6 Ways Online Schooling Helps Students Improve Their Grades

As online learning continues to gain traction across the globe, many parents are making the switch from conventional schooling to virtual schooling. By offering greater flexibility, online schooling helps students reap the benefits of a healthier study-life balance.

In addition, parents can spend more time with their children. This is especially beneficial for families that travel frequently. As you relocate or plan family vacations, you don’t have to worry about affecting your child’s education. Instead of acclimatising to a new school and environment from scratch, students can swiftly continue their education without any interruptions, setbacks, or readjustment issues.

Online schooling also eliminates the risk of school bullying, harassment, and abuse, as highlighted in our previous blogs.

Today, we’ll focus on one of the most prominent benefits of online schooling: grade improvement. While we’ve touched upon this benefit in earlier blogs, we haven’t elucidated it in depth. In this blog, we’ll walk you through six ways online schooling helps students improve their grades.

1. Individualised Attention

At Cambridge Home School, we strongly believe that students perform better when they receive individualised attention from their teachers. In many conventional schools, the pupil-teacher ratio is extremely high.

As a teacher delivers a lesson to a room full of 20+ students, they struggle to actively engage each student. As a result, many students lose focus and zone out. This can take a toll on their overall academic performance.

Students who break concentration mid-class struggle to get back on track. As they lose the gist of the discussion and get distracted, they begin to pay attention to something else. This substantially reduces student engagement and retention. Students are left with unclear concepts that ultimately affect their performance on term papers, tests, and final exams.

Our MA/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers use a different approach to keep students engaged in the class at all times. By keeping the classroom size low (8 to 10 students per group), they are able to offer individualised attention to each student.

If a student continually gets distracted, our teachers immediately pick up on it owing to the low pupil-teacher ratio. They expertly help students get back on track to avoid affecting their knowledge engagement and retention levels.

This approach goes a long way in helping students make the most of each class. By paying close attention to the lessons, students are able to prepare for their exams. Their focus ultimately helps them secure top grades.

Recommended Read: 3 Useful Soft Skills Students Develop Through Online Schooling

2. Exceptional Quality of Education

Parents often believe that online schooling pales compared to conventional schooling due to the difference in the quality of education provided. This misconception compels many parents to disregard online schooling as a viable option for their children.

It’s important to note that there are presently 24,323 conventional schools in the UK. While the number of British online schools across the globe hasn’t been confirmed, it’s expected to be somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000.

Out of these conventional schools and online schools, some have made a name for themselves because of their exceptional quality of education while others have developed a tainted reputation. No matter which model of schooling you look at, you’ll find a handful of sour apples.

As a parent, make sure you assiduously do your research and shortlist online schools that uphold a high standard of education. At Cambridge Home School, we have an independent curriculum in place. This helps us ensure that each child receives a quality education that maximises their chances of securing top grades.

Our teachers leverage engaging audiovisual content, years of expertise and knowledge, and a strong passion for teaching to deliver quality lessons.

3. Enriching and Value-Added Class Discussions

Class discussions play a foundational role in helping students prepare for their exams. As they listen to interactions between their teachers and peers, they are able to gain clarity on concepts that they hadn’t fully grasped before. Students also get the opportunity to learn new insights.

In comparison, a monotonous class discussion may compel students to zone out. Even if they’re paying full attention, they may fail to gain additional insights that could have enriched their learning experience. Unfortunately, unengaging class discussions are common in both conventional and online schooling systems.

At Cambridge Home School, we strictly avoid this. By keeping the classroom size low and hiring experienced and qualified teachers who are adept at stimulating engaging class conversations, we help students a) listen to new thought processes, b) get concepts resolved from different angles, c) make their own contributions to the class, and d) have productive exchanges with their teachers and peers.

Students don’t have to endure boring lectures or tiresome harangues. By keeping the discussion engaging, stimulating, insightful, and focused at all times, our teachers ensure that each student leaves the class with quality knowledge. Clear, fully digested, and easy to retain, this knowledge helps them achieve high levels of academic success.

Recommended Read: How to Enrich Your Online Learning Experience as a Teenager

4. Focus on Revision

At Cambridge Home School, we’re strong proponents of thorough, consistent, timely, and balanced revision. Students who attend online schools are able to revise more meticulously than their peers who attend conventional schools.

This is largely because of the amount of time they manage to free up. Online schooling doesn’t require long commutes. Students aren’t required to shuffle in and out of classes, tire themselves out, and return home feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.

In comparison to conventional school, online school is less time-consuming and tiring for students. They can receive the same quality of education without feeling worn out by the end of the day. The time and energy saved can be utilised in extracurricular activities, family excursions, social interactions with friends, skill building, and revision. As they enjoy a healthier balance, students can also dedicate ample time to revision, which helps cement concepts in their minds.

We encourage our students to start revising at least two months prior to their exam dates. The initial period is a combination of studying and revising. Eventually, students are eased into the revision process, which continues till the very end. During the revision phase, our teachers work closely with each student to help them resolve any complexities or uncertainties that could potentially impact their performance.

