Need to Know: Online Schools in the UK (2024)

Need to Know: Online Schools in the UK

By Carli Allan

What can you do when your child doesn’t fit the mould of a traditional school? One answer can be an online education, which offers an alternative to the bricks and mortar setting of a mainstream school.

For a child who is struggling in traditional school settings, an online school can allow them to focus solely on learning rather than the worries of ‘attending’ a physical school. Its flexibility also allows students to comfortably switch to an an online education at any time, with lessons accessible from home and the option to join at any time.

There has been a rapid growth in the number of online schools that have opened globally in the past 20 years, with a varied choice of schools offering online primary and secondary education for as low as £6,000 a year.

In this guide WhichSchoolAdvisor.com explores online education as an alternative to traditional school and helps to answer the all-important question – is it right for my child?

Why choose an online school?

What are the advantages of attending a full-time virtual school without walls? Cost is certainly a key factor. Annual fees for GCSE or A Levels programmes can be as low as £6,000, which is at least £10,000 cheaper than the day fees at many UK independent schools. However, just as you'll find at many bricks and mortar private schools, there are still exam entrance fees to pay on top. Exam fees are paid directly to the exam centre and you should expect to pay upwards of £100 for each IGCSE exam and around £250 for A Levels, depending on the subject chosen.

So, while students can access a UK private education for a fraction of the cost of studying on campus, you will need to factor in the extra cost of exam fees. This could be around £1,000 for nine IGCSEs and £750 for three A Levels.

10 Questions To Ask

1. Before making the decision to break out of the traditional primary or secondary school mould, consider if this is the best academic track for your child. Will they benefit from the classroom teaching that physical schools can now offer, or will they thrive in the more independent study environment of a virtual school

2. While some virtual schools deliversynchronous (live) lessons for most of the daily timetable, others depend heavily on asynchronous (on demand) learningwhich removes much of the live interaction. The advantage of live lessons is that students can hear and see the teacher, and take part in the lesson.Also, are lessons recorded? If so, students can catch up on a lesson they may have missed, or re-watch if they need a refresher for homework or exam revision.

3. Does the school have thereputation and experience of running an online programme?Onlineschools are not currently Ofsted-inspected likephysical schools in the UK, but the Department for Education is launching theOnline Education Accreditation Scheme in early 2022. This sets minimum standards for all online schools in the UK to meet,and the DfE will start to inspect online schools that has signed up to the scheme very soon.

4. Does the school teach the UK curriculum, anddoes it offer GCSEs and A Levelsas part of is secondary and sixth form education? At most online schools,it’syour responsibility to book your exams as a private candidate at an approved centrethat is convenient for you; exam dates are nationally set so you’ll sit your exams at the same time as all other students in the UK.

5. Not every subject lends itself to a smooth transition to online learning and, as distance learning has taught us all, specialist subjects such as PE, art and languages are challenging to teach beyond the classroom. So, askhow the school is teaching these practical and creative subjects.Also, considerthat if yourchild wants to purse acreativedegree then they will be unable to study qualifications such asdrama,which requires a live performance component, or photography, where schools need to verify that all work is completed by the students on their own.

6. As many teachers in traditional schools can now testify, online teaching is an entirely new experience.It requires tech-savvy teachers of a certain personality type and with a certain mindset. So, you need to ask,who are the teachers – and are they technology-trained and adept at using virtual classroom technology?

7. Online teachers need to develop different methods of teaching and evaluating;but how do they check for understanding, for example, if they are not present in the classroom? It’s important thatteacher:student ratios are kept low so that students can still get the support needed.Also, students should have access tovaried channels of feedback such as Google Classroom, one-on-one during Zoom classes, interactive learning boards like Explain Everything and Educreations, and GSuite tools such as Google Docs.

8. While online schools offer a very different option to home schooling – parents are the full-time teachers in the latter –they do require some degree of parental involvement.Many parents thrust into the role of distance learning ‘teacher’ over the past year can vouch for how daunting, challenging and time-consuming it can be. At a certain age, children are not able to self-regulate, so consider thatonline schooling is perhaps better suited to older students, and those who can work well independently.

9. The biggest missing link in a virtual school is social interaction.So,what happens to the social aspect of learning when students are not attending a physical class, and don’t have the opportunity for face-to-face interactions with their peersYou should be looking for a school where students meet in real-time through video meets and chats and, if living close by, they can meet and become friends.

10. And, finally,check the geographical restrictions.If an online school is based outside of the UK, they may deliver live lessons based on a different time zone, which could mean registration at 4am!

Next: Top Online Schools in the UK

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