I am in a complete stress about schools

[joanneg]

Please if you guys can help me I will be eternally grateful.

Ds is 2 and I ahve started to think about what primary schools to send him to. Mainly because I am going to send him to playschool (or is it called pre-school - or nursery?? who knows) and around here these are attached to the schools. So in picking a playschool I want to pick one attached to the school ds will go to.

I am choosing between 3 at the moment and I am sooo clueless. I have their inspection reports and they may as well be in a foreign language because they dont make much sense.

How do I know what is s good school and what is a keyskill? Do all schools allow the pupils to do the 11+?

Please help and give me some tips, information because I dont want to get this all wrong and I am not sure that the schools around here are very good.

thanks

where do you live?
do you have any mum friends?
what are they doing?
Have you been to visit them all and see which one you like best?

Message withdrawn

enid - southend in essex (ss1)
No mum friends around here !
I am visiting them next week. I am a bit worried because I dont know what I am doing really and I think that the schools here are dire - but I dont know that for sure!! Will I get more of an idea when I look around them? I think that there is only 1 in my catchment - and the other two I have to fill in a form (out of catchment area form). So not sure I will have much of a choice anyway!!

Sorry rambling now - you can tell I am stressed! Just been reading the inspectors reports and they make no sense to me!

where are you joanneg? I bet there are mn'ers in the same area.
as far as I know the 11+ only still exists in Kent and Buckinghamshire but I'm ready to be corrected. I would imagine in those counties everyone should be entered for it.

it's a nightmare isn't it. ds is only 9 months but i'm dreading having to make these decisions.

sorry posts crossed!

Message withdrawn

joanneg, if essex is like oxfordshire then you will need to fill in a form even if it's for the school that you are in the catchment area form. Just a note because the info for schools here makes a big deal of this as apparently some people assume they will get an automatic place at their nearest school and it's not necessarily the case. So they say...

I'm in Essex - and for me locally "Catchment" means everything (other than Faith schools).

In our local town, every school operates admission on the following:

Catchment
Siblings
Special Needs
Nearest to school

I have never applied to the local LEA as my Catchment school is a "Foundation" school (thereby sets its own rules on admission/policies etc) and rang them up when DD1 was 3 to put her name down.

have you read the Ofsted reports joanneg?

Joanneg,

First of all find out what school you are in the catchment for and research that one. Depending on where you are, it may be that the school you are in the catchment for is very oversubscribed so that if you live on the edge of the catchment, there is still a possibility you wouldn't get in and so would need to apply to others as well. You will still have to make an application to your catchment school anyway as a formality (application is normally made directly to the school).

Then look at surrounding schools - usually if you want to go to a school that you are not in the catchment for, you make an application to the LEA, NOT the school (check this though as it may vary by LEA).

Normally you have to apply by the March/April of the year your child will start reception (obviously the year before if you want to go to pre-school nursery) - but again, check this as it may vary by LEA.

To get a vague idea of standards of the schools look on the bbc website for school league tables. You can put in your borough and look at the overall results and where each school 'ranks' compared to others in the LEA and the national average. I know some people hate league tables but it's just away of getting an overview of standard of results. Also you can look at Ofsted reports - Ofsted have their own website but I think you can get to it via the BBC one.

I would be looking at other things too (getting A* in everything is not the be all and end all - for me, the key is that my kids are happy at school!). You'll get a feel for the school and staff when you look round - look for things that others have mentioned on here. Also, what is the whole ethos of the school and it does it sit with what you want from a school? My ds will go to the catchment area school but I'm lucky it's one of the top in the LEA but the things I like about it (other than things mentioned below) are that it has loads of good extracurricular activities, it's great on sport and is affiliated to the local healthclub that we are members of so they do lacrosse there and hockey. They have chess, good language clubs etc. The school is very well maintained and they have a HUGE playing field, huge playground. They've got fab IT facilities and library. Also, they cook the school meals on-site which I like - lots of school have them brought in.

With regard to the 11+, I don't know about your area but I know there are very few now that have state grammar schools and the 11+ (we're in Trafford and we still have it), so you need to look into that.

It's hard to know what questions to ask but unless there is something very specific you want from a school, or something that really bothers you, just go along and the questions will probably arise as you go round. Also, like others have said, you really do get a feel for whether it's a nice school or not.

HTH!

Joanneg
I'm in a similar position to you. All the advice here is great, I can't really add to.
I've been to visit two possible schools for my ds1. I found that I didn't realise what I'd seen at first school until I had been to second school and so could compare. For example at the first school, all the young kids were working in small groups at different activities and it looked to me as if it was a very disorganised environment. However, when I went to the second school and all the children were sat very quietly and meekly, listening to a lesson, I realised how lively and interesting the environment of the first school was.
Hope this makes sense and good luck with your visits.

I think word of mouth is useful, but only in addition to school visits. Does your ds go to any toddler groups? Can you get chatting to the mothers there or ask the leaders? If you don't belong to any groups, now might be a good time to join just for this reason. If you can't do this, try phoning up some local primary aged children's clubs and activities - cub troops, swimming classes, etc. Say you are very new to the area and could someone tell you a bit about the local primary schools. It's worth a try!

Also, you could visit what you consider to be the extremes - state, church or private schools. No one needs to know you are not serious about sending your ds there. This might help set everything in context. I did this when choosing secondary schools - I went to a very well regarded private selective school just to see what made it so good.

DH from those parts and went to Westcliff. understand from SIL that all children can sit 11+ if parents want but some do more to prepare for it than others.

In my day - you sent them to the nearest school and hoped for the best - it much less stressful (thankfully they did a good job!)

In terms of reading the Ofsted reports I would look at their Key Stage 2 results and see if they are reasonable in all areas or if they have any obvious weaknesses. If they do then ask what they are doing to improve when you go and see them.
Read the overall summary.
Then read the "things the school does well" and "things it could improve" sections. You cam then use the areas to improve section as the basis for some questions on your visit - what are they doing to address their areas of weakness.
Otherwise just see how you feel about the atmosphere of the place and the people you meet.

I am going to visit some schools in the next couple of weeks, but I'm not sure if I should go with or without dd (she's due to start in reception in September 2005 or January 2006)? I thought by taking her with me I could see how she reacts to the environment, but perhaps it's not such a good idea. Any advice very welcome! TIA.

Take her!

Thanks for that Hercules! Did you take your children with you when visiting schools? I'm just a bit worried it might cause too much disruption. ON the other hand it would be interesting to see how the staff react, IYSWIM.

Yes I did. I wanted to see how they fitted it as it were and if I could see them there. I think it also helped him as he felt a part of the process although had no choice in it iyswim.

A couple of the schools let him stay with reception whilst we looked round. That was really useful in deciding for us seeing him there and interacting with staff and the surroundings.

Thanks Hercules, that's exactly what I was thinking. So I will take her! Good idea about letting her stay with the reception class while I look around, will see if I can do that.