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PRIVATE SCHOOLS
Private schools are schools not administered by local or national government. Private schools retain the right to select their student body. Most private schools are funded in whole or in part by charging their students high tuition. In the UK and some other Commonwealth countries the use of the term ‘private schools’ is generally restricted to primary and secondary educational levels. Private schools are almost never used of universities or other tertiary institutions.
Types of private schools in North America
Private schools cover the whole gamut of educational activity. Private schools range from pre-school to tertiary level institutions. At the top of the private schools heap are private colleges and universities.
The next private schools category is the preparatory school or "prep school". These are secondary schools which are designed to prepare a student for higher education. Many of these private schools are highly selective, accepting only a very small percentage of applicants. Tuition at private schools varies from school to school. High tuition at a private school is used to pay higher salaries for the best teachers. Private schools also used to provide enriched learning environments and services. Graduates of preparatory private schools are often actively sought by colleges due to the private schools' confidence that the students will be well educated. Country Day schools are an example type of preparatory private schools.
Many private schools are boarding schools. Some military schools are privately owned or operated as private schools.
Trade or vocational private schools are also usually private schools where students can learn skills in a trade which they intend to make their future occupation. Trade schools exist in a variety of occupations from beauticians' private schools to prestigious private schools for the performing arts.
Religiously affiliated schools (also called parochial schools) form a distinct category of private school. Such schools teach religious lessons, often alongside a secular education, to instill religious knowledge and a strong religious identity in the students who attend.
Many alternative schools are also privately financed (though some prefer to be called independent schools rather than private schools to avoid possible connotations of prep-school elitism). Private schools can often avoid some state regulations which might make alternative methods of schooling more difficult, and they are often easier for a small group of committed parents or teachers to create and maintain than state-funded schools.
Finally, special assistance schools aim to improve the lives of their students by providing services tailored to very specific needs of individual students. Such schools include tutoring schools and schools to assist the learning of handicapped children.
Types of private school in England and Wales
Generally called independent schools because of their freedom to operate outside of government regulation, private schools are favored by a significant minority of parents because of their frequent achievement of academic standards higher than those of the state sector. Independent primary schools are called preparatory schools, preparing pupils not for admission to a university as in the United States, but to an independent secondary school. Such independent secondary schools are often - somewhat confusingly - called public schools, though this term is primarily used of the older and more prestigious schools, like Eton and Harrow. Many of these schools are high privaboarding schools.
Due to their ancient foundation, many public schools have a religious character, although this does not generally aim at pupils' religious indoctrination and does not preclude pupils of other faiths attending if they wish. Religion is not as important an aspect in the majority of parents' decision to send their child to an independent school as it is in the United States, due to the requirement of state schools to timetable periods of Christian worship.
Although the majority of independent schools in England and Wales aim at high academic standards, a small number provide support for those experiencing difficulties in mainstream education.
Search for Private Schools
Created to enable the public to find .
www.nces.ed.gov
PrivateSchools.com Directory
The Private School and College Directory.
www.privateschools.com
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