Choosing Schools - WWYD?

[LondonSuperTrooper]

Hello all,

I need some help please! I would love some help in reaching my decision in which order to rank my DS choices for reception. I have visited all schools in question; I have looked at OFSTED report and league tables...... And I am no closer in choosing a school for my DS! As a single parent I feel the weight of responsibility of choosing the school and have not got anyone to talk this through with. I have just recently moved into the area and do not know any local mums either

School 1 - outstanding OFSTED but is an infant only school with no junior school attached to it, one class of 30 per year and is located 0.8 miles from my house. It's a fabulous school and I really like it but I am not too happy with the junior school that DS will have to transfer to - currently have 99 kids per year!! Local junior 0.5miles away and is ranked 53 in the league table for the county (out of 198 schools).

School 2 - good OFSTED, 4-11 years old, lovely small school, one class of 30 per year and is located 1.2 miles from my house. It's ranked 120 in the league table for the county. The only negative thing that I have heard about it is that 10% of the kids are from the traveller?s camp across the road (long term settlers).

School 3 - Good OFSTED, ranked 11th in league tables for the county (out of 198), 2 classes of 30 per year and is located 5 miles from my house.

DS is quite shy and takes him a while to settle into his surroundings. I am not sure whether I should choose a school based on what he needs now, which is School 1 or what is best in the long term, which is School 3. I want to choose School 3 as I am happy with DS attending there; he will be settled in there from 4-11 years old and has a fantastic reputation. The only down side for me is that it's 5 miles away. I am planning on picking up DS from school 1-2 days a week and having his friends over etc. I am not put off of the distance or the drive.

I should mention that DS hasn't settled or set root anywhere - IYSWIM. He was taken out of nursery after 7 months due to 2 kids picking on him on daily basis. He is currently attending a pre-school in County A but will have to move to County B due to my recent job change. Hence the reason that I would like him to feel settled.

Which schools would you choose? The scary thing is that I am 95% certain that I will get my first choice - based on the last 4 years of admission figures. Many people at work have made much of friendship forged at 4-7 years old etc and that kids suffer when they move over to a different junior schools without their group of friends etc. Also, some have mentioned that DS will not have any local friends. But our life is so busy trying to cram in horse riding and swimming lessons, spending some time alone together and meeting up with my family that I fail to appreciate the impact of him not having any local friends.

I'm rambling now aren?t I? Can you see why I'm confused?! Essentially I am asking - What would you do?

Many thanks if you have read the post & got this far x

Unless you have a big hang up about getting your child into grammar school and not being certain he won't get in without a lot of help, I think you have to give huge weight at primary level to the child's end attitude to learning when it leaves primary - the desire to learn and the excitement in learning, the willingness to persevere, the confidence and inquisitiveness, resourcefulness, the respect for others who are different from ourselves, etc. Someone came up with a good list on another thread I was on along these lines.

If school 3 genuinely instills all the right values AND gets good academic results, then it is probably worth the effort. But not if it is actually a bit of an exam factory relying on clever children with involved parents and thus unwittingly conning the inspectors and parents concerned into thinking it is good at everything.

I would have said that unless the school is actively bad, a bad bright child will still do well. And you can always get outside tutoring for 11plus if you are going down that route.

I think you're getting blinded by other people's opinions of School 3, which is making it difficult to make a rational decision based on your DS and his needs.

But then I don't really agree with league tables, and am constantly amazed by how far people will drive to get to a school that they percieve to be marginally better than one next door.

In other words, if school 3 is really that great, then it's really that great!

ps I went to a lovely, friendly, not very academic primary and it didn't stop me getting to grammar school without tuition and going on to Oxford, so I guess that colours my world view on the importance of already having been trained to have highly developed technical literacy and maths skills at primary level. It really depends on your child, your hopes for him and how you are most confident you will bring them to fruition. And that's a bit tricky when he's so young and you don't really know whether he will be hugely interested himself in being academic, or ambitious enough to pretend to be in order to get a good job. Depending on the choice of secondary schools, though, I think he could easily catch up with the literacy and maths skills at secondary level if he has developed the right attitude and has the right attention there.

It is not easy, I know - I would love my children to go to university, but only because I would love them to love to go. I wouldn't want them to be miserable there.

