I thought the Open Day was very organised but quite sterile. I had to make a conscious effort not to think that the parents of boys at WC would be like many of the parents at the Open Day. If I honestly thought that I'd run a mile.
Some very nice and friendly, some very very pushy and some incredibly arrogant and bigoted (one conversation I witnessed between a lovely boy showing us round and a parent rendered me speechless).
Head very keen to emphasise how beautiful the environment is and how that is especially important for adolescent boys. He also said order and structure are important (which I'd agree with). He did his talk in the Chapel where I couldn't help but notice that the music stands in the choir stalls looked as if they were made from plastic. Head told me they were made of metal. A silly small thing but I was surprised they weren't wooden (and they definitely weren't beautiful!). I didn't warm to the head at all. He seemed to be going through the motions with his talk which was odd bearing in mind they only have one open day a year. Registrar was nice and sixth form head prefect delivered a word perfect (and very practised) speech.
We were shown round the school by a senior boy who had only joined the school the previous year in the sixth form so he wasn't able to talk about what life was like for the younger boys. Very friendly but a lot of the questions I had wanted to ask I wasn't able to.
We were shown round a house by the head of house, the next head of house and his deputy. The housemaster and matron took another group. It meant we didn't have any opportunity to talk to the housemaster until the very end of the tour when he was keen to impress parents that he could remember the names of the boys he had shown round. Interesting having the pupils' perspective but we had that to some extent on the general tour and I'd have liked the opportunity to actually speak to a house master.
One parent asked a question about academic standard required and prefaced his question with a long speech about how he hasn't considered or compared his son's academic ability, nor that of his school friends and neither had his son's the school. I nearly bit my tongue trying not to laugh. From the housemaster's answer Winchester would suit ds, as he currently is, perfectly.
After the tour there were some housemasters and the registrar available to answer questions but you couldn't get anywhere near. I was some distance away but still managed to hear one parent asking the registrar very loudly about which year you had to apply for a place bearing in mind her son was a year ahead.
I asked ds what he thought of his visit. He wasn't at all impressed by the facilities (he is already at a school with a beautiful environment!), didn't like the bathrooms. He thought the dorms were okay. I'm less sure about putting 13 year ones all in the same room together. We saw the science school, the art school, library, chapel. We didn't see any of the sports or music facilities, or normal classrooms which was a shame.
I don't know how we decide whether to go back or not. I was amazed at how many parents had visited a wide range of other schools. Bearing in mind the open day was for years 3 and 4 I still think it is incredibly early to do visits. I have a real worry about how to decide 4 years in advance what would be the right choice for ds.