How important is one's choice of primary school?

[SpawnChorus]

Following on from the long-drive-to-school thread, and La Cod's comments, I'm now curious as to how important it is to choose a good primary school.

The schools round here (primary and secondary) are crap, and we've been agonising over where to move to when DD gets to school age. Are we agonising unneccessarily? Would DD be just as well off at the shitey primary school round the corner (t'would be good news if that was the case).

Whaddya think?

For me personally, I think primary education is just as important as secondary. The basic skills, the essential skills, the basis of all learning, happens in primary school. So to me it is important to get those right.

I don't think primary education is as important academically as secondary but it is important that it's a school where your child is happy and can learn social development. Of course the building blocks of academic success start with primary education but at this age parents still have a huge part to play. When you say they are crap - do you mean academically or that they're not particularly nice environment?

We lived in North London and if we had stayed DD would have gone to school which had many children whose first language was not english. I was friends with a lovely Turkish lady who spoke perfect english thiugh never to her daughter as she siad she would learn it at school. The results at the local schools were really poor

Encouraging your child to learn at home can make a big difference to how ell they acheive. DD's school has good results because the parents want them too.

Academically poor. Bad SATS results etc (although I'm not at all clued up about this sort of thing).

I personally think you can teach the basics at home at primary stage - in fact I totally agree with what katierocket said...

I agree with Katie too

I think it also depends on the child and what would best suit his or her personality and ability

I think it is very important to choose a good primary. My take on education is that you only get one shot at it really. If you child has a bad primary education then they will be catching up at secondary. I agree having friends is important however I would be prepared to work at existing friendships even if my DD doesn't go to the local school.

I think its easy to say that you can teach the basics at home but that is not what we should have to do. We are not qualified teachers. Take phonics sounds - how many parents know how to pronounce the sounds correclty. OK you can buy a CD but it does not make up for children being taught properly. I am resigned however to having to teach DD at home on top of school.

i think primary education ios crucial to teach children the joyof learning adn that they can do it - a bad primary school will fail a child for life - with the building blocks of a love of edcuation a child will survive in a crap secondary with home surprot - but if they learn to hate school from the outset then they have no chancve even if sent to the best secondary in the wrold

I did think that 'the best" possible academic education was all that mattered before I had children. I went to a great independent scchool which excelled in every area - academic/sport/music/art - the works.

But now I have ds, I realise he has his own unique set of needs.

We have a choice of 2 primaries near us. One has 90 pupils, one has 27. We're sending ds to the one with 27 because a) the 1:1 care he'll get is not to be found anywhere else b) the social aspect of growing up in a community. He may well go elsewhere for secondary - even now we're wondering about his musical ability.

But right now, ds needs a small school with a good head teacher who I respect and great parental and community involvement.

A friend of mine has sent both her dcs to private school at primary level and then to state secondary - becuase she believes that primary is more important ! She says that they have both learned how to learn and goit alll the building blosks in place from the private prmary - so they can cope beter with secondary. The eldest is doing very well - the youngest just finishing first year at secondary - looking good so far !

Sorry that's a bit garbled. I just mean, he may go elsewhere for secondary - that's years off yet - but right now I want him to feel part of his community and make local friends who he can grow up with.

bobsmum I think you are very lucky in that you have a choice of 2 different schools. We have the 'choice' of one local school (the other local excellent school is oversubscribed). I am finding it difficult to be positive about the school and feel I am already failing my children.

I think a school is 'good enough' if it has a head with vision and the ability to carry his/her staff along with that vision; a sufficient number of good teachers to ensure that a child's daily experience in the classroom will be coherent and productive; and a sufficient mix of children to ensure that your child has at least a few children with whom he has enough in common to make friends.

The real no-nos are: a useless head; real difficulty recruiting and retaining staff; and a school population that doesn't have a critical mass of children from sufficiently stable and supportive homes to create a sensible learning atmosphere.

The odd poor teacher is manageable, as is a moderate number of disruptive children, or children from backgrounds other than your own. The SATS results mainly tell you about the background of the children and/or the extent to which the schools teach to the tests. You have to go and feel the vibe before you can make anything like a sensible decision. And go and look at lots of schools, even if you're out of catchment, as it's the differences between them that are revealing.

