How parents can recognize a good elementary school for their children

In order to have your children get a quality education, they should be attending a good elementary school. For parents to choose the appropriate school for their children they must know what qualities to look for in a high achieving school. This process will require the parent to do some research and to be patience.

Before looking into qualities of high achieving schools the parent need to decide whether to send their children to public or private school. To help in the decision making process, parents should consider the cost when investigating private schools, and the certifications of its teachers. This is important because private schools temporally have lower salaries for their teachers which could lead to hiring fewer qualified teachers. When considering public schools parents should always look at the enrolment of the building, and how many students are assigned to each teacher. Sometimes public schools have larger class sizes, which could lead to less individual instruction for your child.

To help with the decision on public or private school, parents should start to investigate what qualities are present in the school. Some of qualities that are present in a high achieving school include: good qualified teachers who have a good relationship with their students, strong leadership who are knowledgeable on the latest trends in education, strong parental involvement in the school, good reading and maths program for the children, high expectation for all children, good standardized test scores, extra- curricular activities, tutorial program for students in need of help, technology presence, strong discipline procedures and lots of love by the staff. Schools that have most of these qualities are probably doing a good job of educating their children.

When investigating the schools, the principal should be at the top of the list. The parents need to find out what kind of style the principal utilises to govern the school, and can their child benefit from that style. The three major styles of leadership are: authoritarian or autocratic, participative or democratic, and delegate or free reign. Some additional key things to look for in the principal are: Is the principal visible throughout the building, do the children respect the principal and does the staff support the principal? Most parents should also want to know how the principal interacts with them. Does the principal have an open door policy when it comes to parents?

Once the parents have completed their investigation of several schools, a list of positives and negatives for those schools should be compiled. Schools may have some of the qualities they are looking for in the building, but parents will basically have to take the information they have and make an informed decision to which school would be the best suited for their child to attend.