How did you choose a primary school?

[Lelophants]

I guess I’m asking those who actually had a choice and weren’t tied to catchment. I’m looking at about six schools and honestly can’t decide. A couple are walkable and some technically walkable but I’d probably drive on some days. They’re all ‘good’. Some were satisfactory or inadequate a few years ago and some have always been good but I know this can change. Some are known for being good for sen but have wider catchment or are bigger. Some have better play space. What questions do you ask to work out which one? Did you get a gut feeling or did something stand out?

@Lelophants not necessarily. The head at our school knows each child by name. All the teachers do. It’s small enough that they can spot issues quickly and can work with children who need it.

They have done so much work with my son around his anxiety and he’s thrived there.

I know they also do a lot of early intervention with academic support as well.

If your child might need SEN support, go with the best SEN support within walking distance. Nothing wrong with a bigger school, it often means a better range of clubs, better computing,.sport and library facilities, and if a child has issues with a group of peers there will be other children to play with.

Sounds similar to our choice- there's quite a few schools in our area and most are walkable so we had quite the choice.
The one we went for in the end isn't as close as a couple of others, although still walkable.
I know a quite a few people who have had kids there for years and never heard anything bad about it. It's always had a very good reputation.
Not religious was a bonus for us too.
They have indoor and outdoor classrooms and go out into it every single day, rain, snow or shine, which we really like.
It honestly just has a really nice feeling that can't be explained really!

You really have to decide based on your own preferences and instincts. Somour school has terrible wraparound care and that definitely changed the dynamic - a much higher proportion of families with at least one stay at home or part time parent. If we had needed childcare we would have chosen the other school.

Some.of it is just vibe. I visited a school I thought would be my first choice.... hated it. Could barely bring myself to complete the tour

Some of it is child related - there's a school that overall I felt would be better for dd but it is very big and I knew she would struggle with that. Ds, on the other hand, would have benefited from that but at yhe time couldn't attend that school.

We had a choice of two with one marginally closer. Important things for us were plenty of outdoor space and time outdoors, and big enough class/year sizes that silly fallings out didn't matter so much. For background, my school had no outdoor space and there were only 6 girls in the year with lots of fallings out 😂

I looked at 2 local schools. On paper the 1st was better but I just got a better feeling about the 2nd school when we looked around. It was just a better fit.
Up until the point we looked around I would have 100% said the 1st but just didn't feel as comfortable there.
I could walk to both schools but that would have been an important factor.

Honestly? Tossed a coin. I wanted one, DH wanted another, both oerfwctly reasonable choices. But more helpfully, factors in our choices were: how play-based Reception is, the general feeling you got from being in the classrooms (did it feel happy, calm, friendly), the behaviour policy. We also liked the range of specialist teachers and clubs, but that has nearly all gone now in the cutbacks of the last few years. We also had to choose a school with wrap around care. I wish I'd looked more into the availability of childminders because it turns out there are hardly any.

Local reputation, we wanted to know are people and parents think of it are people with kids there positive about it. I did a few social media searches on local FBs groups to see what came up.

For me it really came down to these things
Location - being fairly close and a walkable distance for convenience (especially mornings before work) and that friends will be close to home.

The general ethos and atmosphere of the school. Questions to ask think about. Do the kids look happy and engaged? Are they given opportunities to be creative? Do the teachers seem happy and caring?
Do they have a whole child approach and treat kids as individuals who excel in different ways or are they very results driven? How stage managed does the open day feel? Do you get full access to the school? Do you feel questions are answered honestly? It's great when the have some current pupils on the tours too and see how comfortable they seem and how they answer questions.

Top paragraph should have read as below

Local reputation, we wanted to know what people and parents with kids there had to say. Were most people positive about it? I also did a few social media searches on local FBs groups to see what came up.

The one closest to us was small, single class entry and was a 10 minute walk. Didn't even bother to look at the others.

Closest. Fought for the place too. With little one's, walking to school is such an advantage as is having friends close

Walkable- can’t tell you how stressed mum friends who have to go by car across a notorious traffic route are

two form entry I liked- not too big or too small

sen provision- my child doesn’t have additional needs but I wasn’t to know yet about her sibling

and a feeling- it seemed nice which I know sounds weak but I went to see a school that didn’t feel as nice

Looked at the nearest one and it was fine. So she went there. And had a great time.
I think endless choice in schools is overrated.

I think that's the huge advantage of being walkable, most of their friends will live within walkable distance too

For sen bigger May be advantageous, certainly not under 2 form entry. My dd was originally at a tiny country school (5 classes from nursery until 11, multi year classes) and friends were an issue with 7 girls in her year, all paired up before we joined the school (from overseas). Larger schools have more churn too

Silently weeping into my coffee right now as I'm also choosing between primary schools and NONE are walkable. Probably will look at moving house in a couple of years to change this.

