Independent school tours

[paddyfoot]

Just wondering how common it is for schools not to tour prospective parents (i.e. those who haven't yet applied) outside of Open Mornings?

A small school near us which we are considering for 4+ is in demand but doesn't allow parents to visit unless they have already registered for a place. As we have quite a few schools on our list, we would rather not register at all of them, but some seem to allow visits to be booked and others don't.

Does this tend to be an indicator of the quality of the school too at all? Just wondering what others' experiences have been like!

Varies. Are you in N London? Channing will only let you look round once you've registered (very cheeky!) SHHS, NLCS and Habs take all comers to their open day, Norfolk House you also have to register first. Varies from school to school.

My kids' schools don't let people look round except for open days / evenings because they say it's disruptive for it to be happening day in, day out (and for popular schools I can see that it would be).

That said, I know they do make exceptions (DS showed a little boy and his parents round who are moving here from overseas next year and not in the country on any of the open days).

I never heard of having to apply before you could even look round at an open day - and we visited some pretty high quality schools.