When do you start looking at schools?

[countingdown2gin]

After some advice please. DS turns 4 in December and will start school September 2018.

I'm expecting number 2 at the end of June and I'm trying to get my head in the game with school applications. When would you make contact with the schools (there are a few in our village and nearby villages) about arranging to look around them?

I don't want to be a pain by making contact to early but also don't want to miss the boat!

Normally most school have open days/evenings in Sept/Oct and these are often advertised on council websites.

What trb said.

They either have open days September onwards it will give you a tour if you call up and try don't have open day or you can't make/missed it.

DS is starting this September and we had a couple of very informative tours from head teachers.

Don't put too much into Ofsteds either.

Contact the schools to express an interest.
The ones near me took my details so they could post info about open evenings and days. Worth looking round in the day when the children are in school to get a better feel for it.
We did not go for the school with the best ofsted/sats results as liked the feel of one of the others better. In fact the best school on paper went third on our application.

I think most of them schools I looked st had their open days quite late in the year around November time.

Deadline for apps will most likely be january. Decisions in april.
Schools will be totally geared up to reception 2018 enquiries from this september

Worth looking at applications info for this year to find out where your DC is actually likely to be offered a place (of course this can vary year on year, but more likely it will narrow down your choice before youstart).

Thank you everyone,

I have had a bit of a look and the one nearest us (2 mins walk from our house) was undersubscribed last year so will see what it says for September this year starters.

It's a good school rather than outstanding but is very small. I'm thinking I want to look at a couple of bigger ones as well to see how I feel about them.

Try to go to school fairs of contenders next term - it'll be fun and you can get a bit of an idea of the school layout and talk to people. Open days may be in Sept/Oct.
Make sure you have a copy of your child's NHS card or other letter from GP, birth certiifcate and that you have your council tax bill available - your borough may require other ID or allow alternatives. And some schools may require supplementary forms with info (not just church schools) which you may need to get from the school and return before the deadline for applications through the borough.

What they all said.

A quick/easy way to check what schools you'd have got into this year (though bearing in mind that isn't necessarily a good predictor for future years) is if there's a nearby house currently for sale or rent so it's on Rightmove. Their School Checker is very intuitive.