It sounds as though the junior school is the only thing putting you off school 1? Bear in mind that a) the school may have changed significantly by the time your DS gets there and b) what we will want at 7 may well be different from what he wants at 4. Bigger junior school means more money for facilities which might be more of a draw when he is older.

I think going to the local school has many hidden benefits. So it would be school 1 for me, keeping half an eye on the junior school.

I think it is very important to have friends locally - it is the good thing about living in our village - lots of others mums who we see often and DS and DD have all of their friends in walking distance.

I went to a school a little way away from where we lived for the first few years and didn't have any friends locally and really missed out on the social side of things.

I have to admit that I am blissfully happy with the fact that my dss live in the community their school is in - can walk round to the neighbours to play with their friends from school, are recognised when we are out and about, smiled at and waved to, and I know the parents of the other children reasonably well, etc. It is great. Also, I can easily go into the school if there are any issues, or invitations for parents to attend meetings where they explain what the school is doing and why and ask for feedback, and volunteer in the school - which all helps you get to know the school better and probably therefore feel more confident with it and want to support it (or not, as the case may be!!!!!). However, if you are busy working full time, for example, then you just aren't going to be able to get involved in that way, anyway, so it won't be such a great loss.

Is it just the size of the junior school attached to school 1 that you don't like? 99 children per year is a lot , but if that's the only downside then it shouldn't put you off school 1. Have you been able to visit the junior school, to see what it's really like? Do all of the children at school 1 go to that junior school?

Do you know where the children at each of the primary schools move on to for senior school? Do the primary schools have a leavers list? Supposing DS gets into your chosen grammar school, is he more likely to have friends from one primary school over another to start there with? Does the location of the schools affect this?

I'm with you on thinking that a good academic grounding is important, if you want a grammar school or independent senior school in the long run. It might not be a popular opinion , but I think you need to pay some attention to league tables (I wish they weren't called that). Not for the school rankings, but to look at the individual school's level 5 scores in KS2 sats.

I'm no closer to making my school choice.

I think neuroticwhome makes some good points. However, does a level 5 in SATs equate to a grammar school place? What is in the entrance exams for grammar schools these days? I didn't think they were focused on testing spelling, grammar and arithmetic???? So, you would still need to look closer at the school's results to decide whether the sorts of things the children achieved well in were the sorts of things that might help them get through the 11 plus - ie break the SATs results down into something more specific if you wanted to be fair on the school and take more than basic SATs results into account.

Also, is it really the school helping the children achieve level 5s, or is it the ability of the children and parental support? How well are they already achieving when they start at the school?

Have you looked at the value added scores of the schools? (ie do children do better than expected when they leave, given their entry point, as expected, or worse?). Presumably all the schools you have looked at at least do as expected, given that they are at least good schools.

I would avoid a a school 5 miles away if there were a local alternative tbh.

In fact I wouldn't (didn't) even consider it.

I very much value walking to school, local pals, neighbours to help with emergency school run, have mates over at the drop of a hat etc etc (see posts passim on this subject).

We live a lot less than 5 miles from the next village with a very well-regarded school (two actually) and I don't know anybody from our suburb who goes there (that doesn't mean they don't but in any case if I don't know them that proves my point rather wrt community etc).

My DC's go to inf and junior BUT all the kids go from one to the other (close links/same name etc) so it's a bit different from yr situation.

Where do the kids in yr street go? That's a real point imo, even if he is not pals with them now.

Now you know why too much choice is not good for your mental health!!!!!

May I point out that they are all good schools and I seriously doubt any of them will ruin your child's life or chances of getting into university, so you could say it doesn't really matter as much as you think it does. You can't make the "right" decision, because there is no right decision to make, just a simple choice of three good options.

rabbitstew - I don't think a level 5 in English & Maths SATs guarantees an 11+ pass, as they are separate tests, but it cant hurt can it? I agree with you that the value added scores are important. As for breaking down the SATs scores into something more specific, or looking at the sorts of things the children do well in - could you be more specific? Where/how do you access this information? I am not a teacher and my DD is only 3 so I am not claiming to be an expert in interpreting results, and would welcome any pointers .

I would go to school 1.

It is nearby and sounds like you liked it. The transfer to junior shouldn't be too much of a strain IMO. 99 is not that big a year group and the impact of a larger year group will only be problematic if the school is not great at dealing with the influx.

FWIW a nearby infants school has 6 form entry, so 180 pupils per year. Same at the neighbouring junior school. It has excellent ofsted though which made a point of praising the way the school ensures that the setting is not overwhelming or unfriendly to the children.

