If you are getting ready to send your children to school for the first time, it’s natural to be emotional about the prospect—watching your little ones grow up is both joyful and bittersweet. It’s also natural to worry about what your kids will learn in their new environment, and who they will learn it from. One of the biggest decisions you will need to make as a Christian parent is whether to send your child to a secular public school or a private Christian elementary school like ours at Renaissance Classical Christian Academy. In this article, we’ll go over some of the differences between the educational approaches at each type of institution to help you decide.
One difference between a secular and a Christian elementary school has to do with the foundation of the educational approach. At a public school, the focus is on teaching students academic skills and content to prepare them for the next steps in their education and, eventually, for the workforce. The approach at our Christian academy also focuses on academics, but we ground everything in a foundation of Scripture, teaching all subjects through a Biblical lens.
Another difference between a Christian elementary school and a secular one lies in the average class size at each institution. Many public elementary schools are overcrowded, with class sizes easily reaching 30 students. Such a large class size makes it difficult for teachers to give individual students one-on-one attention. In contrast, the class sizes at our Christian school are much smaller, which allows our teachers to provide more academic support and to better model Christian values.
A third difference between secular and Christian elementary schools is in the way they teach values, and what values they teach. In many public schools, little to no time is given to instruction in moral values, and those values are often conveyed through secular literature. In contrast, our teachers devote significant class time to the study of Biblical lessons to help our students grow spiritually..jk