Developing Your Talents

If you are interested in sending your child to a charter or Montessori school, you are going to want to look into all of the schools before you choose which one is right for your child. Charter and Montessori schools are often driven by certain theories of educational practices and are created to provide your child with a specific type of educational experience, which is why you want to really do your homework before deciding on what charter school works best for your child. Here are three traits to look for in your child's charter school.

#1 Low Ratios

One of the first things that you should look at is the ratio of students to teachers. One of the benefits of sending your child to a charter school over a traditional public school is access to more direct attention and engaged teachers. Low student-teacher ratios generally mean that your child will get more direct attention and assistant from their teacher. It also means that the teacher has fewer students to manage and can work on creating unique content that meets the individual learning needs and goals of each student in their classroom.

#2 Defined Educational Approach

The second thing that you need to look for is a defined educational approach. You are going to want to send your child to a school that has a clear vision, that can be carried out in all classrooms, for how children learn. For example, a project-based school would encourage your child to learn through hands-on projects over book and worksheets. Or a school that focuses on the arts would finds hands-on artistic ways to teach all subjects, including things like reading and math.

Some of the best educational approaches are those that focus on allowing your child to explore and learn in a hands-on learning environments instead of a rote learning environment.

#3 Record Of Success

Finally, find out how the school tracks success and how successful students who attend that charter school have been. A school can have a great vision, but if it is not carried out properly, students will not learn.

There are lots of ways that schools can track success. One of the most common ways is through standardized testing, so you can look up or ask to see each charter schools track record with standardized testing. However, schools may also have other ways of measuring student's progress, so be sure to ask how they measure educational goals and what types of results they have produced over the years.

When searching for the right education program for your child, look for one that has low student to teacher ratios, focuses on hands-on and engaging learning and has a record of success that demonstrates that students actually learn in this particular school setup.