Opinions sought on an undersubscribed infants school . . .

[treacletart]

Not sure if the advice I'm after here is too specific really but here goes...
DS's application to a popular, lovely in every way, single form entry church school was unsuccessful (disappointing but no great shock). More surprisingly, we've been allocated a place at an infants so far away it wasn't even on my radar I've heard no experiences of it from other parents but guessing it doesn't have a great reputation. We don't run a car and although its 40 mins walk out of town, it is on a direct regular bus route. We're visiting it tomorrow and I think my first impressions of it are fairly good, I have a feeling it may be undersubscribed because of it's location more than anything. DS is bright and confident but not extraordinarily so. His nursery teachers describe him as a good all rounder, he's very sociable and seems to make friends easily - so not knowing any other clasmates at the begining of term doesn't worry me. And I'm guessing that maybe an "improving" school might work better than one with a great reputation resting on its laurels. Also, I'm guessing undersubscribed might mean smaller classes. The infants school has an impressive sounding special autism unit but am I right to be concerned that the junior school has over 33% on the special needs register? I'm not really sure what this means in practice but it sounds disturbingly high when (as I do) you know nothing about it - what do you think? What other questions/concerns do you think we should be asking about tomorrow? I'm feeling particularly clueless and pregnancy headed at the moment - DD is due just a few weeks before DS starts school!

I'll bump this for you!!

Sorry dont know anything about the school but my son goes to an 'undersubscribed' school and tbh there is nothing wrong with it apart from the fact that it is in an 'out of town' location.

You should get a feel for it when you go.

Cheers for these - any more thoughts before we visit this lunchtime?

Is the 33% of SEN in the juniors inclusive of vchildren in the autism unit. I think from your post that the autism unit is infant only - if so I suspect not. It is a high number of SEN - usually it is about 20% national average.

I think you need to ask why there is such a lot fo SEN? Maybe they are just good at identifying them? That would be a good thing...

Visit it and I find you can usually tell if you get a good feeling for it or not. I always like it if the head knows all the children's names...

Not sure Cece, the ofsted is a bit ambiguous as it says taking the ASD unit into account the percentage is 33.7% - but thats on the register which I guess as you say could just mean they're good at spotting where pupils might need a little extra help with reading or whatever..

That will include school action and school action plus and statements then. Still the national average is 20% so I would ask why it is so high. They probably ahve a good reason. Also ask about % of Free school dinners too....

I'm sorry - this may be too late to be of any use: Having had a quick skim at the summary of the OFSTED report I would want to know what has happened in terms of staff turnover in recent years - high turnover can be just bad luck, but sometimes is a sign of a more difficult problem. I would also want to see what the KS1 results were like for the past few year. The OFSTED reports indicate that the teaching is very good but that the results achieved are below average, and I would want to come away understanding why - is it due to issues such as the high SEN and the fact that standards at the start are lower (with 9 children learning English etc). But the OFSTED report is pretty much out of date imo.

On the plus side the facilities look good and the pupil:teacher ratio is very good too. It seems quite similar to the school my goddaughter is going to - her parents turned down a place at a very nice CofE school in order to go to an undersubscribed school and she is thriving - the teacher is very good at ensuring each child is on the most appropriate level of work, and she is doing very well indeed, I would assuem in part due to the teacher:pupil ratio.

Ultimately I find that gut feel and talking to other parents is helpful. You need to consider whether your child will fit in there and be happy - with some children it is easier to guess this than with others. The stats in the OFSTED report (which are admittedly out of date) would indicate that the catchment is more deprived than other similar schools, so I would be cautious if you were driving a 4x4 or something.

Thanks for all your replies. We were shown round this afternoon and do you know, I think it's really very nice. Lots of space, classrooms are big bright and cheerful, children looked happy. There were 3 or 4 computers in each room and they have some lovely outside spaces. Gut feelings were certainly good - Head seemed desperate for a new ofsted report - I asked about the sen ratios and she felt that aside from the special unit they were broadly average with the rest of the lea a lot are on the register because they have english as an additinal language. Staff turnover now averages about 4-5 years. Not that we really have any other options, but I think DS could be very happy there.

Glad to hear that treacletart