Mod Education Overhaul: Your New Favorite School Mod

Wouldn’t it be cool if the youngest Sims could go to preschool, and private and boarding schools were an option? Luckily, mod Education Overhaul can bring us exactly that, and more. Discover more about this incredible mod!

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Mod Education Overhaul by Adeepindigo

Education Overhaul is a mighty, extensive mod made by Adeepindigo that will transform your Sims’ schooling experience like in unimaginable ways. It features a few key changes that are meant to make your regular education system more realistic, interactive, and fun. From private schools, school dances, field trips, and improved homework, to school activities, and a new teaching career, this gem offers all a Sims 4 school system needs. Let’s break mod education overhaul everything into a few main categories:

• A New Branch in Education Career (K-12 Educator)
• Preschool
• New Education Enrolment Options
• Virtual School
• Boarding School
• Grade School and Highschool Additions

To find more incredible school mods for the Sims 4, go here!

1. A new Branch in Education Career (K-12 Educator)

Thanks to the Mod Education Overhaul, Education Career is now updated. Besides Professor and Administrator branches, young adults, adults, and elders can now work in a new field of expertise – the K-12 Educator Branch. Each detail for the career progression is well worked through, so your characters will need to complete new work-from-home assignments, have new career goals, as well as work on a new daily task specific to the branch – Research Teaching Methods. These are the branch levels:

• Level 6: Primary School Teacher
• Level 7: Secondary School Teacher
• Level 8: Mentor Teacher
• Level 9: Department Head
• Level 10: Principal

To level up in this Mod Education Overhaul career, besides doing their daily tasks, they will also need to get a degree in any of the following fields: Art History, Economics, Literature & Languages, Physics, History, Biology, Psychology, or any of the custom degrees by Zero’s). Getting a degree will grant them great perks, such as solid bonuses, paid time off, and a boosted performance at work. 

When working from home, Educators will need to Attend Department Meetings, Answer Parent Emails, Research Teaching Techniques, and Write Progress Reports, which are their new duties.

2. A new Education Stage: Preschool

Your youngest Sims can now start attending preschool! This incredible feature extends the education system to help your Sims parents in raising toddlers, allowing parents to leave toddlers in preschool for 7 hours every workday. Your youngest will be taken care of, and like in a real preschool, they will learn essential skills, develop character value and be well-fed, rested, and nourished.

This is an optional Mod Education Overhaul feature for every parent. To send your toddler to preschool, simply click on them and select ‘’Enroll to Preschool’’. They will be sent to preschool at 7:30 AM every day from Monday to Friday. Or, if you decide you no longer need or want to send your toddler to preschool, simply cancel the enrollment by clicking on the toddler. 

This element of the Mod Education Overhaul doesn’t interfere too much with the daycare/nanny option, as even if your adults leave the lot, the toddler will still stay in preschool. Just make sure you confirm that you are ‘’sending them to daycare’’ when the daycare message pops up to cancel the daycare notification. 

More on SnootySims: Sims 4 Preschool Mod: A New Education System?

3. New Enrollment Options For Students

Mod Education Overhaul brings us some incredibly realistic enrollment options! There are six new schools for kids and teens to enroll in:

• Two new public schools (Bedlington Latin School, which is a specialized school, and Striker Alternative School for troublesome kids, kids with special needs and difficulties). No matter what school they attend, having bad grades will eventually send your kid to Striker Alternative School, so keep an eye on their performance, unless this is something you are aiming for. 
• Two private prep schools (SimCity Academy and Wintercrest Preparatory School). If you choose any of the two, expect your kid to wear fancy uniforms, learn faster, improve skills faster and get a boost in character values. Mod Education Overhaul private schools require an application fee.
• Two experimental boarding schools (Huntington Preparatory Academy and Fort Starch Military Institute)

All you’ll need to do is get your child or a teen to complete the application requirements on their PC, and then submit them (Computer>Career>School). To submit the application, your youngsters will have to submit a personal statement/essay, go on a tour, and be interviewed and evaluated by the school they are applying for. All of these Mod Education Overhaul tasks will need to be completed for them to get pass, though.

It takes about 4 hours to get a report from the school. Once they are accepted, you can start the enrollment process, which you’ll have to complete within 24h. It’s up to the parents to decide which school their kids go to, so to start an enrollment process, have your adult Sims enroll them and choose school. If your kid’s application doesn’t go well, you can try again in 5 days. If you change your mind about attending school, you can always get parents to withdraw their kids via phone or computer.

