Review of Bilton Grange school

In the photo is Vasilisa’s son.

The proverb “There would be no happiness, but misfortune would help.” You can take it as the title of my review. My acquaintance with the head of the Paradise company Natalya Shtrain took place on the recommendation of Natalya Dyachuk, head of a well-known training center in Krasnoyarsk. At one of the seminars, the conversation turned to teaching our children.

At that moment I was very concerned about the difficulties that my eldest child was experiencing at school, although at that time he was only in 3rd grade. Russian was very difficult for us due to the child’s characteristics, and at that time we tried all the mechanisms to solve this issue, as a result of which we came to the brink of nervous exhaustion in the child. And I myself have already begun to fall into despair that nothing is working out, and my son’s psycho-emotional tension is only growing, bordering on neurosis.

Natalia Yuryevna's proposal to try to enroll in an English school Bilton Grange seemed at that moment something cosmic and far from reality, but now , almost a year later, I absolutely can’t explain it to myself, I trusted her proposal.

Yes, questions arose about how to let such a small child go so far and for such a period of time, and even to a completely different state. But… Now all of these seem to be not at all difficult questions, because after two semesters of study, I can definitely say: my fears were in vain.

Education in England is built on completely different principles. Firstly, this is a balanced workload in classes, a moderate distribution of classes in the classroom and the so-called “activities”, outdoor activities, during one school day. Secondly, this is the distribution of vacation time. Children study for 6 weeks, in the middle of which there is also an exeat - this is the so-called long weekend of 2.5 days. At this time, you can also see your child. So you definitely won’t be bored for a long time. The holidays are long enough, the child has time to recover and enjoy communication with family and friends during this time.

I also really want to say how blooming and rosy my son has become. Being at school is like living in the lap of nature, this includes the cleanest air, constant exposure to the street during school activities, and the huge school territory, which simply shocked me on my first visit. And what ancient buildings there!

An important point, which I would also like to highlight, is the structure and regulations of after-school hours. My child has a strictly limited time using gadgets at school, only 20 minutes a day. If you want, call your parents, if you want, play or listen to music. Strictly? Yes, quite! But, oh, miracle, my son began to read books, and read without being forced, because he needs to occupy himself with something in the evenings before going to bed.

He also made new friends both in class and  the boys who live with him, one of them is American, and the second is Chinese. What an international room they have!

You can write a lot more about the benefits of education, for example, such as nutrition, diet at school  is balanced and contains a lot of vegetables and fruits, but not only that, the child now eats, always using a knife. And the fact that they travel a lot outside the school grounds, on excursions and to competitions, about the fact that the child has a huge choice additional classes where he can try himself.

We can still write a lot of good things about our learning experience, but it seems to me that it is better to “see once than hear 100 times” - these are the right words for parents who are on the verge of making a choice today.