Feeling Disheartened With Private School Visits: Very Unpersonalised & Felt Like Cattle Markets

Bespoke visits will always be available - you could request one.

You don't support state school s if looking at private OP.
At our school yr7 do the tours as guides & other years answer questions

We have always been shown round by Year 7/8 students and in primary by Year 6s

Many schools seem to pair a sixth form student with a yr7/8 as tour guides. Seems a good idea.

The annual Open Morning has hundreds of visitors. Unless you approach specific staff to ask specific questions, then it will be pretty impersonal.

If you want more personalisation, book for a Working Open Morning. Serious contenders attend these…in fact most serious contenders probably visit 2,3,4 times. Here you might be amongst 30-50 people. There will be more opportunity to have individual conversations.

quite simply, the annual Open Morning is a cattle market and it’s for the masses and impossible to provide great personalisation for everyone. Typically families have kids in yr5 and it’s a first visit. They then book for the Open Working Morning if interested. This is not a one-stage process for those seriously interested. Many might attend 4 or 5 big open mornings and then narrow down to the ones they are serious about.

I think OP misunderstood the annual Open Morning. What she wants is available at Working Open Days in the week.

And yes there is lots of schmoozing. Interview days whilst resting also I vole selling the school to kids who might take multiple exams. That’s why there are fun activities too. Some run taster days as well to sell the school. Come offers go out, there are further Q and A sessions for undecided parents, a chance for kids to come for fun activities etc etc. Over-subscribed schools have far too many applicants. They can’t shmooze 600. Once they know who they want, they really will. They want those top performers especially.

Was definitely shown round by year 7s when we looked. The self guided one we had was quite good. Didn’t feel bad keeping to our own time and as DS was determined to set fire to everything he could in the labs this was no bad thing.

@twistyizzy "and that's why it tends to be Yr 11-13 pupils who do the tours. At DDs school a few confident Yr 10s would also do it but definitely not below" That seems eminently sensible. But several posters have said "all hands on deck" "all of year 8" and even a learning experience for the less confident.

@XelaM risky statement and so inaccurate. As it happened, I worked as a marketing manager in a private school some time ago I had to research competitors.

@CurlewKate Stating the reality of many schools for those that had "never heard of it", not necessarily endorsing it.

DD has been doing tours since Y8 (and again in Y10 and Y12). She hasn't found it terrifying. She has mostly enjoyed it. Most parents have been easy to talk to and interested in what she has to say. She has absolutely had a few of the more bonkers ones such as Preplex describes, but seems to find this funny. I don't know of any of her friends who have found it alarming either. It might be a more confident and talkative student body than average, maybe.

I remember last year in some open days, the questions from some parents are really terrifying for a 11 year old kid to answer:

"where do you live, are you from state or prep school, are you on bursary? Do you or anyone in your form still use any tutors? How many hours you did to prepare for the 11+ exams. Did you sit grammars and other schools when doing 11+ did you got offers from those schools too? What university are you thinking to apply for (for 11 year old...)"

You got much better and calibrated parents to ask more sensible question on offer holder days.. (natheless some of the questions are still very strange for some schools).

@CurlewKate and that's why it tends to be Yr 11-13 pupils who do the tours. At DDs school a few confident Yr 10s would also do it but definitely not below Yr 10.

And nothing more frustrating for a prospective parent to be shown round by a terrified 11 year old who can't answer their questions.

"and that for some of them (likely to be the ones less likely to put themselves forward) it is a development opportunity."

Yep. Nothing like compelling an 11 year old to show a group of adults round their school being asked questions they don't know the answers to to "develop" them.

As others have said, a significant number of schools ask all pupils to do the tours (that is indeed my personal experience - both prep and secondary and, as far as I am aware, all the private schools in my [SW London] vicinity). The schools considered that is part of their openness / inclusivity to include all kids and that for some of them (likely to be the ones less likely to put themselves forward) it is a development opportunity.

I've never heard of everyone having to do it. I wouldn't like that either. A lot of kids would find it incredibly stressful and would probably do a crap job and be miserable because of it. A total lose/lose situation.

DD's school makes them all do it. She is now in the first year of sixth form and so far has done it three times with the whole year group on board each time. She quite likes it on the whole but has had her fair share of bonkers questions. Plus this year, the new joiners for the sixth form had to do it too, so there were about 15 children doing tours who literally had zero idea of the answers to even the sensible questions they were being asked since they have been at the school for a matter of weeks!

We had student tours and self-guided tours and staff-guided tours in different schools we looked at. On the whole I liked the student ones best as they tended to give unvarnished answers to the questions we had. But there is always a problem in that for instance my daughter is not particularly interested in STEM subjects but she had three groups of parents this year who were all about STEM and not interested in anything else. So she perhaps didn't have as much to say to them as they might have liked. And the stuff she did have to talk about (literature, drama, languages) wasn't what they were interested in.

They no longer do this at my children’s school but when they did, all children in Y8 had to do tours and generally a few tours each. There are just so many people at open days, it’s overwhelming.

It can also be a tough day for the pupils. They were Y8s and prospective parents weren’t always great at behaving appropriately (DS used to come home with tales of parents who’d come with a list of questions about fee increases and UCAS points etc- just not the right questions to ask a 12yo and not appropriate to make them feel bad for not knowing the answers). I’m glad my kids’ school no longer does it, frankly.

@ThingsWillWorkOut you sound like your knowledge of private education is from movies.

And schools like Eton pick their students, not the other way around. They don't need to woo anyone and can firmly rely on their reputation.

Ditto in my DD's school (London). All hands on board on open day. Sheer number of visitors on open days make any other strategy impossible.

What @wishiwasidisneyland said. They don't have a choice. Maybe it depends on the school.

At both my DCs schools they all have to do it. No choice- unless a very good reason why they can't. Too many visitors to pick and choose the 'best'. Although the best is subjective as will depend on your own child and what you're looking for in a school.

If I was choosing-the unmotivated student guide would be my biggest red flag in any school regardless of sector. In my experience student guides are chosen from the kids most able to do that particular job-confident,good at talking to grown ups-just generally good ambassadors. If a school can't muster a few of them then they definitely have an issue!

Most schools only have a handful of staff in admissions and marketing. Any more would be a waste of the fees of current parents.

So when 1000s come to an open day it requires all the staff and many of the students to come in and show parents around and even then there probably won't be enough people for the open day of a popular school.

Mainly, as others have said, the current students would probably rather be doing something else on their Saturday. The staff will be very knowledgeable about their subject but won't have been trained in sales, marketing or customer service.

@Sleepo’s point seems to have gone over your head.

Yes private education is big business but that business is educating children. That’s the important part of selecting a school not how special you felt on an open day.