Online schooling

How does it help expat families?

Often confused with homeschooling, online schooling is a form of education where children take their classes at home. The key difference is that pupils (and parents) benefit from the support and structure of a fully-fledged school program.

How does it work?

With online schooling, students enrol as they would in a brick-and mortar school, but learn from home or wherever there is an internet connection. In contrast to homeschooling, the online school provides the learning program, materials, qualified teachers and all other educational resources.

Like in a regular school, students attend live online sessions guided by a teacher, receive homework and will be working with other pupils in assignments. Parents receive feedback regularly so they can monitor their children's progress. 

Although students interact with each other on a daily basis, the main difference is, of course, the lack of face-to-face socialization. Most parents choose to balance this out by supplementing their children's education with group activities such as sports, arts and crafts or volunteering in the community.

Advantages of online schooling

While not ideal for everyone, online schools are becoming increasingly popular as they offer some distinct benefits over traditional schools:

• Smaller class sizes: online classrooms tend to have 8 to 15 pupils

• Personalised learning: fewer students means teachers can dedicate more time to individual learning

• Shorter schedules: since there’s no commute or changing classrooms between lessons children have more leisure time

• Flexible learning: students can work at their own pace and have access to a recording of the live lessons

• IT skills: pupils get well acquainted with digital communication tools during the learning process

A perfect fit for expats

Online education can be a great solution for expatriate families who move countries often. In the past, they could either enrol their children in a number of schools or send them to a boarding school in their home country. 

With online schooling, expat families can now remain together while offering their children a quality education that doesn’t involve changing schools every few years. Others choose this form of education while abroad and transition back to regular school when they return to their home country.

In any case, before enrolling your child in an online school, be sure to choose a well-established and fully accredited school. The best online schools, such as Cambridge Home School , boast highly qualified teaching staff, years of experience, great reputation and an immaculate track-record of preparing students for top universities.