Schooling for Families on Remote Assignments
When a company moves families to a remote location with little education infrastructure, the first question is whether it’s realistic to bring the children at all. If it is, the answer is usually a combination: local schooling where it works, carefully chosen online learning, boarding options for older students and a plan for any special needs.
Some assignments take employees to places where the schooling question doesn’t have an obvious answer. Projects in the energy, mining and resources sectors often go where the resources are, which can mean a small town, a remote site or a region where the local schools are limited, teach in a language the children don’t speak or don’t exist in a form the families recognize. There may be no international school, or only one that doesn’t fit the families who’ll be using it.
Companies that have done this for decades often have protocols in place: locations designated as unaccompanied assignments, or policies on boarding school for older children. Companies doing it for the first time, or for the first time in a particular place, often don’t. They come to us with a situation, not a request for a named service. “We’re moving twenty children to a site where there’s no school we’d be comfortable with. What do we do?”
Start With the Realistic Question
The first conversation is about whether bringing children makes sense, and for which children. An eight-year-old and a fifteen-year-old preparing for exams have very different needs. A child with special education needs may require therapies or specialist teaching that simply aren’t available locally.
From there, we look at where the families are going, what the company’s policy has been to date and what it’s prepared to support. Would the company offer boarding school for students of a certain age? Will it fund online learning? Is there a local school willing to work with the company? Those answers shape everything that follows.
The Building Blocks
Most remote-location solutions are put together from a handful of building blocks, chosen to fit the place and the children.
Local schools. Even where the local schools can’t provide a full education for these children, they can sometimes provide part of one. Sport, music, art and practical subjects can give children friends, routine and a connection to the community, whatever the language of instruction.
Online learning. The range of online schools and distance learning programs has grown enormously, and the best of them are strong. They still need to be vetted with care: accreditation, the curriculum as it’s actually delivered, how much access students have to teachers and how alone the student will be in their learning. Our piece on how to vet an online school sets out the questions.
Supervision and a place to learn. Younger children doing online learning need an adult nearby and a place to work. In some locations, that means a supervised room and someone hired to oversee the students.
Boarding school. For older students, boarding school can offer continuity and the right level of challenge, and some company policies already provide for it. Our post on whether boarding school is right for a child is a good introduction for families.
What a Hybrid Model Can Look Like
Where the location allows, a hybrid of local and online schooling can work well. In one project years ago, a group of English-speaking children moved to a small community where the local school taught core subjects in the local language. The local school was glad to have them, and offered the company the use of a classroom. The children did their online coursework there each morning with a teacher hired to supervise them, then joined their local classmates in the afternoon for subjects such as sport, cooking and woodworking. A consultant visited regularly to check on how the group was doing.
Not every location makes that kind of arrangement possible, and it takes a willing local school and careful planning. But it shows what can be put together when the question is approached with an open mind: the children had a recognized curriculum and the company of local friends.
Plan Before the Families Arrive
As with any group move, the more time there is, the more options there are. Online programs have enrollment deadlines, boarding schools have admissions cycles, and a local school will need time to agree to anything unusual. Children with special education needs may need assessments and records gathered well in advance.
It’s also worth deciding early how the plan will be explained to families. Parents considering a remote assignment will ask about schooling first, and a clear answer, even an unusual one, makes the decision easier.
How Bennett Helps
Bennett helps companies think through schooling for remote and hard-to-staff locations: whether it’s realistic to bring children, which building blocks fit the place and the families, how to vet online programs and what to do for children with additional needs. You can read more in the remote locations section of our group move education consulting page. If you need an independent view of a particular school or online program, see our school assessments for employers.
Planning a Remote Assignment?
Tell us where your employees are going and how many children are involved, and we’ll talk through the options.
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Bennett International Education Consultancy works directly with hundreds of families each year across the globe. We support families by helping them make informed decisions about the best-fit schools for their children; with our guidance, they secure placement in preschools, private day schools, public/state schools, boarding schools, colleges and universities, including schools with particular programs, such as special needs support.
