Petra M.

How it works is that teachers write their own classes, and post them on Outschool. It's kind of like an "uber" school, so you browse or search for classes that your kid will like (or needs!) and sign up with the teacher. My youngest has done everything from a fun class on Learning to phonics with My Little Pony, to an amazing class on learning about the water cycle by Making A Terrarium. My oldest has used covid to hone his essay-writing skills with an increddible teacher who has helped him improve so much. Most of the classes have been great and worth the money. We've had a few dud teachers but that's been the exception not the rule. Its best to take a one-time class with each teacher first, so you can see what the teacher is like. If you like them, then enrol in their multi session classes. It gives you much more control than you normally get in the school system, which I really like.

There are different types of classes and styles of teaching.

Kids can do hard core academics. Most of the classes we have found try and do academics through something that interests the kids, like learn maths through minecraft or something so they stay interested.

Mostly, my kids are doing best where they do a project or learn about a topic in depth over a period of time.

The teachers who we have liked best tend to have formal teaching qualifications and charge a bit more than $10 per hour (on outschool, you almost always get what you pay for. Outschool takes 30% of the fees, and 70% goes to the teacher - so I can't imagine that a super-skilled teacher would be willing or able to work for $7 an hour per child). With some trial-and-error, we have found teachers who know how to hold the kids attention, make the subject interesting, and (unlike a lot of the stuff that comes home from school) know how to work the technology and adapt their teaching so it works online.

All of the teachers are screened and police-checked which is important to me: not every applicant is approved. One of our teachers told us that Outschool also screens every class proposal and that one of his classes once got sent back for revision seven times! So, my understanding is that not only the teachers, but the classes are also checked for quality and the best classes will have a lot of preparation and background work.

As one of the other reviewers here complained, the Outschool teachers don't work "on parent demand". I don't mind this as I assume they set their timetable around their own families and commitments (LOL). However, we've found that most teachers are willing to negotiate a class time for us, if we ask. Mostly, it's easy enough to work around though. Unlike some of the reviewers, we've not had any problems with credit cards. Sometimes things have come up and we can't attend. It's been very easy to log-in, transfer the enrolment or cancel a class. The refund policies for each class are clearly stated. We've even had the occasional teacher give us a refund for a cancelled class even though they weren't required.

The only criticism I have is that it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between classes that teach something, and the more light-on classes (these seem to fill in some time but I'm not sure how much they learn. One of my kids did a single class on bats - he liked it OK, but I don't think he actually remembered anything and it didn't spark his interest to learn more). So you have to be willing to try a few classes to get the feel of different teachers, and what your kid likes, before committing to a class with multiple sessions.

We initially started with outschool to try and fill in some gaps with covid school lockdowns. But We will continue with a lot of the classes outside of school, because they add a lot of things that my kids don't get in school.