Questions for primary school tour

[estornudar]

Hi all. After half term we will be going to tour some prospective primary schools for DS, who is due to start next September. We are both teachers so feel OK with our understanding of the curriculum, but are there any adoption-specific questions you can think of that might be useful to ask? Staff training around attachment and early trauma, and questions about the behaviour policy are currently on my list. Anything else?

Get a feel for the school, observe how children interact with staff - are interactions easy and do the staff have an informal relationship with children. How do the staff talk about the kids, are they compassionate and understanding of difficulties.

Worth checking about trauma informed training but also ask for concrete examples of how they’ve used that training to change how they understand and work with children. For many schools it’s a tick in the box, or only certain staff have been trained - you’re looking for a whole school approach from dinner staff to the HT.

I’d also be asking for the strategies they use for children who are struggling - how flexible are they. They should have a good “tool box” of different approaches that they tailor to the child’s needs - not a “this is what we always do for X”. Are they agile in their approach by which I mean if something stops working will they change things quickly or is it going to take a petition from God himself to adjust their approach.

How open are they to challenge, are they defensive about their way of working, are they prepared to collaborate with parents. By way of example my DDs P3 teacher and I really worked together to figure out how to help her behaviour - if I found an approach that worked at home I’d let her know and vice versa. It meant that we had a consistent approach at home and school which felt very safe for her.

I’d also not be shy at explaining your professional background and using that to explain you know what’s possible in schools - I know some of the support my kids get is purely because the school know I know exactly what I’m talking about and will happily hold them to account. Your child only has you to advocate for them, don’t let professional courtesy stand in your way of doing that - use it as the advantage it is.

I agree with Ms Pyjamas above.

Plus- how is the pupil premium plus spent at the moment, do they have experience with pupil premium plus, and using it for this cohort? Or will it get pooled with pupil premium to cater for that cohort, who likely have different needs- in that you may well be able to afford shoes for the kids, or music lessons, but what your child needs is sensory equipment, will they use PP+ to pay for it?

What do they actually understand about shame, fight/flight etc responses?

Generally, get a feel, and remember you can move them if needed. I put a lot of pressure on making the right choice for stability, and yet actually when a school started to lose staff and fall apart, a move was positive.

Thanks both! Some really good points there that I've added to the list!

Theses are questions for secondary school, but a lot are relevant for primary as well: https://www.adoptionukforum.org/topic/64b0fb16-bd2d-40a1-acd7-921588b961c7

Ask if you can have a little flexibility. My daughter struggled to wait in the yard before school, so we were allowed to come a little later. They are also flexible about her uniform and accept that sometimes she will be in wellies because it’s more important that she is in school, than what she wears. They also let her have her important toy in her bag (when other kids aren’t allowed to bring toys). All little things but which make her day a lot easier.