Choosing a private school is a complicated task. School websites are a great resource in aiding that choice by pointing out a school’s attractive features such as location, curriculum, and class size. However, skillfully-crafted messages can also be misleading. Parents encounter well-spun descriptions of programs and professionally-captured photos. But what is often a major concern to parents is tuition. It’s also important to learn just how small those “small classes” are and how many hours students really need to spend with a tutor/teacher to adequately cover a course’s syllabus when it’s not part of a fixed class schedule.
Let’s consider the popular topic of small class size. If you’re coming from a public school (which are frequently overcrowded), 15 or 20 students in a class sounds small. At Beekman, the average class size is 7. That difference may not seem great, but a student in a class of 7 gets twice the individual attention from the teacher than in a class of 15. If you’re looking at a private school, it’s important to know the actual number that those “small classes” average. Greater attention from a teacher equals greater value in education.
When you’re working with a private teacher or tutor for course credit, one of the first questions you should be asking is if a student can actually absorb and master the knowledge of an entire semester in a handful of hours. If the goal is to truly learn the material and be able to build on that knowledge later, are you giving the student an optimal environment to learn the subject’s material if you crunch the teaching hours? Beekman’s decades of experience has taught us how much time is needed to effectively teach a semester’s worth of material.
For highly competitive tuition in a school with remarkably small classes, consider perusing our website, www.beekmanschool.org. If you need affordable rates for one-on-one instruction or tutoring, make sure to review The Tutoring School’s page.
Once you’re convinced that Beekman is your best value, contact the school (212-755-6666) to arrange a visit and discuss your specific needs. We’ll be happy to provide you with solutions.