Home-school or private school?

Your local school may present many advantages. It could be near and thus very convenient when dropping off your kids. It might even be a walking distance for them. But what if the convenience that the public school offers just doesn’t trump one thing? The school under-performs.

That changes things drastically and leaves you with this question. “What do I do?”

There are two options you can deliberate over. Do you home school your children or do you enroll them in private school?

Here are some things you can consider before making the decision.

Personal Attention

Whereas private schools are great, most of them lack the one thing you can only find in homeschooling. That personal touch.

Because a teacher only has one student to concentrate on, their entire energy and focus is on that one student. This means that the student can dictate their own learning pace for the teacher to follow.Home schooling an individual student enables them to be open and confident. Unlike a situation where a student can’t understand the coursework but lacks the confidence to say so, making them lag behind. As they advance to more difficult coursework, such a situation compounds and the student lags way behind their peers.

Cost

Private school tuition does not come cheap. There is no federal funding involved. They solely rely on tuition fees. On the other hand, homeschooling isn’t a walk in the park either. There are serious cost implications. There are costs for field trips, computer hardware and software, books and other instructional material.

One difference between the two does stand out though. For homeschooling, one of the parents, more often than not, has to quit their job and handle the homeschooling. Depending on your career and just how focused you are on it, this can be both a pro and a con. For a person who is focused on rising to the top career-wise, this could be very damaging. After the kids are all schooled and off to college, picking-up where you left off is often impossible.

Another point to consider is the stress it would build on a home when the income ceases being from two people. It could be quite a strain for. For this reason, some parents choose to pay for private school.

Social Dynamics

For homeschooled students, it is a bit of a challenge to interact with their peers on a daily basis in comparison to their privately schooled peers. This can be hazardous because socialization is as important to the success curve as core subjects. This puts private schooled students at an advantage.

On the flip-side, as much as they luck direct interaction with their peers, they have more time and flexibility. They can therefore indulge in many activities that a conformed schedule couldn’t allow.

Flexibility

Home schooling allows a student the opportunity to restructure their plans around their activities. This is the opposite of private schooling. Students pursuing a career in sports or the arts for example, end up being homeschooled. The flexibility allows them to travel for training or competitions to any part of the globe. If you have a student who shows early signs a career, you probably want to homeschool them. This will give the student the opportunity to have a head start. The private schooled students pursuing the same goals will not be able to catch up.

There are private schools that are slightly more flexible than others when it comes to such a situation. It is advisable to carefully consider the pros and cons before coming to a conclusion. An independent school would be best suited to provide the flexibility required to enroll in similar activities as a home schooled student.

Core Values

It is a well-known fact that a student is influenced in school as much as at home. Home schooling a student can be done for the purpose of instilling values by parents especially during their impressionable years. These are the years when their behavior and values can easily be influenced either negatively or positively by their peers. Many parents decide to homeschool their children during these formative years to avoid corruption of their values. They may also feel that minimal exposure can conform to a student to certain values that are important to them.

Whereas this may work, it could limit or cause the students learning growth to be stunted. The parent, unlike a trained and experienced private school teacher, lacks the training and experience in different learning styles. A private school teacher is well trained and experienced in the subjects and the syllabus. They are also well-versed in child psychology both through training and experience.

When making the decision on which way to go, it is important to know that it is not a ‘one size fits all’ type of scenario. It is important to evaluate your own individual situation and make an educated decision based on what best suits both the parent and student.

There are certain living situations, careers or financial situations to put into consideration before making a decision.

Have a conversation with an expert. Visit a reputable private school like Brooklyn Private School and get first hand answers to any questions you may have. Our experts will answer any questions you may have.