They are not competing, they are doing different jobs. Weekend school gives a child community, Islamic studies and the sense that this is normal. A weekday one-to-one lesson moves the reading along, because the child reads for the whole lesson instead of a few minutes of it. Many families keep both, and that is usually the right answer.
What each one is good at
Weekend Islamic school
- Other Muslim children, in person
- A teacher who knows the family
- Islamic studies taught in a group, which suits stories and seerah
- Cheap, and often run by the masjid
Weekday online lesson
- The child reads for the whole 30 minutes
- Tajweed corrected sound by sound
- The same teacher, the same slot, every week
- Fits after school without a car journey
Doing both without burning the child out
The mistake is adding five weekday lessons on top of a full Saturday morning and expecting a nine year old to absorb all of it. Start with two or three weekday lessons, keep the weekend class, and see how the child looks by the third week.
- Keep weekday lessons short. Thirty minutes is enough at this age.
- Put the lesson before the tired part of the evening, not after homework.
- Tell the online teacher what the weekend school is covering, so the two do not repeat each other.
- If something has to go for a term, drop the weekday count, not the weekend community.
When to go online only
Some families have no weekend school within reach, or the nearest one is an hour each way, or the class is thirty children to one teacher. In that case the online lesson is not a supplement, it is the whole provision, and it should be more days a week rather than fewer.
Related
Fitting Quran classes around school
Where the lesson goes in a school week.
Online Islamic school
Islamic studies alongside the Quran.
Quran classes for siblings
When two or three children are learning at once.