WELCOME to the virtual classroom, a place that is accessible 24/7, where learning is individualised, and where you even have a teacher designated only to you. There are no uniforms, not many restrictions, no timeline for school attendance, and doing local-based examinations are most often unnecessary.

For more than six years, the KBC learning Centre has been offering this sort of environment to countless families locally, and in doing so they have created a rather unique alternative to the traditional high or preparatory school setting. According to academic director of the centre, Angela Bennett, the centre now has 50 families registered with them at their Charlemont Avenue location.

“We believe firmly that education is an individualised process,” she said. “Every single child is on a programme that is suited for that child, so it is not a one size fits all. So even if they are working with the same curriculum, it could be at different levels.”

The centre is registered with the Ministry of Education because they are home school facilitators. This means they facilitate parents of home schoolers to choose curricula and provide them with other materials that would make this alternative education regime a more successful one.

“As many parents want to home school, we facilitate them getting the curriculum and just holding their hands and explaining things. If they don’t particularly want to come into the centre, we would still work with them at home in terms of helping and guiding,” Bennett said.

For those students who like the idea of home schooling their children but don’t have the time owing to their busy schedules, the physical centre is opened from 6:30 am to 5:00. Students who are enrolled there are usually first given a diagnostic assessment and based on the results, a pathway is planned for each child with their goals and their academic level in mind.

If the parents’ aim is to ultimately have the child go to college overseas, then essentially one would need a US high school diploma and the SAT examination results. This means that this particular child would not necessarily need to sit the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) or the Caribbean Examination Counsel (CXC) examinations.

“We have access to a lot of different schools, so we can choose the school and the curriculum that is suited for the child,” Bennett said. “Because we are focused on that individual child, and we are planning a pathway for that individual child, then we are looking at the right curriculum, the right school for that particular child, and sometimes it’s a US school, sometimes its a Canadian school, sometimes it’s a school in the UK.”

Bennett said all five of their graduates last year were able to matriculate into universities, with three securing full scholarships for overseas institutions. The centre accommodates students from four to 18 years old. Those at the secondary school age would ideally spend up to five hours at the centre.

“So let’s say a family comes in and they decide they want to do full-time and mom has to be at work at 8:00 clock and dad has to be at work at 10 o’clock, so we will work out a time. What is important to us is that the students spend X hours of day working, so it does not have to be from 8 o’clock to whatever,” Bennett explained.

The centre is especially ideal for student athletes whose constant travel and work-out regimes would not allow them to fit in well with the 8:00 am to 2:00 pm schedule that obtains in most school settings. Because each student enrolled at the centre has 24-hour access to their teachers, it means they can have their classes at a time most convenient to them.

“All of the schools and all of the students have individual teachers, but they are all somewhere else, so if they are enrolled in a UK school, it’s a UK teacher. If they are in Canada, then it’s a Canadian teacher,” said Bennett, who co-founded KBC with her son and information technology engineer Jamil, and her husband Karl.

She explained that those attending secondary schools online would usually have more than one teacher based on their course of study whom they communicate with via Skype or instant messaging. KBC facilitates the payment of these teachers by arranging payment plans with the parents and undertaking the payment transactions on their behalf.