Hi Ladies (and Gents),
I will be moving to the country soon and I have the option of putting my son into two schools. One is small and has two teachers and 36 children in the whole school. The other is a larger and has 181 students with 5 teachers.
Has anyone had their children in a small school and would they recommend it over a larger school?
I like the idea of a small school but I am worried he won't get the attention he needs as he is in kindy and isn't very good at writing letters yet.
Any experience and advice with this would be appreciated.
Thanks
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6 Replies
Firstly - they are both small schools :) The little one will give your kid a 1:18 teacher/student ration. The 'big' one will give you 1:36 ration. If you think he needs plenty of attention then the little one sounds better. Personally it's more about the quality of the teacher but the bigger school sounds like it is at least 1 teacher short...
My daughter goes to a school with 230 kids and it's considered small.
I would go with the bigger school. I went to a school with 50 kids and the bullying was so bad and it was extremely personal. In bigger schools there is bullying yes but you don't have the whole school gang up on you like with smaller schools.
I'd definitely go the 'bigger' school. I grew up in the country & went to a very small school, when I first started there were 8 kids in the whole school, it didn't get much bigger than that throughout the years. Myself & a lot it the other children that went there have learning problems, I know other people that have been to similar schools & have the exact same issues & they along with me would never send their kids to such a small school. A lot of people think because it's such a small school that the kids will get more attention/one on one time & the teachers will be more focused as they're not so stressed out, but I found it to be the total opposite. Goodluck with everything IM l, I hope your move goes well ☺️
Go for the bigger one. They are both tiny schools. The more kids the school has, the more funding the school gets and the more they can offer your child inside the curriculum. Although, at the end of the day, the curriculum is the same every where. But the aides they use to teach or the facilities the school has, greatly depends on the size of the school.
My son went to a small primary school of about 80 kids and I thought it was perfect for him. I have worked at a much smaller school and I found a lot was lost, it was a one teacher and 15 students school and there were some kids unable to handle it. What does a year 2 student do while the teacher is helping a year 6 student work out a math problem? How about finding stories suitable for the whole age range at group reading time? Plus it's harder to make friends when there's not many kids your own age. My son still had composite classes but they were separated out from K-2, 3-5 and 6-7 (changed now for new high school grades). Before you decide which one also do a bit of background searching, see what other parents think of the schools, look at the facebook pages, check what the social demographic is, check out what both of them charge in fees and what extras have to be supplied, check naplan scores (they're not the be-all and end-all but they give an indication if the curriculum is working). One last thing, have you looked at ALL of the schools or just the closest ones? We live in a small town and I drove past two primary schools everyday to take my son out of town to a different school as I didn't believe these other two suited him. It was only 10 minutes away and exactly what he needed.
It totally depends on the school, staff and your kids. We choose a small school for our kids as the school has great success with special needs kids and isn't as loud and crowded as our local school. My second, third and soon to be diagnosed forth child have sensory processing disorder and struggle with crowds, loud noises, lots of different smells, unexpected touch, the list goes on.... It was just a much better fit for us. It's also great that they have a prep, 1, 2 class that allowed our first child to help the second transition to school, and next year or second child will be able to help our third child settle in as our kids are 2 years apart. That has helped us avoid loads of anxiety for the kids. We also found that at our school, the big kids look out for the younger kids and help keep each other out of mischief. We found a really great little school. You will figure out what will work best for your family. Good luck.