Students are provided personalised guidance based on their performance. By assiduously breaking down complex sub-topics and providing a structured revision guide, our MA/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers ensure that each student is on track. This approach is one of the key reasons behind the high academic achievement rate at Cambridge Home School.

We ensure that none of our students delay revisions until it’s too late. By frequently checking in with students and helping them readjust their preparation plan, our teachers set them on the path to securing A*s and As.

5. Educational Resources

In addition to providing experienced and qualified teachers, we also equip each student with top-tier educational resources. Our online library is replete with resources that have been hand-picked by subject specialist teachers and education experts. Students can access a wide range of immaculately categorised videos, presentations, study guides, and past papers.

In addition to these resources, our teachers also provide additional tools and insights to improve student preparation in each class. This approach is largely absent in conventional schooling systems. Teachers solely rely on delivering lectures and sharing physical resources. While a few online resources may be shared through email, they aren’t expounded as closely as they are in online classes.

Our teachers have created many of these resources themselves, and help students benefit from them during class. Not only do these audiovisual elements make lectures more engaging, digestible, and retentive, but they also increase student participation.

Complex concepts are assiduously broken down through a combinative approach: resource-based learning. This approach further helps cement concepts among students. As a result, students are able to explain concepts more clearly and cogently during exams.

According to research, video content helps students perform significantly better. Whether they’re consuming relevant audiovisual content or engaging with teachers through video, they absorb and recall more.

The reasoning is simple. As humans, we tend to remember content that stimulates us. Images have a greater recall value than text, and videos have a greater recall value than images. By expertly presenting knowledge in the most engaging and retentive forms, teachers can help students improve their performance by leaps and bounds.

At Cambridge Home School, we carefully use this approach to give our students an edge over their counterparts. As one of the most discussed benefits of online schooling, resource-based learning improves academic performance across the board.

Recommended Read: Acing Your IGCSEs in 2021: Are Online Classes the Way to Go?

6.  Mental Health

Parents and even professionals often disregard student mental health. Unfortunately, looking the other way takes a toll on students. If a student suffers from a mental health condition like anxiety or depression, they develop a sense of apathy and complacency towards their personal, social, and academic life. They simply “drift along” life instead of steering it into the intended direction.

Even if a student hasn’t been diagnosed with a mental health condition, they can still develop overwhelming stress that prevents them from giving themselves, their friends and family members, and their studies due attention and time.

For some students, online learning has an alleviating effect. Unlike conventional learning, it doesn’t come with hidden pitfalls like school bullying, discrimination, harassment, etc. Since the classroom size is much smaller, teachers can instantly pick up on covert or overt signs of mistreatment, and take prompt action. Students feel more safe and protected.

However, it’s important to note that online schooling isn’t a “fix” for poor mental health among students. While it helps some students, it may not have an alleviating effect on others. Our teachers maintain an open line of communication with each student to help them feel more comfortable opening up, should they need to.

Students are provided a safe space and encouraged to prioritise their mental health as much as their academic performance. This focus helps us ensure that our students are in a good headspace.

As the pressures associated with conventional school are set aside, students can reap the benefits of a healthy schedule that helps them prioritise each aspect of their life, most importantly their mental health. Consequently, their grades also improve.

Recommended Read: A Day in the Life of a British Expat Online Student Studying A Levels From Overseas

If you’re looking for an institution that helps your child secure top grades while protecting their mental health, Cambridge Home School should be your top consideration.

We provide a quality British secondary school online study across four schools: Primary Prep/Key Stage 2 (ages 8 to 10), Lower School/Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 13), Upper School/IGCSEs (ages 14 to 16), and Sixth Form/AS & A Levels (ages 17 to 19). English-speaking students in the UK, Europe (including Western Russia), Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia are strongly encouraged to apply.

By providing a team of MA/PhD qualified subject specialist teachers, developing an independent curriculum, keeping the classroom size small, and holding three parent-teacher consultations each year, we help our students achieve high levels of academic success. At the same time, we hold their mental health in high regard. While students are encouraged to do their best, they are also encouraged to maintain a healthy school-life balance.

Our students have balanced schedules that allow them to give ample time to themselves, their interests and passions, their loved ones, and their academics. Ultimately, focusing on this balance has helped us maintain excellent student performance.

Our students are recognised for acquiring As and A*s in their IGCSEs and A Levels exams. Younger students also perform exceptionally well in their exams, and develop essential soft and hard skills. By focusing on personal growth, academic development, and overall enrichment, we create well-rounded individuals who succeed in their academic and professional life in the future.

If you want to make the switch from conventional schooling to online schooling for your child, start by reviewing our admissions process, term dates, fee structure, and scholarships and bursaries.

If you need additional help, we’re happy to help. Click on the bottom right button on your screen to leave us a message. We’ll get back to you promptly.

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