Mine attend a primary with 2 forms, so 60 per year. Mostly taught in groups of 15 though.

I hadn't realised that so many primary schools have such a large pupil intake. cat64 - interesting to read your experience of the positive effect a larger school can have on social confidence/capability. I hadn't thought of this and I'd love to get more details.

Hi, neuroticwhome,

How to break down the SATs? I have no idea if you can! I just make the point that the SATs results aren't really fair, because to get a fair view, you would have to break them down into something more specific! In other words, so long as SATs results are OK and some children obtain level 5s, or whatever it is you are hoping for, I really don't care how many children do. Particularly since this proportion will be hugely affected by silly things, like the size of the school - one child out of 30 is a bigger percentage than one out of 99, but it's still just one child. Next year, it might be 2, because that year has one more clever child in it than the year before, but the smaller school has not in reality improved dramatically compared to the bigger one. And 30 out of 60 in a very middle class school is not necessarily better than 4 out of 60 in a school in a very poor demographic area. I just think the statistics are unhelpful, because it is too easy to think you are finding proof for your assumptions when you look at them, when in fact you are simply getting rather tenuous indicators of the quality of teaching and unhelpful summaries of general standards.

May I make one more flagrant attempt to turn this away from statistics and figures and into general philosophy? Do you believe that a sense of community is very important in someone's life and that this country is currently a little bit lacking in a sense of community? If you do, then do you believe that it is easier to develop a confident and meaningful sense of community if you live and work in your local community? And if you grow up with a good sense of community, do you believe that you might be a better and nicer person, more capable of contributing something useful? Or do you think that's a load of irrelevant old bunkum? If you at least partially agree with that and your local school is a good school in a community you quite like and in which you think your child would be happy...

I'm quite into personal philosophy at the moment - I think it's a good way of helping find answers when the numbers are getting confusing! Construct your own philosophy and stick by it, I say. Don't borrow other peoples'.

Or do I mean, construct your own philosophy by asking yourself a bunch of annoying rhetorical questions? Or access your real feelings in a philosophical way? Or go to bed and sleep on it? How about tossing a coin if you really can't decide?

Whatever you do, don't ever blame yourself for making the "wrong" decision if your child is unhappy. You have clearly done your best to find a good school and have very luckily found three good schools. You cannot look into the future to see which one would have been the best, so relax a bit about the final decision and then don't allow yourself to look back.

ps neuroticwhome, even value added scores aren't as helpful as they sound, because you then have to ask which children are actually having the most value added - those with special needs, those in the middle ability ranges, or those who are "gifted and talented"? Which sort of child do you have and therefore how much "value" might be added to him? In which areas is the value being added - reading, writing or maths? What about other values? What about the specifics as per my points about the SATs results? What if your ds is unhappy with the atmosphere at school - will that mean it fails to add value in his particular case? Figures are just general indications which you can use to help reassure yourself you are making the right decision, by interpreting them in a way that suits the conclusion you have probably already made.

My God! I think I've finally got it!!!! To be happy with your choice, you need to find a way to rationalise to yourself why what you feel in your heart is actually the best!!!!! Go with what your heart is telling you - it really isn't that illogical to do so.

My philosophy in a nutshell... (and I didn't even realised myself that that was what it was).

I haven't read the whole thread, but PLEASE do not underestimate the 5 mile drive. Honestly. I live 5 miles from ds's schoOl and it iS A PAIN!!!!

Every thing he does has to be carefully planned. Having a friend over means another 10 mile round trip to take the friend home. No hopping on your bike to go snd see if X wants to come and play - ( this isn't relevant to you now, but it will be when he's 9). No "oh look, X is playing out, can I go too?"

And if he forgets his lunchbox, or his sports kit or his euphonium - it's a 10 mile round trip to collect it. And you might say "well, he'll have to do without" but sometime he won't be able to - if it's a match, or a euphonium exam, for example. Or if it's your fault not his it was left behind (it happens!)

And if it snows, your's stuffed. If your car breaks down you're stuffed. If you're ill, you're stuffed.

When he's 10 he'll want to walk to school on his own - and he will be right to want to, it's good preparation for the independence he'll need at Secondary school. And he won't be able to.

It might look like no problem when he's 4 - it will becoame a problem as he gets older. Honsetly.
Rant over!