3 tips for choosing a primary school for your child
Nervous about where to send your child to school? Straight-forward advice for any parents of preschoolers, particular parents of children with additional needs.
Parenting is a whole lot of of agonising over whether or not you are doing the right thing. As a first-time mum and as a parent of a child with additional needs, this never felt stronger for me than when I was trying to decide where to send my eldest child to school. No matter how much info I gathered or how much thinking I did, it felt impossible to know if I was doing the right thing. And that’s because it was impossible to know. I didn’t have a crystal ball and (I am still learning this one), it turns out I can’t control the outcome of every little thing for my children – who’d have thought??
We’re at that time of year where schools are running transition programs and there’s a lot of “where are you sending them to school next year??” conversations happening at preschool drop off and in coffee shop lines. Gut instinct might serve you well in your decision making process, but if you need some extra help, here are three things I’d go back and tell myself.
1. If in doubt, try your local public school. Firstly, it’s free and probably the closest school to your house – both of these are big wins for family finances and logistics. Also though, what if your local public school is destined to be the best fit for your child but you spend the next seven years driving past it each morning in search of greener grass? That thought occurred to me a lot when I was contemplating driving a long way to send my child to a more specialised school. We did choose our local mainstream public school and the support my son has received has been exceptional.
Your child has a right to an education at their local public school. This was said to me by a NSW Department employee in a meeting about my child and honestly it has become like a mantra to me. After years of being enrolled in a privately-run, long daycare centre which made us feel like access to care could be revoked at any moment (which it was), this statement felt like such a relief.
So, if you are on the fence and feel like you are searching far and wide for the right place for your child, don’t rule out your local public school. It might just be the place your child has been waiting for.
2. Work out what your most important criteria are. Although gut instinct may be important, it’s too wishy-washy to say “just do what you think is best”. Think about what your child and family needs most and use those as guiding principles. Here are some key indicators I needed for our child, which our local school met.
The school was small so I knew he wouldn’t get ‘lost’ (physically or figuratively)
They were happy to have allied health support coming in and out of the classroom
The students always looked happy on school social media posts and were doing lots of fun, outdoorsy activities – surfing, intensive swimming lessons etc (I know, ‘having fun in photos on social media’ might sound really shallow but it was important for me to see the students enjoying things I knew my child would probably enjoy, too)
Most importantly, the staff had a relaxed, can-do attitude. When I told them I had no idea if my child would wear shoes, hats or even stay in the room, they didn’t freak out (at least not in front of me) and this was very reassuring.
Work out a few things that are important for your child and your family and go from there. If it helps, ask around with friends and other parents in the area BUT (and it’s a big but), be careful with crowdsourcing too much advice. Everyone’s situation is SO different. This is a call you need to make based on your family and your child and trust me, you have the knowledge you need to do that.
3. Let of what it means to be ‘ready for school’. Before kids, I no doubt had some really amazing, rigid and unrealistic ideas about what ‘school readiness’ meant. I had to make some serious readjustments to these ideas before my eldest went to school. I had to practise some radical acceptance around the idea that my child was going to school and school would need to meet him where he was at.
And they did, both in physical structures that were built at the school to accommodate him and personalised programs that were written to support him (and no doubt had to be chucked out and rewritten once he arrived). If I was waiting for my child to be ‘school ready’ in the way that parents of typically developing children might interpret the term, I’d still be waiting.
And guess what? My child has achieved so many cool, surprising things since starting school, stuff that wasn’t even on my radar, that I hadn’t let myself imagine. Plus, the routine and consistency of the school day (and the consistency of the staff) has supported him to develop so many new skills.
For our family, school has been a much happier and more inclusive experience than daycare so even though the lead up was stressful and the transition can be very emotional, it’s been a huge positive for us.
To sum up, simplify your search for a school – don’t rule out your local mainstream public school. Secondly, know that you are the most qualified person to make the decision about where your child goes to school. Finally, remember that the first year of school is a starting point. You have no idea yet of the progress your beautiful little person will make.
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