Shoddy displays, staff seemingly lacking in energy, very little work on display but 86%A-C would this put you off a school.

[Morosky]

We have been tonight to view a school for dd, it has a good reputation, the children seemed happy there and results are way above national average.

But both dp and I left very unimpressed, the classrooms were either tired or sterile because they were empty with one or 2 exceptions. The staff seemed tired and in one case overly defensive.

As a teacher mysel I know the spin and effort that goes into an open day so part of me is thinking if this is them doing their best for show what must it be like for the rest of they year.

I teach in an over subscribed school which is very desirable and we pul out all the stops, partly because we are all so proud of our school we want to show it at its best.

There is something going on in every department, jazz band on the terrace, other musical events dotted about, something in the theatre. Classrooms are immaculate, displays perfect and work out. I know that certainly within our department you walk in and you can feel the passion as it were.

As a teacher it was a very very interesting experience.

I think in 2008 it was 88% getting 5A-c with 77% including maths and english so there is a drop but not a huge drop. These are very very good results.

Oshgosh no one is more surprised than me, I was really looking forward to going and have heard so much that is positive about it. I am looking at Boarding as we are in Dorset, we were not shown the boarding facilities which I did understand as the children were in there. I understand that with the new building things would be a little up in the air ( my own school has just had a partial rebuild) but it seemed chaos. But the rest of the school just looked tired and warn as did the staff, with the excpetion of science. There also seemed to be a lack of academic rigour when I spoke to teachers which did not make sense when you look at the results. Oshgosh does your child board? Are they very sporty? We did not get to see or find out much about the sports department and that will be important to dd.

But dd is only in year 3 so we have a few years yet, I will look again next year when the new building is lived in. We will just at some point me moving and wanted to bear in mind schools when we make that decision.

But as I said dd loved the school, and as she is used to the facilities and feel of the school I teach in that is quite a compliment and not something I am ignoring.

Something that did make me inwardly chuckle is that when we walked into the talk lots of the parents were taking notes very studiously.

I agree campion as we got in the car I said to dp we need to see that school on a normal working day.

I sent my son to a school that I had massive reservations about when I visited it. Every area of the inspection report was outstanding but it never lived up to any of them and it had serious flaws - we left! Go with your gut feel.

The ofsted which is 2007 is not outstanding but is good with outstanding features. The outstanding things I hear about the school tend to come by word of mouth from either parents or teachers which I trust more. The whole evening was odd.

I am off shopping will be back

Morosky: DS doesn't board and, oh yes, he is very sporty and revels in the opportunities the school gives him (off playing rugby as we speak).
Boarding here can't be too bad because we have a regular trickle of non-boarders transferring to boarding as they get older (I say trickle because there are only 8 non-boarders per year to start off with!).
The recession is not affecting us - we are still very oversubscribed.

www.sbsa.org.uk/ should give you a good idea.

Always go with your gut feelings-just use everything else as a guide.

You dd loved it, the results are good but the open evening jarred with expectation. In that case, I'd very tempted to visit in the day, when the pupils are in class to confirm opinion one way or another.

I used to work in a very good school that pulled out all the stops for open eve. We were told to speak to every child and that every dept had to have school pupils doing something and also something for the visitors to do. The tour guides had training. The head inspected every display. It had another rival school so were competing for customers.

I now work at better school results wise and it's deemed to be an outstanding school but, because they are the best school in the area, parents are clamoring to get their children in. I was somewhat shocked by their lack of prep and would describe the open eve as mediocre. My colleagues looked at me open mouthed when I went into open eve mode! A better reflection would be to visit the school in the school day.

Yes heated we all do that, we do compete with the grammar so perhaps this is why, although I would have thought that if this school is competing for other schools with us and we are not looking at the independent sector it must be competing with other schools for most parents.

I do think that a big part of open day is allowing students to show off their school, I know ours are very proud and want us to show it at its best.

But yes I agree in all circumstances it is best to go on a normal day.

I can't pin dd down on what she loved.

My kids seem to have been spending an awful lot of lesson time on display work for open evening.

I think, as a parent, I would prefer them to do proper lesson work in lessons.

I have no objection to posters as such, and I am sure they have a lot of educational value, but doing them in lesson time rather than for homework seems a bit off. The teachers prefer them do do their posters in lesson times so that they don't get damaged in transit (or so they say). Sounds like a bit of a cushy lesson

Open evening timings are really unfortunate as the kids have only been in school for a couple of weeks when the preparation has to start. It is hardly the time to start a new topic and then consolidate learning into a poster.

I think you are judging this school rather harshly, Morosky.

You can do proper work which is display work. I never have had a pointless poster on display.

I have some year 7 essays on display explaining why William won the Battle of Hastings alongside some photos from a lesson we held in the woods. This is work they did at the end of last year so it acts as a guide to my new year 7s - this is what you are aiming for. This will come down and be replaced , but as you say we have only been back a few weeks.

I have some a Philosophy timeline for my A level students.

I have a GCSE display on Wealth and Christianity, featuring some Lego Bible passages, some teachings from Christian denominations, the class have then given their views on a post it note that are placed on the display - this was a plenary to a debating lesson.

I have a second GCSE display on the HIndu varna system which is mainly information and then has some photos of students dressed up as member of the varnas and some colour photocopies of exam answers they have done on this topic.

