As popular wisdom says, it is better to see once than hear a hundred times!
This is also true of the choice of a British secondary school, because education abroad, far away from home can be a difficult step. You need to make sure that the atmosphere of the school is suitable for the child.
Recently I attended ACS Cobham with my clients – An American private school, co-educational, for boys and girls, aged 2-18 years. The school offers both full-time education and boarding school from the age of 12. In total, there are more than 1,400 students. The school is located in Cobham, Surrey, in the outer suburbs of London (about30-40 minutes from the centre).
The school is equipped to meet high modern standards, and has: a modern interactive training centre, a hall for dancing and aerobics, a sports complex, courts for playing a game of a basketball, volleyball, a 25-metre swimming pool, rugby and hockey fields, an all-weather track, playing fields for softball and baseball, 6 tennis courts and a golf course. The school sports facilities regularly host British and international competitions in various sports, they were even used as a training camp for the 2012 Olympic Games.
In my experience, it is better to make the right choice of study trip to a school, when you can meet the teachers, visit laboratories and classrooms, see what they feed the children, how their spend their leisure time, and ask personal questions, and, if required pass the interview etc.
An introductory trip is a very complicated event that requires careful preparation. After all, you need to agree on the date for visiting all the schools you are interested in at the preliminary stage, then agree on a meeting with the administration of each educational institution, arrange the logistics of making deadlines, and also within the visit to work as an interpreter, a link between the school and parents..
There is still a process of collating the information and comparing the schools they like, advising on the final choice.
If the family has time to set aside for a visit, I always advise them to do so, because high school is an important step towards entering university, and you need to make the right choice!
