UCT Online School - A positive Experience

Attending UCT Online School has been good for my son. It has taught him to work independently and get things done without someone standing over him to make sure he did his work. He has openly admitted that, when he started, he thought he could cut corners but soon realised that it woudl not work and decided to get things done. That said, UCT does make it quite easy for a parent to keep on eye on overall performance so, it is not like your child is out there on his own without any "supervision" at all.

I do think that the model is probably not for every child because, if they do not adapt to the relative "freedom" that they have, they will probably not succeed.

The challenges:. We have found that the online model does make it difficult to deal with "weaknesses". If the model allows, more needs to be done about assisting students that are struggling. My son has indicated that online sessions with teachers do not easily allow for resolution of "problem areas" and we ultimately landed up having to get tutors for maths and science. (To be fair - the same thing happens in normal schools as well.) Some kind of individual support in appropriate situations woudl be very helpful.

As the parent - I could do with less emails but, that is probably also similar normal schools, except that those communications used to be in hard copy.

Overall our experience has been a positive one and I woudl recommend it to anyone who thinks that their child can cope with the "freedom".

PS: Not having to get stuck in traffic every morning is a major attraction!