Claudia Díaz, principal of the prestigious Montessori British School (Bogotá), maintains that choosing a school for one’s child is the most important decision, on which the future depends. She compiled the following list for parents to take into account during decision-making.
1. Character formation: The chosen school must offer character formation, not only with words, but with deeds and results. In addition, it must be compatible with the beliefs of the parents. At the Montessori British School, principal Claudia Díaz leads a program called Mind-Driver.
2. Times and locations: The school must be located within the city, given that your child's time is the most important resource in his life and should not be wasted. Two more hours a day of their time in a year accumulate 400 hours, equivalent to 50 days. In addition, the institution must have safe and responsible means of transportation.
3. Premises: Just as our physique reflects our souls, a school’s premises should reflect their methodology. The latter should be based on creativity and innovation to always simulate the senses, and, thus, achieve an appropriate environment for learning.
4. Academic excellence and accreditations: The chosen school should rely on result-oriented international accreditations and its own academic excellence, to further open for students the doors of top-level universities from across the world.
5. Artistic formation: The school should rely on a solid artistic formation to provide the students with new ways of expressing themselves and, therefore, of standing out among the rest. Nowadays, the most influential companies are looking for their directors to be creative at the time of generating products and innovative services.
6. Methodology: Results are very important, but so are the processes. And that’s methodology. The chosen school will have to teach according to a method based on the latest research and ruled by the development of critical thinking, innovation, and creativity.
7. Languages and multiculturalism: The chosen school must be fully multicultural and teach 4 languages (English, French, Mandarin, and Spanish) in its curriculum, with real and verifiable results in international exams.
8. Technological future: The chosen school should prepare students for the future (with courses such as robotics, photography, high-definition video, and business training, etc.…).
9. Well-being, health, and environmental education: The chosen school must educate for life, raising awareness of the need to eat healthy and naturally and relying on a solid environmental education.
10. Human talent: The chosen school must have a highly trained academic and administrative personnel who are passionate and love what they do.
11. Students: The school’s students must be raised with values, based on effort and perseverance as the fundamental characteristics to achieve their goals.
12. Cost–benefit: Choose a school the curriculum of which is so complete that you do not have to pay for extracurricular classes, and where high-quality education allows access to important universities around the world by validating university credits. Remember that there are multiple scholarships and opportunities reserved for students who obtain good results.
13. Security: Choose a school that offers your child safe facilities, cleanliness, systematic order, adequate medical attention, healthy eating, exhaustive surveillance, highly qualified personnel, and state-of-the-art technology.
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