High school open eves.... ofsted.... how to choose high school for DD?

Ofsted reports should absolutely not be part of the decision making process unless they highlight a major issue - it's about the vibe of the school and whether it feels right to you, and to your child. Just decide based on how the open day feels, and maybe on other parents' experiences if you can garner any - though again they're of course child specific. What works for one child may not work for another. Some "outstanding" schools are only outstanding because of the children there, and some "inadequate" schools are labelled such because of supposed "safety" issues (like not having a thousand different types of lanyard or a high fence all around the school).

Ofsted have an agenda to pursue they are not impartial unfortunately.

Not sure taking Ofsted with a pinch of salt is good advice but the new Progress 8 thing is worth keeping an eye out for. Start publishing then on 12 October.

Go for the feel of the place initially. And how interested the teachers seem to be.

I did the same as you when DD1 was in yr5, visited every school in the area and discarded those that i didn't like first. Gut instinct for a few of them!

I visited again in yr6 and took DD with me. I would have been happy with whichever school she chose, but thankfully she went for the up and coming smaller year group school where she has absolutely thrived.
The school streams from yr7 (other option doesn't), really stretches their high achievers, and has a specific programme for students who are struggling. Pastoral care is fantastic, small GCSE classes are a bonus, and there are plenty of other avenues for children who are less academic.

It all depends what your priorities are, for both you and DD. I personally would take of OFSTED with a pinch of salt and check out their Progress 8 instead.

Did the same as you last year - doing it for real this year.
My dd is a high achiever but as she's an only we want somewhere she can build on the work she's done on the social side. Is there a good vibe? How do they handle bullying? What extra-curriculum stuff is there?
A great deal depends on the quality of the head. Turnover of staff is something to look at.
As well as the usual- is she in the catchment area?
League tables and recent results aren't meaningless but they don't tell the whole story.
Sorry to be a bit vague but you will learn a lot this round of open evenings just by looking. And ask your child for their opinion. It's easier now to stay in touch with pals who go to different schools. Reassure them that you will do what you can to facilitate this if it is a big issue for your child.

Someone once said to me, see what the children are like at the school, if they are polite, reasonably smart (they are teens after all), and look happy going in and coming out of the school, then it is probably a good school. Obviously you need to look on normal days, not the parents evenings, where they pick the best behaved and nicest children to make the school look good.

Also look at the results the school has and the options available for children. Do they have lots of choices at GCSE do they have Btechs, so that your DC has good options whether they are massively academic or not. Also check if they have a good SEN department if that is a requirement for your DC.

Talk to the teachers and see how friendly/responsive they are and how they interact with your child.

We couldn't believe the difference. In some schools, the teachers just stood around in huddles talking to eachother and made no attempt to talk to those of us visiting - we had to break into their conversations and they gave the impression we were interrupting them.

In others, the teachers would virtually swoop as soon as they saw you, engage in conversation, some whisked our son away to play a game or do some other interactive activity.

We chose one of the latter, and DS couldn't be happier with the school, the pastoral care, the friendliness and approachability of the teachers etc., and excellent results too!

And it seems that academies don't get inspections
They do get inspected by OFSTED as well - but if the school has only converted to an academy, they may not have been inspected yet! However as your dc are only Y5 any school in this category should have been inspected by next year.

Go with an idea of your likelihood of actually getting into that school. Where we live we had one certainty, one longshot or a long journey.
So we were viewing the certainty with the eyes of "would we hate our child to come here".

In terms of curriculum look at the schools policy on who can do what GCSE. One school near us is very prescriptive that top 20% only can do triple science, for example.

It's hard to quantify what you look like in a school. For me my decision was summed up the head's talk.
At school A - the headteacher said that of course results were important and proceeded to talk briefly about their results. She then followed up with a statement but they saw education about bringing out the best in your child whatever their talents might be. And they then had chats from various students ranging from the very academic to someone who was sporty, someone who had taken a while to knuckle down etc.

At school B the headteacher talked for 30 minutes including many slides of statistics and examples about how important academic results were to them and the teaching methods they used to ensure that. There was then a talk from the head boy.

For me, the talk exemplified the school's ethos, so I picked the one that resonated more (which luckily was the dead cert school!)

Academies do have inspections...

What is important to you?

Ethos - do you want pushy, laid back, liberal, strict (affects behaviour, homework, uniform etc)

Pastoral - does your child have any particular pastoral needs, are they likely to be target for bullying, suffer from anxiety

Extra curricular -do you care about any particular type of extra activity

Academic - does your child have SEN, or is a high flyer.

Curriculum - do you want any particular subjects to be offered. Do you care whether they can do 2 MFL at GCSE, or who gets to do triple science. do you care if they are forced to do PE or a tech at GCSE

Having worked out what is important to you, you know better what to look for.
e.g. For my DDs, pastoral, caring, good with mid/low ability, not too pushy, were the top things. I didn't care whether they pushed high achievers, or had 17 sports on offer.