To feel uncomfortable with school place offered?

[birdynumnums]

DS aged 3 has been offered our 3rd placed school but to be honest, I can't fault the school. It is given ratings of 1's and 2's on Ofsted.

My concern is that I did not apply for a place where he currently attends nursery. I was swayed by the ofsted reports at the time as it was rated a 3 consistently throughout the report. However, I am so pleased with the school. They have worked wonders with my speech delayed DS who was only uttering two word sentences in September. He has just been discharged from speech therapy because he has come on so much and I know they have tried so hard with him. His social skills are still not what they should be though which is their main concern and he can be a little shy at times when he doesn't know people.The staff love him and he loves them and although he will obviously be with different teachers, I'm thinking it would have been an easier transition for him to attend school in the same place. He's my first child and am wondering if I was an idiot for paying too much attention to Ofsted. I'm pretty sure I could get him a place if I go on the waiting list as it was not oversubscribed.

Would I be crazy to pass up on the school he has been offered being as though it's a better school and achieves better results? I'm also worried as he will be one of the youngest as he's a summer baby and am concerned he's not ready for school yet.

I've always taken OFSTED reports with a pinch of salt to be honest

The best way to tell how good a school is, is to ask other parents or look for internet reviews (if there are any)

The inspectors tend to spend less than 2 days inspecting a school and imo they can't get the full measure of it in that tiny amount of time.

I must admit I've never known them to number things...it's normally 'satisfactory', 'good', 'outstanding'.

If you go and read an Ofsted report you will see that they always number "things" against the OFSTED criteria. Satisfactory etc gives the overall judgement.

Given our perfectly nice school got down graded from 2 to 3 by OFSTED for a very little. Basically not pushing the long writing SAT down year 6s throats. I have very little faith in them.

Personally if my DC was happy in the nursery and I'd meet and talked to the reception teacher and felt he'd stay happy I'd be very tempted.

I'm guessing, since you go to nursery there, it's an ok school run.

I'd go with what you feel most comfortable with to be honest.

As an aside, if you don't feel he's ready for school you can defer his entry until January, so he starts reception a term late. That's what I did with my summer born DS1. It did him no harm at all, he's in year 2 now, doing well, fine with work, lots of friends etc. I knew he wasn't ready in the September, he only turned 4 a week before term started!

Another option could be to take the place at the school you've been offered if you feel that this might be your one and only chance of your DS gaining entry to it owing to high demand and oversubscription, keeping the option of moving him to the other school. That's assuming that it will remain undersubscribed and that you're confident that you could obtain a place in it should the one you've been offered not work out.

could you have a look round both schools, i took ds round 2 schools and he instantly took a dislike to 1, see what the school actually scored 3's on too. the school my ds is going to (fingers crossed) has a really good senco perfect for ds but that wouldnt be important to most people, he is currently at a private nursery where he is happy but needs more help so its been a painful decision but as soon as a place becomes available he will be moving

look round both schools again.

whats the pastoral and special needs care like in the better ofstead school?

Visit the schools again as others have already said and get a feel for each then go with your instinct. My daughter started at a top oversubscribed school and was eventually moved to a less popular, lower ranked school. Didn't matter what Ofsted said, the second school was far better than the first and with an open mind, you could tell pretty much straight away. The oversubscribed school was very polished and professional and ... cold. The new one was a bit more worn around the edges with a fraction of the resources, but the staff devotion to the kids was tangiable.

Don't just look at the schools, look at them and think 'is this the right school for my child?'

It's a bit like buying a car, Rolls Royce will always come out with a good rating, particularly for things like comfort but it would by bloody useless to get flat pack furniture home from IKEA or if your family has 6 kids.