How To Know If A Private School Is Right For Your Child

How do I know if a private school is right for my child?

It's always a terribly difficult decision. You've got to do your work, think about what your child is like, look at the school very carefully, visit, and talk to people. You always remain a bit uncertain because you're taking your child out of the environment that they're used to and planting them in somewhere with its own spirit, with its own way of doing things, which is removed from that. You've got to listen very carefully to the reactions of your child when they get there, and children can get very uncommunicative if they're having an unhappy time. They won't generally tell you that things are miserable unless they're absolutely dreadful, but if they're happy they'll tell you lots. It's being aware that the silence and noncommunicativeness is not what's right. There should be a lot to say. There should be a lot of fun being had. There should be a lot of challenge that they get to tell you about. Listen right for that, and if there's something going wrong, just give them the space to tell you what's going wrong, and then change. Changing between private schools is relatively easy because they always have spaces coming up at any time, and it's easier for them to stretch and make room than it is for a state school, which has to go in for particular systems of admitting people.