Is there a downside to sending a child to a brand new school?

[TheCunnyFunt]

DD is due to start primary school September 2015, and they are building a new primary school in our town to be ready for September. For the first year there will only be Reception there, the second year will be Reception and YR1, the third year will be R, YR1 and YR2 and so on until the school is eventually full. The school will be an Academy and will be built on the site where my (my brothers and my parents) secondary school was, it was demolished a couple of years ago. It's a lovely site with an on-site miniature woods and loads of open spaces and grass. Grassy fields are seriously lacking in all of our towns primary schools.

The only downside I can think of is that it's not a 'tried and tested' school.

Opinions, please?

Not having any older children to look up to or mix with.
Not having enough children for after school clubs.
Constantly changing dynamic as school grows.
Not enough resources for first few years as no economies of scale.
Your child will always be the oldest and top dog, which might make secondary transition challenging.

As its an Academy you need to know more about who is running it; your local authority should know who this is and give you a contact point. Because Academies are not under LA supervision, the track record of the people running it is an important indicator. if they have a good record then that could get around the "tried and tested" problem, which obviously all new schools share.

The people running it have two other primary schools in our town. One is 'good' and the other is 'outstanding'. They have a website.

I don't like the idea of such a small number of children in a school in just one age range. It seems odd that the school is not taking any older children. Where are they going? Is there no surplus of Year 1/2 children? Or is the new school taking Reception children that could have gone to the other local schools thereby giving them financial problems? My children always looked up to the older chidren in school and they inspired them to want to be the same. For example, being in the recorder orchestra, having a major part in the Christmas play, seeing what could be achieved at sports day. Will they continue building all the time as the school grows? Also, Reception is the second year of the Early Years curriculum. It means that these teachers will have no other staff to plan with and this could feel very isolated. However, schools tend to be judged by the quality of teaching and learning, so they may get a good teacher/teachers in but will you have a Head on site or will it be one from another school taking up an Executive role at one or more schools?

This is the website of the schools.

DS is at a new school, currently in Year 1 which is similarly going to be the oldest year all the way. We've seen advantages and disadvantages so far.
How many form entry will the school be? With 3 form entry DS school already has nearly as many pupils as a one form entry through primary.

Advantages:
All teachers newly recruited and keen.
Parents have really got on board, enthusiastic PTA doing lots of stuff.
Lots of after school clubs accessible from Reception - compared to friends' schools where many of them start from Year 1 or Year 2 or Year 4.

Was lovely for settling into reception - no scary big children.
I think they retain a bit of innocence through not having big children or in most cases older siblings.

Like your school, ours is affiliated with some others, and they have sent Y6s over to help with things like open days and sports days.
Relatively admin- and management-heavy - the head knows all the pupils personally. The secretary has time to do things.

Disadvantages:
All teachers are new and settling in to the school at the beginning of each year. The children don't know the teachers in advance the way they often do at other schools.
All organisation is new and not bedded in. Some things have plain not worked and I would expect will be adjusted in subsequent years.
Not having bigger children to look up to and copy.
Not having things like choirs and drama productions that older children do most of and younger children might have walk on parts or be in the chorus.
I think not having resources in place through older years to be able to so easily stretch the most able pupils. For example I suspect they didn't buy the reading scheme sufficiently ahead so even very able readers started from the beginning. Though suppose that could just be a strange policy. For example DN is a talented mathematician and was able to use his school's subscription to a maths website at a higher level, our school doesn't have anything like that yet.

I don't think I could get past the "not tried and tested" bit - which I know is ridiculous, because someone somewhere has to take that leap of faith and even if it were a well-established school, they can change so quickly that their achievement 3 years ago or whatever is meaningless today.

I like catkind's lists - those are really useful.

My only downside would be the lack of older kids. But that is it. The school and teachers will be desperate to do well. Most DC only play with their year group most of the time anyway.

How close are the other two primaries, and will they share a Head? Our school was extended 2 years ago onto a new (ex-High School) site, that one currently has Reception and y1. The Headteacher is the same at both sites, but there is an enhanced Deputy, called "Head of School" who deals with day to day stuff.

Because the sites are fairly near, top years from the existing site sometimes go over to the new site to help with things (eg they help run sports day by keeping score/time etc) so there is a little interaction with older children - I'd be asking whether there's anything like that going to be available otherwise I agree that the secondary transition would be very hard for children who have only ever been top dog.

Well from what I gather, there is a 'head' type person at each school and then an executive principle, I assume the EP is the highest up person in charge of all the schools.

*principal

I have just realised that this will be a single form entry. For me that's very small as DC will have only a small pool of children to mix with / find friends. Some people love small schools however. I also rely on school wrap round - will that be available? All the extra stuff like hobbies, sports, swimming, beavers etc can be done after school, but it depends if you work FT etc and can take DC. If it's just the academic side to think about then less of an issue.