4. Virtual School

Remember COVID lockdowns and online classes? Well, now your Sims get to experience something similar, minus the COVID. As one of the best school mods, it brings a unique chance to learn via virtual classroom and attend virtual classes. If they don’t feel like going to school, they will need to log in in the morning at the same time they would go to school and log out after they finish their online lectures. 

Although they will stay at home, they won’t sit idle, as they will need to complete daily tasks, such as exercise, complete assignments, or study (these can change from day to day as there are 7 types of them) in exchange for skipping physical attendance. Every day, they will attend three types of classes – core, elective, and skill classes. Although they are attending school online, the rest of the school activities won’t change much with Mod Education Overhaul, so they can still go for after-school activities or assignments, which is cool.

More on SnootySims: Online Schooling and More: The Education System Bundle’s Best Features for TS4!

5. Boarding School

Boarding school is a new experimental option reserved for kids and teens. With Mod Education Overhaul, your Sims have the opportunity to attend Huntington Preparatory Academy and Fort Starch Military Institute. This is a great option for anyone who doesn’t want to focus on raising children and teens but would still like to develop their skills. Once enrolled, kids will disappear down the rabbit hole, and all communication will be based on calls and texts. The only time you’ll get to see them is during summer break and around their birthday. Boarding school awakens nostalgia, so if that happens, you’ll have the option to take your homesick kid home.

The Mod Education Overhaul allows your kids to attend a boarding school throughout their whole childhood and teen years. However, you’ll always have the option to cancel boarding school anytime by withdrawing kids and choosing to transfer them to any other school. If you choose the second option, just get the parents to enroll them in another school of choice by following the same process described above in the new enrollment options section.

Boarding school comes with some fees. Once a child grows up into a teen, you’ll get a chance to reassess your decision and choose whether you want to pay for another year at boarding school or not. Summer break is also optional, so you can always send them back to school if you don’t feel like having them around.

Since this is an experiential school system, errors can happen. If this part of the mod doesn’t work as it should, simply withdraw your kids. If they are still grayed out, travel anywhere and come back home to get things back to normal.

Grade School & Highschool Improvements

Grade school and high school have gotten better, too! Mod Education Overhaul brings more fun activities that replicate real schools, new ways of doing homework, new projects, and more details that make the whole school experience more wholesome and relatable. Let’s explore each in more detail.

1. Homework Book for Improved Homework

The Mod Education Overhaul adds more options to your regular homework via a new Homework book. Children and teens can now do their homework online, and be much more efficient with it!

The classic Sims 4 homework serves just to keep grades high. However, with the education overhaul mod, besides helping them keep up in school and get good grades, homework will help them work on important skills and improve character values. Your children and teens will now have more specific homework, such as writing English papers, or solving linear equations. You get to decide which skills you want them to work on by choosing a homework task you want them to focus on.

Children’s Homework book Mod Education Overhaul:

• motor skills =‘’Fill Out Activity Chart’’
• mental skills = ‘’Do Math Problems’’
• creative skills = ‘’Practice Vocabulary’’
• social skills = ‘’Review Social Studies’’

Teen’s Homework book from Mod Education Overhaul:

• Charisma & Acting skills – ‘’Study Dramaturgy’’
• Guitar, Violin, and Piano skills – ‘’Submit Original Composition’’
• Rocket Science skill – ‘’Prove Scientific Principles’’
• Writing skill – ‘’Write English Paper’’
• Painting skill – ‘’Work on Art Critique’’
• Logic skill – ‘’Solve Linear Equations’’
• Research & Debate and Logic skills- ‘’Compose Analytical Argument’’

2. New Active Assgnmets & Projects

Sometimes your Sims will also get random projects and assignments they will need to complete instead of their typical homework. These Mod Education Overhaul tasks will be assigned randomly every week or so, and bring your kids extra credit. Unlike sitting at home by the computer and completing assignments from the homework book, your special task will be to complete a special activity before the next school day.

Assignments will vary, and will mostly differ from usual homework tasks. This can be anything from writing an essay on PC and studying for an exam, to something more fun, such as visiting an observatory, practicing learning lines for performance, painting, or coding. Failing to complete them will negatively impact their school grades.

