All parents want the best options of schools and colleges which is a hard task to check. Here are some suggestions:-
- If academic league tables are still important to you for your children, assess the data over a longer period than one or two years. Five years is a good measure and ten years allows you to see a proper trend. If the data is based on anything less than 40 students taking the final exams, ignore the results completely as one or two students doing well or badly distort the results.
- Check, whether school has wide range of clubs, societies, interesting trips and opportunities for students to pursue things they are really interested in? If these are barely listed on websites or in prospectus, then do not really mean to give the student a fully holistic education.
- Check about the level of career counselling or university guidance opportunities. If there are no serious programs in place, and no arrangements to listen to the students, then forget it.
- What about the accessibility to the top person? Is he or she is willing to engage in communication? Send an email for a brief skype conversation about the educational ethos of the place and look at the response. The top person should be passionate about the ethos and always want to talk about it.