How do you pick the best school for your child? When it comes to choosing a school for your child, most experts, and in fact parents also, suggest going in for a neighbourhood school or a school close to your house. I have rounded up few reasons why parents support their take behind choosing nearby schools for your kids.
1. Less Physically Tiring on the Child and to Avoid Tedious Bus Ride – Less travel time means less exhaustion for your child. Given the traffic jams etc., do you really want your child to be sitting in a school bus for 45 minutes or more, one way, every day, including extreme weather conditions?
2. Saving Quality Time – The saved time can be used to help the child rest and relax, enjoy some free-play, and indulge in unstructured activities, he prefers. For eg: if he is back home on time in the afternoon, give him a free run to do anything he wishes, till his nap time or evening
3. Avoid Road Accidents – The Indian roads and highways witness hundred of road accidents of school van and buses. The school van driver may be trained but while driving on the highway you never know about the next driver. During last 5 years more than 1000 students have lost the lives on road accident specially on highways. Never have a school where you need to travel on the highway daily to reach.
4. Easy access to after school activities – Your child can easily reap the benefit of extra classes, consultation with teachers and seeking their help, done post-school hours if he has time on his hands versus when he has to travel long distances to get back home.
5. Ease for Parents – On days when the regular transport is not available: During examinations, sports days, annual days, etc. when the regular school transport has been suspended, if your child is in a nearby school, it is less stressful for you to pick and drop him if he is in the vicinity.
6. Helpful for Emergencies – With very small children, including those who have health issues such as breathing ailments, there can always be an emergency for which the parent needs to rush to the school. In such a case, a neighbourhood school is more accessible.
7. Flexibility. Kids forget things on a regular basis. Living close to a school lessens the stress associated with forgetfulness. Children do not have to rely on a parent for a ride back to the school. They can simply return on their own time for the forgotten item.
Always remember that child needs more time for their studies, activities and examinations. If you select a school where daily transport time is 90 Minutes a day it will waste 25% of total study hours. You child will be tired after coming home and will need an hour to get ready and it will also cost the waste of time.
Parents have to be very wise to select a school as no school can recover the lost hours of travelling.
About the Author: Dr Manjeet Jain is the Principal – Jain Heritage School
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