Trudie Gilmore, Assistant General Manager at ADvTECH Junior Colleges, says there are few things that instill more anxiety and apprehension in parents than the task of finding the right school for their child’s first foray into education.
She advises parents to structure their search as follows: Start your search at least one school year prior to attending, and note that many schools take applications as early as just after a child’s birth.
Attend an open day or expo to hear about the philosophy, admission process and more, and then submit the application and registration fee. You can view the school while classes are in session, and they recommend that you bring your child to spend time in the classroom.
Know how often and how long you’d like your child to attend. Most schools should offer half-day and full-day programmes.
Gilmore says parents should check for the following to ensure that a pre-school programme is well-run: • Assess the quality of children’s relationships with the staff. Pay close attention to the language used in the classroom and the friendliness of the staff. • View a few different classrooms to see how the teachers interact with the children. • Home-to-school connections are important. Preschools that have high family involvement are often the schools with the strongest programmes. When families are involved, children do better, teachers feel supported and everyone works together for the children’s learning and development. • High-quality preschools have structure: They follow a specific philosophy or model and have specific guidelines for addressing challenging behaviour. • Discipline policies should emphasise positive approaches to teaching children new skills and proactive strategies for behaviour management such as classroom rules, routines and social-emotional lessons or curriculum.
Source: ADvTECH Group Pty (Ltd), www.advtech.co.za.