If you have a child who is about to start a new school (either primary or secondary) the task of deciding which school is the best can be very daunting. Many parents are happy to send their children to the nearest school. That’s fine, but we all know what impact our school life has on the direction we take in life, so yes; it’s a big deal, and it’s okay to be a little stressed about it. It simply means that you want the best for your child, as all parents should.

While it is common for parents to want to know which school is best for their son or daughter, it is very difficult to know for sure what a school is like when you are outside of it. Even if you went to that school yourself when you were younger, schools can change tremendously over time.

To find out which school is the best for your child, the first question you need to answer is: what exactly are you looking for in a school? To go even deeper, what are you looking for in a child? Wait, did he just say what you look for in a boy?

If that just gave his nervous system a little jolt, then fine. As nurturing and caring parents, we want to do more than protect our child, we want to mold him. Most likely, we want to influence his environment to influence them and, in the process, mold them to be the way we want them to be. We like the idea of ​​designing our children’s lives. Nor so that we can create ‘designer children’ as if they were fashion accessories (although I’m sure you know parents who think so). We know that the world is a harsh place, where survival is difficult and there are many bad influences. We want to strengthen the foundation for our children so that once they grow up and feel alone in this harsh world, they have what it takes to lead a happy, successful and fulfilling life.

While I’m sure we can all agree that we want to influence our children’s environment and know which school is the best to provide them with a happy and fulfilling future, the best way to do this is perhaps the fork in the road where parents I might disagree. So this is where I’m going to ask you to think very carefully about what attributes you think contribute to a happy and fulfilling future, when deciding which school is the best.

You may believe that getting high grades and a good ATRAR is the magic recipe for a happy life. After all, your child needs to get into the RIGHT college course, otherwise they might as well jump through the gap, right? While no parent in their right mind would really agree with this last statement, the reason I worded it so harshly is because if you put too much pressure on your son or daughter to get into the ‘right’ college course, the message unconscious that a vulnerable and insecure young mind will perceive is actually not very different from the exaggerated version I just wrote. Never being able to live up to mom or dad’s expectations, no matter what degree or career you choose, will result in a happy and fulfilling life. Also, the ‘never good enough’ mentality will only spread to your grandchildren, great-grandchildren and become an endless cycle. I see it a lot. No one looks back on their life and is happy knowing they contaminated their children with the ‘never good enough’ virus. Remember it.

All that said, getting into college is important. Achieving the best one can achieve is also important. Having the right environment is very important. So what constitutes the ‘correct’ environment? Is the proper environment one where children wear ties and have strict discipline? Is it where they have a larger training pool than the ‘competing’ schools? Is it having the right quantitative statistics to ‘prove’ your success? Is it that the other parents will be jealous of when they find out at the tennis club?

Well, if appearances and superficiality is what you value (and therefore want to inject into your children’s personality), then yes. While I could be wrong, I personally don’t think shallowness is an important ingredient in crafting a recipe for a happy life. In fact, for me, it just drives a person around in circles chasing a goal that will never bring them what they’re really looking for. But I am so I.

In fact, I can’t tell you what attributes you should or shouldn’t be looking to mold into your child. That depends on you. Just remember that the culture of the school will “infect” those who attend it. So whatever personality traits you want to mold in your child, look for a school where those same personality traits are present in the people there. That will not be found on a website. It will not be found in graphs or numbers. Nor will it be found in a sales pitch, a uniform, a school motto, or the number of trophies displayed in the administration office.

My personal belief is that a good school is made up of good teachers and good students. Therefore, a good school is good because of the people who go there. The goodness of a person can also never be determined by something that can be calculated or printed on paper. It is something to be experienced.

The ideal situation would be to send your child to a few different schools, watch what happens for a few days, and make your decision that way. Unfortunately, that is not an option. If you want to know what a ‘village’ is like without being able to interact much with those people, then remember the golden rule of human culture behaviors; followers are like their leaders.

If you want to know what the teachers and children are like in a school, watch the principal and the parents. Observe the way they communicate. Observe their body language, their tone of voice, their facial expressions, the things they talk about and the way they talk about them. Observing the unconscious communication of the leaders of any group will give you great clues about what the others are like.

Of course, the best way to observe this communication is to attend the school’s P&C meetings. Attending school P&C committee meetings can give you an opportunity to ask school leaders questions and see their reactions. Then compare those reactions between the different schools. It won’t tell you with 100% certainty which school is the best, but it will give you an insider’s perspective you won’t get any other way.

Again, I can’t tell you what to look for when you make these observations, that’s up to you. Regardless of what you’re looking for in a school (and in a child), though, attending a few P&C meetings is probably the best strategy for finding out which school is best for meeting your personal criteria.