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Category: School

How To Ease The “First-Day-of-Kindergarten” Jitters

February 3, 2020 • Joel Dixon

When your child has spent his or her first five or six years of life being with everyday, it can be hard for them to make the transition to kindergarten.

Often, children are plagued with anxiousness and full of nerves before the big first day. Luckily, you can help them ease these jitters.

Talk about it.

The best way to prepare your child for a big change is by talking about it. Sit down with your child and discuss what kindergarten is, why it’s important, and that even though he/or she will be away from you, they are safe and cared for.

Be sure to remind them that they will see you at the end of everyday and emphasis all of the fun things they can do at school.

Practice time apart.

You can also practice spending time away from your child. Start with leaving your son or daughter at home with grandma, or with a familiar adult while you run out to the grocery store.

Gradually, you can bump up the time until your child can handle you going out for a day out with your friends without having a breakdown.

When doing this, though, be sure not to leave your child for too long, or practicing this will prove to be useless.

Go to the information session.

Many primary schools host information sessions or orientations for new students and their parents. This is a great way to introduce your child to their new school – they can meet their peers and teachers while having you by their side for comfort.

They can also learn more about their school, which can help take some of the mystery out of the experience. Often, schools will give out small goodies bags or have snacks, as well.

Take a tour.

If your child is afraid of their school because it is an unknown place, you can change that by giving them a tour! If you have a child who is already in said school this is easier, but either way, giving your child a 5-minute tour is a pretty simple task.

If you don’t know your way around, get a friendly teacher or a parent of another student to take both you and your child past the classrooms, washrooms, and other important places within the school.

Be positive.

When all else fails, just be positive. Even if your child has an attitude that is less than favorable towards their upcoming school year, you having a positive attitude can truly be uplifting.

Remind yourself that positivity is contagious and try to offer your child kind words, encouragement, and show understanding.

So, now that you know how to prepare your child for kindergarten, you can take action. Feel free to utilize as many of these tips as you see fit – there’s nothing wrong with using just two, and definitely nothing wrong with using all of them.

Private Education. The Benefits

June 18, 2017 • Joel Dixon

The benefits of private education

Deciding to send your children to a private school is a big decision, and is a luxury that not everyone can have. Maybe you or your spouse have high work load professional lives or travel a lot with your career, so sending your children to a private school is the most feasible option, provided that money is of no concern to you. So, we will look at below some of the benefits of private education and why a lot of parents go for an independent education option.

Enriched academic opportunities

A commonly agreed benefit of private education is that these schools provide an exceptional yet challenging educational experience. They do this by providing extracurricular activities, advanced work placements, International Baccalaureate programmes (IB programme), and other gifted programs. Statistically, students of private school consistently gain top marks in standardized tests and entrance exams. With this in mind, many private schools have an almost 100 percent success rate for students reaching the university of their choice.

Smaller class sizes

Across academia, it is now widely accepted after research, that the smaller the class size the more likely the student will succeed in that subject. While private schools do vary in size, most of them all tend to focus on small class sizes as being crucially important. This helps students’ weaknesses and also works on their strengths.

A community environment

A high degree of students and parents a like agree that their school environment and community is motivating, supports them and nurtures talent. Many alumni of private schools stay friends for life, long past their graduation. A communal pride, along with rich job prospects and networking upon entering the workplace can be attributed back to the community environment.

Resources are ample

In the private school system, you can find outstanding resources at your disposal in support of student learning not just in the classroom, but also on the sports field, in the art studio and in other specialist areas. These rich resources and extracurricular activities give students opportunities to fully explore and develop their gifts and talents.

Extracurricular activities

Obviously, excellent academia remains the number one priority in most of the private schools, but many of them also hold in high regard, a more holistic education experience, encouraging students to participate in extracurriculars like sports, arts, music and specialist hobbies or clubs. IT is believed that these extracurricular activities help to stimulate students in their academic efforts by giving them a balance between good mental stimulation, physical exercise and expression of the soul through art and music. The demands of the academic life can be tough on the body and mind, so students who have other things to do besides studying and reading etc find themselves in a better mental place while also gaining much needed social skills and life skills that they can take with them beyond the class room or exam centre.

Is this for you?

So do you think your child might like the notion of private education?

Have a good discussion about the pros and cons and if you can afford it, you might be regretting not doing it later on in life.

