school choices- no bust ups please!

[Jimjams]

posting this cautiously......

Am bouncing ideas round in my head- so am interested in opinions/things I haven't thought of.

Suddlenly occured to me that d2 is 3 so we ought to start thinking about schools.

So the choice is narrowed down to 3.

1. Local State primary. Pros- will almost certainly get in, good reputation. Cons, VERY large- 270 children in infants alone. Old buildings and quite cramped. We rejected it for ds1 as it has such a bad reuptation for SN kids- especially those on the autistic spectrum. That's not really relevant for ds2 but still....
   
2. local church school. Pros Lovely school. Smaller. Probably won't get in- we're about 2 streets out of the catchment area. Con's no gaurantee that ds3 would get in. Also a bit further than school 1 so not sure how we'd co-ordinate pick ups with ds1's taxi.
   
3. Local small private school. Pros. Small- whole sachool smaller than the infants in school 1. They do pre-school, after-school and holiday care. This would give us a lot of flexibility in terms of working round ds1- both for his taxi and would help in the hoidays (say if ds2 went to holday club twice a week or something- would give me time for ds1). DS3 would be able to go as well. Cons. It's private so it cost, although cheap by private school standards.
   
   I'm going to arrnage to go and visit these schools next week. I know people at all schools and all seem pretty happy.

[marialuisa]

TBH I would be very uncomfortable with it too jimjams, esp as you have other concerns about that school. Maybe they wouldn't be so oversubscribed if they let parents look around before applying?

Will school 2 let you look round now? Would he start in Jan '07 there or do they follow the LEA admissions (obviously staggered intake)?

Do you think DS2 is likely to be ready for school sooner rather than later? My DD would have had to wait until April '06 if we opted for state school and although I know many MNers think later starts are better it would have been ridiculous to keep her in a preschool setting for that long.

[elliott]

jimjams that doesn't sound very encouraging. I should add that my bias woudl be for a local state non-faith school (just so you know where I'm coming from!) but I woudl definitely be put off not being allowed to look around.
ds1 is in the same school yr as your ds2 with a Nov birthday. Our local state school allows you to look around at any time - I actually went nearly a year ago to look at the nursery class which ds1 could start at from Sept. There is after school and holiday club. Its not a particularly high achieving school - maybe your local school is a bit complacent about being so popular. I think its very unreasonable not to allow you proper information on which to base a choice.

[Jimjams]

replied to this but seems to have disappeared.
I think you could be right about the complacency elliot.


It does worry me that he would be 5 before starting school marialuisa. It would have been fine for ds1 (who did go part time for the whole of reception and still went to nursery as well) DS2 is already keen to do schooly stuff though, and as he goes to a small nursery there wouldn't be many others in his age group- he'd be the oldest by far I guess.

I haven't dared ring schoool 2 yet.

[marialuisa]

Good luck, if it's a smaller school they may be nicer!

Schools are weird though, last time my mum moved she rang the excellent village primary school to ask about spaces and got told "we're full and we'll fight you all the way if you appeal" before they put the 'phone down!

[elliott]

jimjams don't any of the schools have attached nurseries? Or won't his current nursery be doing enough 'school-like' things to keep him happy? Ds1 is already in the preschool unit of his (private day) nursery and if anything it is more structured in terms of learning goals than the nursery class at the local school - which he will almost certainly start from Sept just before he turns 4, which seems plenty early enough!

[Marina]

We had to rule an excellent local state primary out of our choices because they would also not allow visits before the application deadline and would not give out any material amounting to a prospectus. I thought this was really annoying and also worried that despite its excellent academic reputation it meant a sod you approach to parents of children at the school.
Honestly Jimjams, how unhelpful.

[tigermoth]

jimjams, all this school choosing stuff is stressful, isn't it?

When my son was on the waiting list for his small church primary, we were not allowed to look around the school and were given minimum information. The secretary was very sniffy and it was offputting.

However, when we were offered a place, the headmaster called us in for a long talk, and then personally showed us round the school. It took most of the afternoon. If the head teacher spends this long with every parent whose child has been offered a place, it must take up a lot of his time, so I guess he has to say no to meetings with other parents. As the school is very small, I can see how frequent guided tours would be disruptive, however it's a pity the school can't give out more information.

I must say, the head assumed my son would want to join his school the very next day - and was a bit put out when I asked to be given a week's grace so my son could say a proper goodbye to his teacher and classmates, and get used to the idea of moving.

Schools that are heavily oversubscribed do, IME (limited as it is) come across to outsider parents as having a very high opinion of themselves. I think it's quite common. I have encountered this attitude when viewing oversubscribed secondary schools.

Good luck!

[Jimjams]

OK this sounds more sensible. Have spoken to school 2 and he would start there in Spet 06. They send out offers in May and we are welcome to go and look around anytime- nearer the time. So his name is already down for school 1, we'll put it down for school 2 just on the offchance and we'll put it down for school 3 as well if we like it. Registration fee is 50 quid but we'll just forfeit that if school 2 comes up.

[marialuisa]

sorted then!