroad easily, your choice will be private schools.
5. The nature of the curriculum
With the different types of schools in Kuwait, the nature of the curricula provided also differs. You may like the nature of the services provided in a private school, for example, but the nature of the curriculum provided in it may not suit your aspirations for your child’s level of education, and the choice of the education curriculum also affects the student’s university choices. . For example, the British and American curriculum qualifies the student to enroll in international universities, provided that he passes certain certificate equivalency tests, such as the SAT test. As for the curricula of the Ministry of Education and private schools, they allow your child to enroll in Arab universities with ease. International curricula in themselves are also different. The American curriculum is interactive and suitable for students who have difficulty with memorization and memorization, while the British curriculum is traditional and relies heavily on memorization.
6. Tuition fees
Let’s be honest, tuition fees are an indisputably important element when it comes to choosing the best school. Whatever your financial capabilities are available this year, they may be affected by any external circumstances next year. Therefore, it is better to choose a school that suits your average financial capabilities so that you do not have to change it after a year. It is also important to look for schools that provide flexible installment options, so that you can give your child the ideal level of education, without this causing psychological and financial pressure on you. You should also ask carefully about the nature of these fees and what they include, as you may be surprised that there are sub-tuition fees that are requested during the semesters and you did not know anything about them.
7. Competitive advantages
Schools are sometimes similar to each other, in terms of curricula, type, as well as installment facilities, which makes it difficult for parents, and makes them torn between the available options. At this particular time, you should resort to competitive advantages as a deciding factor in choosing. Competitive advantages may be in the form of special programs for outstanding students, or distinctive university scholarships. They may be special activities and events that help develop aspects of the student’s personality in a creative way, or special programs for parents that help them engage in the educational process and develop it in a way that suits their children and their absorptive capabilities, and they may be in the form of educational staff with a high degree of professionalism and development.
7 Things to avoid when choosing the best school for your child?
In the previous lines, we mentioned the 7 most important elements that you should pay attention to when testing which school is best for your child, but what about the mistakes that you should avoid?
1- Searching for a trade name
Yes, many schools have successfully built their own brand names, and the marketing they do on social media undoubtedly makes you wish you had actually studied in this school, not just your child. But let’s be a little objective, and see it from a completely neutral perspective. Brand names aren’t everything when it comes to the educational process, and what you see on social media is only part of what’s really going on, so it doesn’t really matter if your child gets a great party every day or a nice field visit, if the teachers’ treatment of him or her is neither professional nor… The quality of education provided to him helps him become a better person.
2- Adhering to preconceptions about what is best for the child
Parents often make the mistake of clinging to their preconceptions. They believe that they already know what is best for the child and what exactly he or she needs. This makes them treat any change in their plans or other needs of their child as marginal matters that should not be focused on. Avoid making this fatal mistake, especially since its consequences are not simple. It is possible that the child hates the whole process of education or sees school as a daily temporary prison that he goes to. This is an outcome that will affect not only his preferences but also his professional and educational future.
3- Fascination with field visits
Let’s agree that all schools try to put their best foot forward during site visits, which is completely understandable and acceptable; The school gives you its best, with the aim of convincing you to enroll your children in it, so it is not surprising that the classes are in the best way, the teachers are well-spoken, and the children seem happy on the playground. This is all acceptable and beyond doubt, but what is unacceptable is for this image to be your only criteria for judgement. This is far from the perfect picture you see. Do not let the school control the nature of the information presented, and take the initiative to ask the questions that interest you, whether about the safety of the educational environment, education policies, how to deal with bullying, or children who face learning difficulties, etc.
4- Striving for perfection
Another common mistake in the process of choosing the best school for your child is falling into the trap of perfection, in which parents look for a school that meets their expectations 100% and nothing less. Which in turn is what makes them search for a long time and not find any option that satisfies them. In this case, we advise you to choose the school that meets 80% of your requirements, and the remaining percentage can be easily compensated. For example, if the national curriculum suits your budget but you want to make the education process as easy as the American curriculum in international schools, you can compensate for that by resorting to interactive education programs and attending special lessons in which this curriculum is applied.
5- Focus on the priority education stage only
When looking for the best school for your child, remember that this child will grow into a student at other levels of education, such as middle school and high school, so no matter how great the programs in kindergarten and elementary are, you must also take other levels into account. Try as much as possible for the chosen school to provide its services to all educational levels, and to have a clear path for the child’s sound educational and social upbringing from his early stages until his graduation from secondary school. There are even some schools that provide services to their graduates as well, in the form of reunion parties, meetings with new students, etc.
6- Selection on academic basis only
Yes, the academic level in the educational process is important, but it is not the most important. Your child needs an educational environment that encourages him to be creative, an environment through which he is able to form friendships and interact with the outside world. An educational environment that helps him build a strong personality capable of thinking differently. So when you are looking for the best school for your child, let us agree that combining the academic and emotional aspects is important; So that you find a school that helps your child to be creative on the one hand, and on the other hand, gives him the best education capable of qualifying him for his professional future.
7- Indulging in thinking
Overindulging may be the biggest and most common mistake parents make; Yes, the process of choosing the appropriate school is difficult, but it does not require all this thinking. Once you find the appropriate specifications that satisfy you by, say, 80%; You must choose it and prepare to enroll your child in it. Remember that most schools have a deadline for registration, so choose your school early and prepare the required papers and documents immediately; You may not have enough time to register at the last minute, and some schools may close enrollment early due to the required number being full.