Categories: School

The Private School Advantage

January 10, 2017 • Joel Dixon

There are many reasons why private schools are better than public schools for most people. One of the big reasons is the more individualized attention that the students get. Usually, when a child gets more attention, they tend to do their work better. Students are also given more time in private schools, usually, to absorb the subject matter because the teacher has less students to work with at a time. Public schools are put at a disadvantage because they lack in the area of methods for individual education. Teachers have to rush through material to quickly move to the next subject because of the pressure from the government. Since private schools don’t have to follow the same guidelines, they are able to ensure each child is caught up on the lesson before they move on.

istock_000011752744xsmallTo teachers, private schools tend to be a better option as well. With less politics in the classroom, there is more room for them to educate the students. This is why most teachers started teaching in the first place, to help students actually understand the subject matter, not be taught things they have to repeat back for a test. Private schools are usually not required to participate in any of the standardized tests that the public schools have to.

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No Child Left Behind

January 4, 2017 • Joel Dixon

no-child-left-behindHave you heard of the No Child Left Behind Act? It is a reform for education that has been implemented across the nation to help improve performance in academics. It’s main goal is to help close the gap in achievement that seems to occur mostly in students that are minority, disabled, or otherwise disadvantages. In order to do so, studies are done to measure performance in students and then sends the resources to focus the attention on those children that are most in danger of academically falling behind. But what does that mean for the actual schools?

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Getting Back into the Swing of School

December 30, 2016 • Joel Dixon

There are many things that you, as a parent, can do to help your child get ready for school to start back up physically, emotionally, and mentally. No matter their age, they need a little head start in getting ready to go back after a long Christmas break. Now is the time to get started with preparing them.

school-bus-winterIf your children are like most, they have spent their entire break so far staying up late at night and sleeping in in the mornings. They have probably also been eating a bunch of sugary junk that also throws off their system. Now that school is about to start back up for them, it is time to get them back on a schedule to prepare them to get back to the grind.

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Services for the Autistic

December 15, 2016 • Joel Dixon

With the rise of autism comes the rise of treatments available and options for education. Parents are left to their own devices to determine which options are best for their child. This is a huge responsibility for parents with children on the autism spectrum.

Autistic boy spelling out autism using alphabet blocks. Autism is a condition in which a child does not display the normal responses to words, faces and toys. The child is withdrawn and usually has difficulty coping with social situations, due to a limited understanding of the actions of others. However, autistic children often have excellent pattern recognition and numerical skills. The causes of autism remain unclear.

When a family gets a diagnosis of autism, they are left with a lot of questions and concerns. Education is one of the big concerns they have. Autistic children each have qualities that are unique to them, so their education must be tailored to their own strengths and needs.

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Christian Schools

December 12, 2016 • Joel Dixon

Sending a child to a Christian school is often the choice of Christian families. Many times, they will send their children to a Christian school without even putting much thought into it. I mean, hey, it’s a Christian school, right? So what would be the problem? In a lot of ways, it is the same as non-Christian families sending their children into the public school system. I am not saying that sending your child to a Christian school isn’t a good idea, though. What I am saying is that, just because it’s a Christian school doesn’t automatically mean it’s a good school. You should still interview the school and see what all they offer.

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Consider Home Schooling

December 10, 2016 • Joel Dixon

homeschooling-not-a-fundamental-right-according-to-holderAll children are required to go to some sort of school these days. It doesn’t matter whether it’s public, private, or even a boarding school, children should go to where they can best get an education. But what if home is where their best education comes from? Have you considered home school as an option for your family? Many parents seem to think they don’t have what it takes to be around their child all day or provide them with the social skills they need. These are misconceptions that are pretty common when people discuss home schools. Truthfully, there are a lot of reasons that families choose to home school.

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Public School Rankings

December 4, 2016 • Joel Dixon

Have you ever really taken a look at public school rankings? It’s one of those things we hear about at least once a year these days. These rankings can show you not only how schools compare with others that offer similar things, but can lead you to schools that have different, out of the box things to offer your child. Of course, you should never solely choose a school based on how out of the box they are, but if you can find one that is out of the box AND ranked highly, you can be pretty certain that they are striving to offer children the best education possible.

school-standardized-tests_shutterstock_151206914_1-1479233047-5026There is a lot of information you can get by looking into public school rankings. You will find out how well they perform on their core academics. Every school has to participate in tests that measure advancement in core academics, so it’s a good way to see how each school fares.

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School Interviews

November 30, 2016 • Joel Dixon

istock_000015951522_large_frumkin_interviews-jpg-736x0_q85So you are a parent considering which school to send your child to. That’s a huge decision and needs a lot of thought and work put into it. The best way to pick the school for your child to attend is to schedule an interview with each school you are considering.

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