Whoops! Sorry all! We must have been eating tea before going out and I missed seeing all these responses! Thanks everyone!
Tommy - Yes, there were children there and they did seem to ooze confidence, but, thinking about it, the kids from that school always do! I've never thought about it before! That's a good sign. There were children doing the meet and greet at the beginning and there was a school council group to answer any questions. I know the headmaster covered lots in his speech at the beginning and this included bullying, but I missed it due to dd's dance class. Dh told me the most important bits later. I know the headmaster personally, I met the deputy head and I chatted at length to another teacher, too.
maddiemo - I wish it had been at a different time of day as my disability means that I'm really quite tired by the evening and I was too tired to take it all in. I know that there was a variety of work on show, from different ages and abilities. As it is a Welsh medium school and I don't speak much Welsh or understand much written Welsh, I expect I missed out on noticing a lot of things I should have noticed. Yes, the staff seem approachable and friendly. About 50% of parents who have children in the school don't speak Welsh themselves and we English speaking parents are well-catered for by the school ie the info sent home is bi-lingual, etc. I can imagine ds at that school and, most importantly, so can he! He now really wants to go there, although we will look at the other secondary school when they have their open day also. This school is half the size of the other and seems like an extended family type school. Big ones look after little ones and it has less than 700 pupils in all.
luckymum - I meet some of the secondary school children when I take dd to her dance classes, so I can ask them then. I missed doing it on the night as I was late arriving due to taking dd to her dance class and collecting her again. The school has a website and I must take time to look that over.
hmb - Although we were there for about 2 hours, it went by in a flash! We were taken around in small groups and I was with dd (year 5) in the last English group and ds was in an earlier Welsh group with dh. The poor teachers had their 5 minutes to talk about their subject, then the bell would ring and we'd have to move on. I think there were about 15 groups in all. The teachers did chat to the children in the group although there wasn't much time.
spacemonkey and coddy - Yep, the loos were clean and everything worked! The school building is only 4 years old and it appears to be well thought out. The resources were very good, too.
Hulababy - So, that's it! I'm very pleased and ds is looking forward to going there. The school's academic results are well above the average for Wales and they place a strong emphasis on sport, music, drama and the Welsh culture, which ds is very keen on. So.......it went well!
Thanks again, everybody for the replies! I'm sorry it took me days to realise I'd had them!