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?

Not composite classes. 1 form entry is ok. 3 form is way too big, 2form feels v big but does have advantages to mixing up the classes. Tbh by yr6 1 form is small but they know each other well and there is movement still. C of E for commitment and values plus knowing the cultural history of our country although we are not religious. Not Catholic.
Wrap around provision that is guaranteed if you work specific days. The school i choose gives working parents spaces as priority but is also v flexible.
Feel, but this helps if you know what you are looking at. Eg as a teacher I vetoed the local comp for my yr7 but 23? Of 30 are going there. They think it's fine. Well it looks quite nice but to me I saw no learning on open day so it's a no. So a balance of happy but also productive in the later years.

And attainment data from compareschools.gov

Check the requirements for entry for High School. Our local high school is in a situation where they take kids from the local feeder primaries BEFORE distance. It means if you aren't in the right primary, you don't get in the High School at present (this may change with birthrate).

So entry into primary wasn't just about primary it was also about options for High School.

We went to the open days with our dd and she’s was really happy with one of the school so much so we had to drag her out at the end so that became our first choice, it’s maybe not the most brilliant school but it’s good and it has a community feel to it.

While this is true, I wouldn’t base your decision on the current state/reputation of the high school(s). In the last five years or so one local high school had a terrible ofsted, then was taken over by an academy and is now rapidly improving
and oversubscribed

meanwhile staff are leaving another previously high achieving school in droves apparently because of Poor leadership

We wanted a catholic education so had the choice of two schools. One our catchment which we could have had a bus from or one 7 miles away. We went for the one 7 miles away as it had better before and after school provision which we needed. It did mean travelling that distance for 12 years as ds2 also attended. But it was worth it. It was fantastic school and provided dc with a good education.

Hello, primary school teacher here. This may sound horrid, but if your child is not SEN don't send them to a school that has a reputation for being good with SEN as there will end up a much higher proportion of SEN kids at the school. The reality is that there kids require more teacher focus on lessons and also often have behavioural issues so the other kids in the class can be left with less input from the teacher and the classroom environment can be disruptive. My best advice would be go to the schools and see how the children behave in the classrooms, is it calm? Are they all listening? And do you get a nice welcoming vibe from the school? I wouldn't read too much into league tables, often schools with the highest ratings are just ofsted factories, experts at generating useless data and ticking boxes.

My child’s school has a sen class- one of the disruptive children in her class was removed and put in that class- better for all

The closest, as I believe it should be.

My daughter went to 2 primary schools. First one a small school with max 17 in a year, the second bigger with max 60. Both had similar class sizes but first school mixed a wider age range in each class. Second school had separate infant and juniors and we kept her going to her old school for a term after we moved so she wouldn't have to start at the infants for a term then move. I would say absolutely choose a school your can walk to as it's massively less stressful and despite the journey time being similar between walking from our old house and driving from our new house it actually took much longer to drive as you need to leave earlier to get a parking space and then it takes time getting kids in and out of cars and parking isn't always great around schools.
My daughter also got on better having more children in her year group as there was a greater choice for friends and more children like her. At her first school my daughter though she wasn't very clever, especially in reception as there were year 1 children in her class that she negatively compared herself against, then when she was one of the year 1s who stayed in the year one reception class and didn't go into the year 1/2 class until year 2 she thought it was because she was not clever enough but at her second she had a far more accurate idea of how well she was doing

Go for walkable. I could walk to several primaries, but all well over a mile and all along busy roads which wasn’t really practical with buggies, scooters, or in the rain, or when one had a club and the others didn’t etc.

But I went with my gut. I looked at three or four and the ones I put first and second were not ‘the best’ but felt right. Admittedly it’s been an up and down experience but it was 12 years between oldest starting and youngest leaving!

Hi...what does 1/2/3 form entry mean? Is it about mixing ages? I thought class sizes were fairly big already in state schools?

(New to all this!)

1/2/3 form entry means the number of children starting reception fills either 1/2or 3 classes so potentially 30/60/90 pupils per year group

1 form entry means there is one reception class. 2 form entry means two reception classes. However you could still have mixed ages.

The "form entry" is the number of classes per cohort.
1 form is one class of up to 30 pupils.
2 form is two classes of upto 30 pupils each, 60 in total.
Etc.

You can also get things like 1.5 form where they take 45 pupils per cohort or 0.5 form where they take 15. Mixed classes are often used in schools like this.

I went with gut feeling. I was in the middle of three good primaries, think of a triangle and I was right in the middle. We were in a grammar school area, everybody told me go to A it coaches and has the best 11 plus results, B almost as good, C small school and fewer passes. I went with C and my kids got into the grammar and had a fabulous time at a really friendly small school.

Of course it is easy to look back and say I made the right decision, it could have been different but on this occasion my gut feeling didn't let me down. I wish I could say it was always so reliable.

Gut feeling about tonight's lottery?

