Challenges With Private Schools

Challenges With Private Schools: Day Schools, Bilingual Schools and International (English and French) Schools

As I discussed in my last column, expatriates can encounter many challenges when they put their children into local Swiss schools. However, even choosing a private school is not necessarily easy when living abroad. In Zurich, for example, there is much more choice at primary level than at secondary, and the number of languages available at different schools can be bewildering. Decision-making is also stressful, because on a scale from 1 to 10, guess how important this purchasing decision is on the “gravity of decision spectrum”? Yes, it is a 10!

We can all imagine what effect a problematic schooling could have on our children’s futures. However, in private schools you can at least expect more transparency in the chosen educational methodology than in a state school here in Switzerland. The school’s information, but most crucially the concept (also known as educational philosophy in English) should give you information about class sizes, age groupings, principles, policies and the history of the school. You can ask about rules and the reasons for them.

You can also expect more respect in the school’s dealings with you as a parent and purchaser of services, although teachers are professionals whose authority and experience in managing classes can countermand yours in the school setting. Disagreements between home and school could also impact your individual child’s experience in school and are best avoided. Therefore, check out the complaints procedure and ensure you understand the school management structure and philosophy before enrolling your child.

Do not be embarrassed to visit with a list of questions: good schools welcome questions from the parents, because it shows that they are engaged with their children’s education, and that they have done their research. Parental engagement can mean you are willing to help the entire school community and keep schools accountable. If a school has been reported to the authorities recently, the issues involved should be clear. If the school has a national or recognised curriculum, ask when the last inspection was or how quality is assessed.

New schools and nurseries

Many adventurous expats are willing to try out a brand new school or day care centre for their child without asking the questions they might in a more established setting. There is nothing wrong with that, especially given the entrepreneurial spirit that brings a lot of us to consider living abroad in the first place, provided you check that the new school/crèche has its license (Bewilligung) from the Swiss authorities, which ensures certain safeguards. But schools especially need good managers, so they do not go bust in their first few years as easily as restaurants do!

Basic financial information can help you discern whether a new venture has been launched with reasonable risks rather than based on a non-existent business plan. Firstly, some schools have public (transparent) accounting and are registered at Companies House – the Handelsregisteramt in Zurich. If they were set up as a Verein, for example – a non-profit association – their accounts are published for members and these members may simply be other parents of children in the school. So annual reports will be easy sources of information for the history of investment and the financial stability of the organisation.

The other basic information you need is who will work with your children. You should meet a teacher or Head of school with responsibility for recruitment, or at least one of your child’s teachers, before your child starts at the school. Parents tell me it is sometimes difficult to meet teachers and Heads when they visit.

My advice is not to trust in the unknown. Education can be seen as a commodity these days, but it is not; different personalities enter the profession and you need to feel confident in the motivation of the person who will most affect your child’s daily existence. Some team spirit should be discernable in classes where teachers work together, too.

Depending on the level of decision-making power given to teachers, the risks of new ventures are not limited to new schools. At one of the biggest and oldest private international schools in Zurich, one parent was told after two of her children had already started that her youngest could not be accommodated in their new toddler programme because she was not toilet-trained. This was after the parent had been told by the principal that it would not be a problem! This suggests it might be a good idea to email your questions to schools well in advance, to enable them to be forwarded to different school staff in a large school.

Contracts and fees

At many established private schools parents can run into difficulties if their child leaves mid-year, when they have not read the small print of the joining contract. There are notice periods and set fee schedules which, if notice is not properly given, can make you liable for up to six months’ worth of fees after departure. So do not ignore emails or letters from private schools and nurseries about administrative issues; it could be a costly mistake!

Which class should my child be in?

A topic that causes parents stress at times is which group or class their child should be placed in. Many parents see their child’s capabilities and want them to benefit from being with older children, for example, rather than following the research, which demonstrates that the oldest children in a class tend to be the most successful. With my head-of-nursery-school hat on, I have to say that often teachers make good suggestions for individual children’s placements, based on their overview of the class, and personal knowledge and experience, which parents simply ignore. Try to engage in a full discussion of the details behind teachers’ suggestions before pushing to get your own way, because at the end of the day, your child will absorb the consequences in his learning and day-to-day happiness. For private schools, it can be easier to let parents have their way at the expense of their child’s smooth progress through an age­appropriate curriculum.

Language learning

A common problem reported by parents is that children take several years to learn their target language despite in some cases full immersion in German. Immersion may not be enough if 1) the strongest relationships at home or at school are in another language and/or 2) the prevalent peer language is the Swiss dialect. Children need High German to do well in the Swiss system. Children also need friends to be happy at school. If friends speak in another language than High German, the immersion is watered down, and this is not controllable. Some children learn by observing; others are stronger in listening, others in doing. The doers may not pick up a new language very quickly. Few bilingual schools monitor the standard of language learning even if the standard of teaching is inspected. Be aware that your child may need extra private German lessons individually or in much smaller groups even if they attend a bilingual school. They can start learning German before you arrive in Switzerland, of course!

Cultural differences

Private international schools have more freedom to employ teachers who are either unqualified or speakers of English as a second language. As well as checking the English of the teachers, you should ensure you can imagine a good working relationship with a class teacher. One family found a Hungarian preschool teacher’s behaviour management strategies too harsh in comparison with her U.S. and U.K. colleagues, for example. This teacher found it difficult to adapt her style from black-and-white disciplinarianism to the softer, more accommodating approach expected in an English-­speaking environment. It turned out that she was qualified to work with much older children but had applied to work with younger children when she did not get accredited as a Gymnasium teacher by the Swiss authorities, due to her lack of German.

Some German- and French-trained teachers aim at conformity in grammar exercises or handwriting, where international teachers would allow the children to bring different backgrounds and methodologies to their class work. Cultural differences can also isolate English-speaking parents, for example in bilingual primary schools in Zurich where German speakers tend to be in the majority, because in other cultures school is not the centre of a child’s community. In Switzerland, families tend to meet outside of school for sports and music activities, for example. Years before their children enter kindergarten, mothers get to know each other in the community, often when starting their families. By the beginning of kindergarten, when Swiss children are expected to walk to school independently, there is not always the chance for parents to socialise at the school gate. In France, too, schools traditionally focus on teaching and learning rather than organising extra-curricular activities.

By Monica Shah

Monica Shah is Head of Children First, an international non-­profit nursery school in Zurich.