What are 'green flags' that you would look for when choosing a secondary school?

@MargaretThursday wow you were really brave in choosing the second school. Glad that it was the right decision.

Wide range of extra curriculum activities.

Range of subjects available to take for GCSE and not heavily restricted.

Does school have a sixth form? What is the entry criteria and what subjects are offered?

The general vibe of the school. Are teachers happy? Is the SMT visible?

Timings of the school day. Do children have enough time for lunch?

Visit the school at the end of the day and watch the pupils as they leave. What are the interactions like between staff and pupils? Are you happy with the behaviour of pupils?

You may think that, but it can work.

When dd1 was coming up for secondary, we'd only really considered one school, but the year before they tried something a bit silly with the new entrants, and although they backed down it then meant we decided to look at the other school which had a much worse reputation.

Original school: We were shown round by the head. Who denied that there was any bullying at all. Eventually after several of the parents insisted she sighed heavily and said (word for word) "if someone insists they're being bullied, then we get them together so they can discuss it with the bully and they never complain again." Red Flag number one.
Red Flag number two was the things they were telling us that they thought were wonderful. "We have the most amazing trips. Every year two of our year 12s get a chance to go to Florida..." but in a year of around 200+ the chances are your dc would never actually get a chance on ay of these wonderful trips.
And I think the one that really made me roll my eyes was "in order to help their languages, we teach a couple of lessons of history and geography every term in a different language." Great in theory. In practice that almost certainly means a lesson that no one understands so a total waste of time-but looks great on paper.
Apparently no child ever misbehaved due to their wonderful discipline system too...
If you drilled down into almost all their "why we are so wonderful" they were either gimmicks that would benefit almost no one or gimmicks that almost no one would benefit from.

Then we looked round the other. Very sceptically. We were assigned a sixth form lad who's first comment was "the music block looks a bit rough. We won't go behind it because that's where the smokers hang out."
Sounds bad?
But actually at the end we felt that we knew the good, the bad and the ugly from the school. We felt we could trust the things he said were good because he hadn't hidden the bad.

We chose the second school and it was the right decision. And we were also right in thinking that he'd given a very good overview of the school.

Later dh became a governor and mentioned this lad to the head, who chuckled and said that he was an unorthodox young lad, and they'd been nervous about letting him show people round because there was no guarantee what he would say (which was very true!) but it was very good for the lad to take responsibilities, having had a very shaky start to the school, and an "interesting" background.
But genuinely he sold it to us.

My daughter favoured a school because she got to put fake highlights in (they did hair and beauty gcse). Then also put on alot of food as that also works well to bribe y6's!

Nevermind the inadequate ofsted!

at least positive progress 8 score

The Head and senior leadership are crucial

100% agree with @whiteroseredrose . We have direct experience of this too. DD2 went to a Secondary Modern with a poor reputation (a couple of years before she started local parents would do anything to avoid it).

But a decisive new HT, and the really strong SLT she put in place, made a huge difference. The school is now over-subscribed.

Incidentally, she also knew every child's name though admittedly it was smaller school, at around 1,000 pupils.

For me a random green flag is the state of the toilets. if half of them are minging and broken and boarded up then it tells me that the school doesnt have enough money for basic repairs and that this will play out in other areas of cost cutting as well - i.e cheaper teaching staff etc. Staff turnover is the other obvious one.

@As8ly4yn :

Educational values and behavioural standards of families at the school.

University destinations of Year 13 leavers.

Convenience and safety of daily travel.

The Head at the school 2 of my kids went to did till duty in the canteen every week. I think he built relationships with kids and knew all their names from that. He certainly did know them.

My other child went to a school where the Head taught his subject to all year 7s for one lesson a week. Again he knew all the kids by name.

Our secondary isn't quite that big, probably 1400 or so pupils ,and I don't suppose the Head is infallible but I would say he knows the majority of the pupils names. I volunteered for the Covid testing programme in school so saw him interacting with a lot of pupils at that time and he used their names most of the time, as did the deputies.

The school we put as first preference "We recognise that every child has individual skills and abilities and not all students are going to achieve high academic excellence. We try to bring out the best in every child."

In reality, we were getting a place at our catchment school and had no likelihood of getting one anywhere else. So we weren't looking for green flags so much as huge glaring red flags for the catchment school, which would mean we would have to adopt an extreme Plan B. I think that's the reality for a lot of people. Preference is irrelevant.

DD didn't really get a choice. She was offered the crappiest school in the borough. So we looked wider and a school close to us but in the next borough was willing to have her. Some of the rules were ridiculous but she did well in the main school and continues to be encouraged and stretched in sixth form.

But what WAS I looking for? A welcoming environment. A strong anti-bullying policy that was upheld and followed rigorously. The facilities in general. Pastoral care. What extra curricular activities were on offer. All that before GCSE results because if my (shy) child wasn't going to feel safe or happy she wasn't going to try her best.

