A school is said to be the second home to the kids. Therefore, it becomes essential that a school should be such where a child feels secure and comfortable in and that the environment of the institution should be conducive to the child's overall development.

But, how do you define a €good school'? An educational institution where there is great teaching, good faculty or an impressive academic record of the school over the year/s.

OK, to make your job easy in finding out a €good school€ for your kid; we have made this whole idea tangible by putting down parameters of a good school.

1.Prepare a list of all the schools in the city. For example, if you are looking for a school in pune, prepare a list of all school by searching online. You can take help of local directories.

2.Choose the board for your child- Firstly, decide on the academic curriculum affiliation you want for your child. You may want your child to attend a CBSE school or a state school. There are also many ICSE board schools in India. But the choice is yours. This way you will end up striking off a few of the schools that do not fall into the said criteria.

Next, decide on the other concerning issues:

(You can get the information easily from the respective school's website.)

3.Fees structure- Check out the school fees and whether it fits your budget. Compare it with the rest of the schools in the city.

4.Location/ proximity to your place- Parents generally prefer sending their tots to a school that falls within a certain radius. So, this can be the other criteria on filtering out at least a couple of the schools.

5.Faculty- Qualified and experienced teachers are the pillars of an eminent school who are responsible in imparting discipline, valuable knowledge and values to the students.

6.Pattern of examination (semesters/ trimester) - Decide on the pattern of the examination for your child.

7.Commutation facility- Check if safe transport facility from school to your home is available for the child.Some schools in Pune offer excellent transportation facilities to students and parents don't have to worry about dropping kids to school.

8.Age criteria

Once you have shortlisted a handful of schools take a tour of those schools. This is extremely important as a parent/ guardian that you are convinced about the school wherein your little one would be spending almost one third of his/ her day.

Also, when you visit the schools, do speak to the principal as he / she is the captain of the ship and a lot can be known about the school/ environment as you converse with the principal. Things will be a lot clearer in terms of zeroing on a worthy school.

As you tour the school, enquire about the below points as well since these are equally important in decision making.

9.Infrastructure- it goes without saying that the school should not only provide basic amenities (including dispensary) but also well equipped computer lab, science lab, library, playgrounds etc.

10.Teacher student ratio- Enquire about the ratio as a class with large number of students becomes unmanageable for the teacher and the students are deprived of the required adequate attention.

11.Extra- curricular activities- overall development of a child is must and extracurricular activities taken up at school are the fore step to it. The school should inculcate and encourage such activities in the child.

12.Teaching methodology €" This is very important; check if the school follows interesting practices to help your child learn. For example, there's a CBSE School in Pune that offers a unique educational program at school to encourage students to study and learn in interesting ways.

13.Mid-term admissions- in case you are looking at seeking admission of your child in the mid academic session, check such policy (also the availability of the vacant seats) in the shortlisted schools.

14.Admission procedures

15.Start of academic year- Take a note of the commencement of the academic session in the prospective schools (especially if you are moving to India from abroad).

To sum up, it is utmost important that the parents/ guardian visit the prospective school/s and speak to the principal. They should experience themselves first the culture, the atmosphere, the ideology of the school and get satisfied about it.

Never ever take this crucial decision merely on the word of mouth from the other parents. See for yourself before believing stories about the schools and then decide as this will be one of the stepping stones in building your child's future, right!

Searching a good school for your kid is a tough job and as a responsible parent it is our duty to do justice to it.

So, all the best for your expedition!!