I have an A board which names students who are working at an A with examples of their work. Next to that is an RE in the news board which features articles mainly bought in by the students,

I have a year 7 display on India, includes a map onto which that have marked special places with examples of their research and newspaper front pages describing Alexander the Great's entry into India. There are also some settlement maps on there.

I have a year 8 display which features photgraphs of our active philosophy lessons, some collages they did at home and some colour photcopies of assessed pieces of work.

I also have a general praise board which feaurures photos and quotes from my philosophers of the future, exanples of outstanding work and merit charts.

THere is also a tutor board featuring lots of photos, tutor news exam results, merit tables etc.

Displays should be a mixture of celebration, information and showcasing work, there should always be something up and it should never be a pointless poster.

I also have glass cabinets full of artefacts, inspirational quotes on the walls, mood lighting and plants. I could not bear to teach in a sterile unloved classroom.

But I am harsh and quite willing to accept that, I don't allow myself to give anything less than 100% and tend to expect that same of others.

Essay for display? Hmm, do you expect people to stand there and read it?

I agree that artefacts are an attractive display for RS. Our diocese rents out good boxes. But it is a hardly an example of children's work.

I didn't mean to divert your precious marking time to justifying yourself. Please ignore me.

I lectured in a college for 8 years and our results were impressive. The staff were exhausted, every week we had to do more and more, ie extra paperwork, rewriting new courses and nothing was ever removed from the to do list. We used to joke that the principal and his next in charge (wife) would sit over the weekend working out what they could get us to do next. We had numerous people who had breakdowns and could not cope. We were managed by bullies and no-one dared say anything or you would become a target. Could this be the reason for good results and jaded tired teachers.

The essays are of varying lengths, but people do read them. They also have an information card with each one saying what level it was awarded and why. Because they are on a mixed display with photographs and other pictures people are drawn to it.

Artefacts are not children's work but they are a sign of a well resourced department.

Deste having taught in a school like that the same thought crossed my mind.

I have a feeling wicked you are taking the piss but I am not bothered I adore my displays and could talk for England about them. Infact I do as I run training sessions for other teachers on how to produce displays and avoid making meaningless posters.

Let me think of an RS display....

Pupils write a 'newspaper' article and then sponge it with cold tea and burn away the edges.

It's been done in every school. You are nor doing anything special.

Parents of more than one child are totally immune (they did the tea sponging for their older children, and know that the results are not the children's work).

The thought of putting a level next to a child's work makes me shudder. Whatever floats your boat...

I'm all for academic rigour etc. but what about valuing each child for reaching their potential. Reading about your displasy of the A* board and levels next to the childrens work makes my blood go cold. How exposing for the children and what an undermining message its sending out. I would never send my children to a school that does this and believe me the school they go to is considered pushy and academic however luckily for us in a nice way.

I did not say I was doing anything special, I said I was doing what is expected.

I do not have any tea stained work on my walls, although I about to mark some work so there is time. The last time I did that was as an NQT when someone handed me in some work sponged in soy sauce which left a rather unpleasant odour in my room.

I am finding your tone rather unpleasant a sign that perhaps that I am tired and would be happier finishing off my work and going to bed.

Why are you attacking morosky?
It seems perfectly sensible to have children's work on display and say "this is A* work because it ticks this, this and this box". That is what life is like at GCSE - it is all about realising what hoops you need to jump through to get the grades. The fluffy bunny, let's not criticise them because their fragile egos can't handle it stuff belongs in Infants and Juniors. It is part of the teacher's remit to give feedback on what can be done to improve work and children are taught the self-critical skill of "if I was going to do this project again, next time I would ..."

Sorry I just can't agree. Feedback to help improve work is personal to an individual student. Personaly when looking round the schoolI want to see examples of all students work not just the best and to see all students are valued A* or otherwise. So glad my ds's school can do this and still get exceptional results.

Go with your gut instincts!

I would have wanted to see the boarding facilities too - surely they could of arranged another open day at a t ime when the pupils would be in class & kept a room free for just that, Also as it is a boarding school why were there no pupils there to show you around?

Im not one to be swayed by displays and pretty environments but would have been dissapointed by the lack of any atmosphere and enthusiasm from the staff.

I think that in some well performing schools (where the parents bother to show an interest in their childrens' learning) the staff can be on the lazy side as the children will get the desired results without much effort on the schools part. I have taught mainly in urban schools where the results have not been fantastic, but the value added (best way of assessing a schools performance) has been very high and the teaching outstanding.

I don't believe that school exam results and league tables show the true picture of our schools and think they should be taken with a pinch of salt!

I would be bothered by tired seeming teachers at this time of year. One of my children is now helping at open days showing people round. When we first attended an open day I was impressed by the students confidence in responding to queries and their pride in the school.

Although there isn't always time to read essays it is encouraging to see students work on display. Our school library has a display of the school in the news - sports wins, exam results, individual students who have done something newsworthy, even if ouside school. Art work is also dotted around. Around the school there are photos of school trips and of other things like tree planting or charitable fundraising.

YABU
imo good schools dont bother trying to promote themeslves wehther that is good or bad, spec if they dont have much competition

More academic schools focus less on display than they used to.

If a school thinks it is so good that it doesn't need to promote itself I would be worried. I don't think it is good to be complacent-they should always strive to be even better. There should be a buzz of enthusiasm.