You're right, it's discrimination and really shouldn't be allowed.
Well done your daughter!

Two things shine through when I visit schools. One how confident, polite and eloquent are the children. Do they talk positively about their school and seem excited by the opportunities or do they seem a bit subdued, unable to articulate how they feel. Do they engage with clubs and activities etc. I once went to an interview where I wasn't taken into a single classroom on the tour, we walked past one room where a child shouted out 'don't come here, it's shit' and the slt leading our tour just shut the classroom door and moved on. I knew immediately that was not a school I wanted to work in.

And the teachers, are they open, happy, talk enthusiastically about their curriculum and are full of positive comments about their colleagues and students or again are they a bit subdued, seem a bit awkward, look a bit downtrodden, maybe talk about the curriculum but not really with any passion. And linked to that, what are the interactions between the teachers and students like.

As a teacher and a parent those are the two things that give me the biggest sense of what a school is like. You can't fake those things with gossy posters and a fancy brochure or lots of pictures of 'activities' on social media. They are about the everyday interactions between people. Ive worked in a school where those things are fundamentally broken but if you look at their marketing it appears an amazing school. The reality is not so.

We are in Scotland so it’s National 5’s and Highers.

just a normal state school who have done this for as long as I’ve known. I Know of past pupils that this has happened too, so not just hearsay. School gets an amazing name but discriminating against pupils due to expected exam results are not on.

My dd was predicted a C in an exam meaning if she attended here she wouldn’t have got to sit the exam and with encouragement from school and home sat the exam and got a B.

What @PheobeBebe said. The Head and senior leadership are crucial.

When we went round DS's school the Head was about chatting to parents and answering questions.

For every year end school report the Head wrote a final section (by hand). It was clear that he knew about each boy and had read the full report.

He and the leadership team were always accessible.

@newnamechangeforthisone - I think you make some excellent points and I would concur with most of them. However. When a member of staff leaves the premises doesn't really reflect on the quality of their engagement with the job. I've never stayed late at work - I used to have to leave sharpish to get to the childminder, now I leave promptly to go home and decompress, have a cuppa and relax with my family. I will often work later in the evening at home.
I'm glad that your 4 are thriving and you sound like a very engaged parent.

It’s a comp.

I have children with ALN and so getting the right school was really difficult and important, like it is for every child of course but I just look at differnt things.

I always take opportunity to do a private tour (which I guess might be different if your child doesn't have any ALN). I take note of how that is handled and how the staff speak and deal with me because those are the people I'll have to talk with for the next 5 plus years.

I arrive early and I watch how staff interact with pupils, do they know their names? How do the pupils react to them? What is uniform like? Do the staff come over and introduce themselves? Are staff visible? What was reception like? Was it friendly? How was signing in?

I'll read any online policies, social media pages and inspection reports.

I have a list of questions that will be important to me and I'll ask them and see how they respond.

I have four children in three differnt schools and what I looked for in each was different.

I am absolutely over the moon with my children's schools, of course there are things I would change but my children are happy and thriving, staff are supportive and friendly, and the schools are aware of my different children's needs and work with that.

I don't think every school is perfect for every child, but if you have staff who are engaged with pupils then that's half the battle.

I tend to do a lot of work in schools and I'm also a governor at two schools, schools can have very different feel to them. I find it interesting how staff interact with other staff, the time staff leave after school, how many community events and how visible senior leaders are speak volumes. I'm not advocating that all staff should be staying behind every day and doing and spending loads of time at the school but I do think it indicates how engaged staff are.

Also check out their governing body. Is there lots of vacancies? I expect one or two as normal turn over but not more than that.

Staff turnover is a good indicator, again you would expect a turnover especially in secondary but my primary has the same teaching staff consistency. And if those staff are still engaged, that's a really good sign.

Good points, @2chocolateoranges . Does the A and B refer to A level? It's actually not allowed. It's also very hard to disapply, so I would definitely wonder what they're up to.
I think exam results have to be taken in conjunction with other factors, as you say.

This can be misleading. We have a high school near us who only allow high achieving students to sit exams. So if you are guaranteed an A or B they allow you to sit the exam anything lower you don’t get to sit the exam , therefore their exam results look amazing!

For me it’s the feel of the place, are SMT visible around the school, do the students appear happy, positive interactions between staff and students. Do past parents speak highly of the school?

Depends on the child. We have single sex strict uptight state schools then two more relaxed mixed comprehensives. The perception was the strict single sex ones were “better” but some friends kids hated the approach and moved and have thrived in the more relaxed mixed schools. Brilliantly the most haphazard mixed comp then got better results than all the other state schools bar the girls only one.

It sounds lovely! All results are low if you compare them to grammar schools, so that's not a concern!

Secondary... takes the children from 5 villages plus any farms etc.

Its not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The results look low if you are used to grammar schools etc. But it is genuinely a nice place.

That's really lucky. Is it a primary school?