Take a look at an online school review site and one thing you’ll notice immediately is the variance in the cost of a school place. Whilst the temptation is to choose an online school on the basis of cost, the difference in what you will get for your money is far wider than for a traditional school where fees tend to be based on facilities and reputation.
Places at online schools vary between £1,500 a year, up to £25,000+, close to the cost of some prestigious private schools across the world.
Online schools fall into a number of categories depending on how they deliver their lessons and this is the consequence of the approach used in online lessons during the pandemic. Some schools provided a weekly pack of work, collected by parents or sent via email and offered a one hour tutorial with each student per week. Others delivered a mix of live lessons, pre-recorded lessons and offline work whilst the best offered a full week of lessons delivered live over Zoom or Teams. These approaches still pervade the online school sector today with those schools charging lower fees either having more students in each class or reducing teacher contact time through offline or pre-recorded work, thus saving on teacher salary costs.
Research has shown that this model has its merits in terms of variety and a reduction of screen time but it relies on students being self-disciplined and able to overcome problems they may face without the help of a teacher. Schools that offer a full-time teacher who delivers the lessons live and is there to help during independent work, achieve much better results but the curriculum delivery methods still need to be varied to ensure student engagement.
One criticism of the cost of online education is that with no physical environment, its own costs are low and this should be passed on to the parents in terms of lower school fees. Whilst fees are generally lower than for physical private schools, online schools still need to invest in a learning management system that powers the student and parent portal, including a manager for the system. There’s also access to curriculum materials that require a subscription and, to attract high quality teachers that are proven to achieve results in the very different environment of online education, salaries have to be attractive enough. Support staff are still necessary, from the headteacher to a success coach or mentor, to ensure student welfare is being looked after and they have all the tools to be able to do their best in the online environment.
Whilst for many parents the overall cost will still be a deciding factor, we recommend checking exactly what you’ll be getting for your pound and ensure the fees offer good value for money.
