I wish I knew .... about my local secondary schools before I applied.

I would have liked to know that the English teaching department was in chaos which would lead to my dd1 being in a special measures school in her gcse year, then the further chaos of all the various and often overlapping initiatives to get the school back out if special measures. Still undecided about dd2 who has just started in year 10 and I'm monitoring situation very closely with a view to moving her

Mines would be how much bullying actually really went on in his initially secondary school , and how poorly the school manage this . At the open evening when you ask about this they actually talk the talk but in reality don't deliver on what they say.

Glad we moved schools .

Tess, if I'd looked really, seriously looked at the not so local school, it would have been clear that it was a better fit for DS, yes.

However, at the time, we probably wouldn't have let that outweigh the local school's excellent reputation, the fact that all his friends were going there, and the fact that it's the only one the bus goes to.

In retrospect we could have listened more carefully to the one set of friends who said their son had been miserable at the catchment school and had moved. What a school does in response to miserable or angry children is pretty important.

DS1 went up with all his friends tess. but he came home on the transfer day they did in the July and actually said he hated it then. I thought it was just the change and he'd settle in but he left the next May after the situation became too much.

I now have two Dc at two different High schools, so I can now do comparing which isn't always a good thing.

DS1 has a locker at his, DS2 doesn't. Life is so much easier with a locker....

I can say honestly nothing, DS1 in Y8 and and Y7 was great, school great at providing info and communicating, he's loved it made loads of new mates and finds the whole secondary school way suits him so well eg: more male teachers, seperate sujects lessons, moving about classrooms, more personal freedom, being treated more like an adult that a school child. It's weird being so hands off after primary school but you get used to it and we get a 24 hrs response to any issues and can email all of his teacher directly. Some of the things he says would bother me, like he's off to an away football match after school but does no know where (I do because I have the list) but he's not bothered with stuff like that! I think you have to remember it is their journey not yours.

Kitties,Sparkling - do you think you could have known that before your dcs started at their original school?
great thread by the way.

am particularly at the setting with other schools for all subjects based on one VR test!!

Don't have any dc at secondary level but got to say if you don't want your child to pray don't send them to a religious school... It's not exactly surprising they include prayer is it?

Ditto Kitties. DS1 now does 12 miles each way on the bus and is happy.

That said DS2 has just started at the original school and is very happy. It just wasn't for DS1.

Ditto, Sparkling!

Or to put it another way, I wish I'd known that the not so convenient school would be so much better for him, and that, yes, 5 miles each way was a price well worth paying for that.

What the homework load is really like (don't just findout the policy about what they set; if you get a pupil tour guide ask them about what really happens).

Whether they are planning to change their entire PE kit imminently!

That DS1 wasn't going to be happy there. I didn't realise that some schools just don't suit some children.

For DD, in the end, we went for the school whose current Year 7s were an enthusiastic part of the Open Evening, rather than just the upper school prefects.

Oh, and it sent the deputy head round with us on a second tour when we were struggling to decide. I asked about upcoming changes, and he grinned and said something along the lines of 'Who knows, but this school has been around a long time and we seem to manage to educate the kids, no matter what the current government throws at us.'

Things I do wish I'd known: that two of the most amazing teachers were 59 that year, and would be retiring at 60 (sob!) -- but the only way round that one would have been to procreate earlier, which is kind of taking school planning to an unnecessary extreme.

...that they don't set for maths - it never occurred to me to ask, as it just seems such an obvious thing to do

.... that communication between school and home is so poor (at SMT level - some individual teachers are lovely)

Agree with Elephants though, many things you might choose a school on will change during their time there, or even after you've chosen and before you get there. You have to always take a list of things on balance not choose a school on one narrow path or you will almost certainly be disappointed.

At DD2's school, we were asked to choose an MFL from French, Spanish and German. The second language is then allocated to you. However, I found out from other parents that because of staffing, all students learn French, so you really have to choose between Spanish and German.

This was not information provided by the school. I'm not really sure why. Maybe they think it gives the illusion of more choice?

I would also want to know about any unofficial, behind-the-scenes culling that is done between Y11 and Y12. If the school has a sixth form, the entry requirements for internal candidates should be open and transparent.

Two of our local schools stream into 6 forms for every subject based solely on the results of a verbal reasoning test at the beginning of Y7. So if a child ends up in the middle form, that's where they stay for the next three years, even if they are (for example) gifted at French and really struggling with Maths. Many of the parents did not realise this until their children started at the school.

Ah Elephants you are right, stuff does change.

Triple science changed the year below DD.
Dd now y11 has just had her ICT course changed mid-stream from iGCSE to ECDL (for a very good sensible reason that I support, but still).

And of course with the changes to GCSEs, what schools do now may well be different than for the current y6s.

"- MFL language selection

• streaming, setting, or mixed ability
• who gets to do triple science"

Great questions, except the policies on all these things changes every year. The answers to the questions in Y7 were not what happened when the DDs got to that stage.

DD1 could choose her MFL in Y8/9
DD2 has to do two, is furious and gets good marks in one and detention in the other.

Settings been totally rearranged.

Rules for triple/double science are pulled out of a hat too late in Y9 to fight.

Prayers three times a day in a Catholic school. My son us in a Catholic secondary and they only say prayers of there is an assembly....Once a week on average.

Then again there are children of other faiths there as well.

That they would not be given a choice at to what language they would like to study at GCSE.

Just before I filled in the form I spoke to a parent with a child in year 9. She was desperate to pull her child out and couldn't get a place at another school.
I had liked the school when we visited, but what she told me about the slide over the previous few years in terms of behaviour really put me off.
She was sensible and not prone to over reaction.

The grammar was our fist choice, this school was our second, secure back up. At the last minute we went to visit another school, and put that down as second choice.

Random selection?!! What happened to parental choice?

Random selection does not mean they randomly select pupils without regard to parental preference. It simply means that they take those who have applied for places, allocate places to those who get priority for whatever reason then select randomly from the rest. It replaces using distance as a tie breaker. This stops people moving close to the school (or pretending they have done so) to get a place but it also means you have no way of telling how likely you are to get a place.

purpleroses - those kinds of things can change between year 7 and year 9. At DCs school most years they have had to do a MFL, but at least one year it was optional. They used to do Latin from year 7, and be randomly assigned German or French. That has changed. They bring in extra options when there is demand/they can. Some years get offered more overseas trips than others (depends on the economy/funding).
When DS did his options there were lots of trips with them, DD1 doing almost the same ones has hardly any - even the Geography residential is a day trip now.
Every year but DD's also got to go to a local Theme Park, both above and below - but a parent in their year stopped it for them.

Triple Science depends on how bright/hard working the year is - DD is borderline but happy only to do double.

Of course the ideal equipment would be a crystal ball, as who can predict what will be really important beyond the basics when a student reaches 14 or 16 or 18?

GCSE options - what's on offer, what combinations, rules about having to take a language, etc

The things that seem to differ and are important but may not be obvious:

• MFL language selection
• streaming, setting, or mixed ability
• who gets to do triple science
• level of homework