Definitely walkable like most here have said. My eldest now walks home from school herself which is a great help. Also you do get a vibe from a place . I'd sometimes be a bit wary of other parents opinions as some people will try tell you their school is the absolute "best" which is nonsense as most schools are the same and others will have several long standing grudges against the school because of some ridiculous reason

Wraparound hours - do they fit with your work hours?

Curriculum - look on the website / social media /ask. Does it seem genuinely balanced? Are there interesting trips? Are you keen on peripatetic music lessons / after-school clubs etc? How do they provide appropriate challenge for all?
Look at displays. Notice behaviour / are you shown any classrooms? Visit during the school day if possible.

What does it feel like? You could scope out open events like Christmas or summer fêtes. Old school newsletters on the website can give a good insight. You can also look up behaviour / other policies on the website if you're interested.

We viewed all the schools that were walkable and have no regrets. It was lovely not having to stress about traffic and when DS was older he could walk to school and back with his friends.

When viewing schools we looked at how happy and engaged the children were. We checked the approachability of the teaching staff and head and we looked at the kind of work the children further up the school were doing. We also asked about other opportunities in sport or music (although with changing school funding what is offered to current children may not be available in future). We also asked about homework expectations. Results we were less interested in - some schools in our area have a strong tutoring culture so results are rarely a reflection on what a school has achieved alone.

Our primary school is our catchment school but we did look around two others nearby.

We picked ours because the other two were awful! One of them was having extensive building work done and they said it wouldn't be finished for a couple of years. The other was tiny and dark and a bit depressing. One was three form and one was one form entry, and I didn't think either would be right for DD (PFB!).

But my DC's school felt right as soon as we walked in - clean, light, fairly modern, lovely staff, happy looking kids, and two form entry which was my preference. Plus it's very close to our house, which was very high on my list of priorities (it's right next to the preschool both DC attended).

I had 4 on my shortlist and went with the one that I got the best "vibe" from when visiting. It was the one I expected to like least on paper as it's the furthest away but loved it when I went around and all the experience from the school since getting our place has been excellent.

Walkable is important. Practical plus your child is more likely to have friends living near you from school.
If you think you will need sen support that's also very important. But don't just take school's word. Talk to local parents. I would try and meet parents from both schools and see how they have found it.

Ofsted grades would come way down my list.

Chose the nearest one (which is the only one in our village). Unfortunately there was no places due to lots of siblings from a bulge year two years earlier so we got sent to the next village which meant an 8 mile round trip twice a day for 3 years. Luckily got into village juniors.

In honesty we chose the closest as being able to walk and it not being a battle everyday was a huge plus! If you need wraparound or think you might in the future I'd also check the provision, our second choice had a 3 year waiting list and hardly any childminders did pick ups from there.

Other than that its so individual really, I wouldn't assume that bigger schools have better SEN provision. They usually do open evenings and tours, I'd see what facilities they have, like break out rooms, sensory stuff. DS doesn't have SEN but my close friends child does and we were actually talking about schools quite recently. She said she knew the school was the right one when she mentioned his needs and the school offered a chat with the SENCO (or whatever they're called nowadays!) without having to push for it and when there was a huge variety of work on display rather than just the 'best' writing, drawing and whatever else. Different everywhere of course and there's more to consider than an open day, but he's been very happy and well supported there and its a one form small school.

Had to move ours - the infant school was amazing, 2 form entry, nurturing, amazing Head and staff and superb SEN support. Unfortunately - infants and the juniors turned out to be fucking dire for SEN - to the point that we had a class teacher who simply refused to believe DD2's diagnoses and shouted at her and removed her playtimes constantly for messy handwriting (she has a diagnosis of DCD/dyspraxia) and got her so anxious that she went from writing pages of high-quality content work, to re-writing the date and title umpteen times until the teacher stopped shouting at her and ended up producing no work at all. Head was also a ghastly woman who played favourites among the parents and was vile to the families she didn't like.

So we moved to a tiny primary school (15 entry) and they've done well undoing the damage that fucking teacher and head caused. Was possibly smaller as a school than I would have originally liked - I'd rejected it initially because the composite classes would have meant both my kids were in the same class at times and one has a very dominant personality compared to the other - but it was managed well, and it also supported DD1, who tends to struggle socially, into building up a solid friendship group. Head's the biggest kid going as well so it's a really nice fun, family atmosphere and it's worked well for both of mine.

Wrap around care - don't just go on what's on the website as lots changed what they were offering after the pandemic (lots of the after school clubs around here were no longer viable but are still being plugged on the web).