Mod Education Overhaul interferes with Parenthood School Projects a bit, so you will start getting these randomly, along with the mod’s assignments. They will count as regular homework, will have to be finished before school, but will not bring you extra credit.

3. More Schooltime Activities

Sims will no longer be as passive while attending school, and their behavior can impact their mood, and skills, affect their homework, and school performance, or put them in detention. 

Positive:

• Actively Participate (Study Hard) – this Mod Education Overhaul activity will increase skills, school performance, and boost character value (Empathy, Manners, and Responsibility), but decrease the fun
• Attend Club Meetings – boosts character value (Responsibility and Conflict Resolution), and fulfills fun and social needs
• Participate in Group Work – helps them build skills, increases character value (Responsibility and Conflict Resolution), increases fun and social needs, but slows down performance gain
• Take Notes – boosts school performance, skill gain, and Responsibility character value, but decreases fun
• University Prep – boosts school performance, skill gain, and Responsibility character value, but decreases fun (available for teens only)

Negative: With Mod Education Overhaul, the worse their grades are, the higher the chance of actually getting detention. Getting these too often can even get them kicked out, in which case, your only option will be to enroll them in an alternative school:

• Be Disruptive – this will lower school performance, decrease character value (Responsibility, Manners, and Emotional Control), and increase chance of getting detention, but increase fun
• Copy Homework – helps them finish homework faster, decreases character value (Manners and Responsibility), and can make them get detention.
• Good Around (Irresponsible) – lowers school performance, and character value (Responsibility, Manners, and Emotional Control), but increases the fun
• Sleep During Class – will decrease character value (Manners and Responsibility), give them a chance for detention, but increase energy

4. Additional perks for Grade School and High School

Here come some extra Mod Education Overhaul features for grade and high schools you will absolutely love:

• Occasional field trips with school (Aquarium, Art Museum, Planetarium, Professional Theatre Production, Sim River Conservatory, or a Zoo). 
• In-school events – They can win prizes for participating, or get Honor Rolls or join the Honor Society if their school performance is great.
• Summer and Winter school breaks – No matter what your school of choice is, all children and teens will have summer (whole summer) and winter (half of the winter season) school breaks. 
• Parent Conferences – Parents can attend to learn about their kid’s grades.
• Game nights, school plays, and school dances – They can occasionally attend with friends or family members after school
• Dropping out of school – Unlike in Sims 4: High School Years, Mod Education Overhaul allows them to go back to school after they’ve previously dropped out. You can do that by making an adult Sim enroll them in a school again. 
• Graduate gowns – Sims will graduate in caps/gowns or military uniforms, depending on which school they go to. 
• Random school picture day 
• Online Academic Aptitude Test for ambitious Sims – If your Sims are interested in continuing education and enrolling in University before they age up into adults, teens will have an Academic Aptitude test. This is optional, but will significantly improve their school performance prior to graduation.

How to Download and Install the Mod?

If what you read so far seems appealing, read more about it and get the download files for Mod Education Overhaul here.

Before you install the mod, make sure you uninstall School Milestones if you have it, to prevent interference. For installation, you will need to get the core file and optionally select individual modules. Choose only one of the AlternateRabbitholeSchools. You can choose to play with EA default uniforms, or with Snowy Escape ones (Alternative uniform options are in the SnowyEscapeUniform.zip file.), so download the zip file for the uniforms as you like. 

Mod Education Overhaul can be installed for the Base game, but you won’t get all of the mentioned perks.  You will need High School Years (only for HSY files) and Discover University (for the Education Career mod part to work). If you don’t have the Discover University game pack, just don’t install the mod file Education Career file. Having Snowy Escape isn’t mandatory, but will give you a chance to choose the Snow Escape uniform for the prep school. If you don’t have discovery University, delete the UNI_Required_EducationCareer file. 

After you’ve downloaded the Education Overhaul zip file, unzip it and paste it to Electronic Arts>The Sims 4>Mods>[adeepindigo] Education Overhaul V4. Make sure you clear the cache.

Conclusion

Being one of the most complex mods for schools, this mod adds a myriad of functions every Simmer can only wish for. It adds more purpose to school life and brings variety of activities, interactions, and options for all Sims, from preschoolers to teens, and adults who wish to start a journey in a new education career field. The mod is a blast, but you get to try how it works for you! Enjoy!

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