• I agree around childcare and a selection of after school clubs is a priority.
• Outside space is important.
• Proximity is a huge factor. As are parking options if you intend to drive. You will do it twice a day, 38 weeks a year, for 6/7 years. Don't make it any longer than you need to.
• I would advise looking at the number of teaching staff rather than the number of pupils.

My DCs' school has 60 children per year group, 2 classes of 30. They have less teaching staff than when DC1 started 4 years ago, but they still currently have 1 teacher + 1 TA in each class. Most year groups have an extra part time TA to help the 2 classes, and there are 3 PPA teachers. For perspective, 4 of the 5 other "good" schools in our area are Academies and from Year 1 they have 1 teacher per class. The only TAs are 1-to-1 for additional needs, and PPA is covered by the deputy head. There are many, many ways in which having more teaching staff benefits the children. If can help their wellbeing, their learning and it's better for safeguarding.

Breakfast and after school club were non negotiable.
Head who talked to my child when we looked around the school.
Calm school.
Walkable. But also easy to park if I had to drive.
Playing fields.

Small town and it was a choice of either choose the easy to walk to primary school in town, or select one of the village schools in surrounding villages which require driving to.

I want them to be able to walk to school once old enough, and the village schools wouldn't fit with us for that reason.

Daft question but how do I know if my child is SEN or not? He's nearly 3.5 and we need to pick a school in the next 4 months - would extra needs have shown up by now?

My priorities were:

Walkable distance - no traffic/ parking stress, likely to have friends living locally for play dates etc, child can walk on their own when they are older.

Wraparound care (breakfast/ after school club, childminders who pick up from the school) - Very important as we needed after school care some days. Also, as a previous poster mentioned, wraparound care at the school suggests that you’re not the only family where both parents work ie: your child won’t be the only one in their class not going to the playground after school, teachers don’t expect parents to be attending assemblies every week, etc.

Class size - Felt my DD would be overwhelmed in a large school, but wanted enough children that there were plenty of friendship options. Her school is 1.5 form entry and that works well.

The feel of the school - hard to quantify! Does it have a nice atmosphere, are the teachers friendly, what’s it like at pick-up time?

We had a preference for a catholic education but where we are there are a number of schools (1 catholic) we could have got into so looked at 4 in total. Really liked the welcoming feeling of 2 of them (including the one we chose) & one of the ones I thought I would like I really didn’t (it has also gone down hill massively since then).

for me I would look at a few things:

• how the pupils and teaching staff are on visit days, do the children respond genuinely and happily to the teachers. Year 6 children do the tours and the feedback last year was amazing. Our head has been there 2 years and knows every pupil by name, is at the gate every morning to chat to parents.

• how engaging are they with parents, do they take feedback on board well. Since the change in head, he has regular meetings with parents, an open door policy for comments.

• what is the teacher/TA ratio like, with budget cuts some schools can’t afford to have TA’s in every class.

• if your child is active/sporty what activities do they do. Ours is very active in the local community for sport, take part in borough wide activities & encourage those who are both sport and not to take part. They have numerous after school clubs & every teacher is encouraged to run a club of an interest they have. This is a more recent change and the uptake is amazing.

• how well does the PTA and school collaborate. Ours raises between £20k-£25k each year which goes a long way to providing extras for the school.

• how much outside space do they have and how do they utilise it. If not much is there any community engagement for outdoor space.

• is the school a feeder school for secondary schools. Ours is a feeder for a outstanding boys school and 90% of the boys go there (they do have to meet church attendance requirements too).

• whilst many have said location/walking distance is really important, ours is a 20 min walk or 5 min drive. Parking isn’t an issue for our school at all so don’t always dismiss based on that. My son has just left and got the bus to school for 6 months of year 6 and it made him much more prepared for secondary than many in his year who walk to school.

Many good points made by PPs. However, you also need to be realistic about your chances of getting into the school. Just because it ticks all the right boxes for you doesn't mean that you are going to get in. Check out the admission policies and oversubscription criteria. If you are not in catchment and it is a popular school you may be unlikely to get in. Check how many children were admitted from each category over the past few years. This may give you an idea of your chances this year.

There are 3 options local to us. None is walkable (rural area) but all within a few miles in different villages. All were rated Ofsted Good at the time, all similar sizes and all undersubscribed, so we did have a genuine choice.
In the end it did come down to gut feeling for us. We actually picked the one furthest from home, with the smallest building and the worst outside facilities because it had the most wonderful, warm and welcoming atmosphere. My DS made the choice very easy for us actually as at the others he clung to my legs and wouldn't speak to anyone whereas at the one we chose he took the infant class TA's hand and happily went off with her to join in with whatever Reception were doing at the time and he had never done anything like that before! So we took it as a sign and I think we were right, as it did turn out to be as fabulous a place as it looked. It won't always be that obvious of course but I think it if you do get a strong gut feeling about somewhere, positive or negative, it shouldn't be ignored.