Just to point out though, a bad (in OFSTED terms) may not necessarily be bad for individual children. Think you have to go and visit thema nd see which suits yours and your child's needs best.

frogs I agree about the head. However our local school has a new head and basically if she fails then it is too late for my DD as she has already been through the school!
My first impression of the head wasn't good neither was my second, although of course I have nothing to base this on other than gut feel.

Ain't no, just worth pointing out that lots of schools have an intake at 7, so if you try it and find you can't live with the head, it really isn't the end of the world. Even here in London where prep schools make you register your child at birth or before, all the schools will take children in at Y3 or Y4. And the academic content they learn in the early years you can teach your child at home in 20 mins a day.

I think Junior level (7+) is a bit more critical, but if the child is happy then topping up the academic content yourself or with a tutor is not a major deal. Senior level is more tricky, but by then the child has to do the journey him/herself and will have his own opinions on where to go!

Dp and I are having similar discussions here as our village primary is very small. There are only 2 classes and at the moment there will only be 2 pupils in DS's year. I'm not sure that it will be good for DS who is young for his year to have no other boy in his year group and to have to look for much older boys to develop friendships with. We have 2 alternatives - both involving a drive, but both will have 7-9 pupils in that year group. At the moment our thinking is to put thse 2 as our preferred schools.

So how do you determine whether or not a Head is good or not? Is it usual to have meetings with Head Teachers at each school before choosing?

I am not sure if it is normal to have a meeting with the head beforehand or not. However we looked at 2 local schools and 3 private and we met the head at all of them. Unforunately the least impressive was our local school. Friends of ours are just sending their child to the local school, I don't even think they've been on a tour let alone met the head.

I'm going through the process at the moment and have rang up local schools to arrange a tour. It's pretty standard to be shown round by the head and a couple of them have had certain times for 'show rounds' where there have been a few sets of parents.

the thing is though, that even "crappy" primary schools in the UK are generally good. They nurture the children, the teachers are trained to tailor the lessons to the childrens' ability and the resources and staff are very very good in most schools (secondaries are more patchy but that's another thing).

try living abroad for a few years. you'll learn to appreciate UK schools. round here, it seems that the "best" school is the one that gives the most pages of homework.

or failing that, why not look go and see that "shitey" school. you might be surprised.

The local primary to me has a very bad reputation locally - 'bottom of the pile' I was told.

I met the Head (who has now been off sick for three years with no cover) and she said they do not feel that science is important .

One of my dd's friends goes there and his mother says she has given up on him learning anything there - the teacher frequently does not understand some of the complex words he uses (learnt from his dad) and does not meet his educational needs in any way.

Notwithstanding that it is usually oversubscribed each year from people who live near even worse schols and hope they may have achance to get into this one.

So bad schools can be very bad ...

We met the HT at the schools we looked round, state and independent.

Last year we went to the school open day and also several school fayres (summer, Xmas) etc to have a good nose at all the work on the walls, the classroom layout, behaviour of the children ( I like door holding ) and I spoke to parents with children at both schools available to us.

I'd spoken to the head teacher at least 3/4 times by the time I enrolled ds.

I believe Primary is important and moved to smaller house to get my son into one of the top 10% schools.

My friends are teachers and you can be the best teacher in the world but it also depends on the pupils and the parents commitment to schooling.

I was previously under the catchment area of quite a poor primary school whose teachers were great but the parents regularly kept their children off school for trivial matters, a day here and there. It meant they fell behind, lost friendships and became disruptive in class and reluctant to attend.

We moved and have not regretted the decision, the school is year on year oversubscribed despite having 3 reception classes of 30 pupils each. The PTFA raises huge amounts of money which has paid for extending the school, whiteboards in every class, special needs teachers including ones who specialise in language and learning and one who deals with children who have "barriers" to learning- so social issues. We have a session once a week which helps parents understand how things are taught in reception and Yr1 to enable continuity at home.

It was a small sacrafice to make and now it means I can move to a bigger house still very close to the school but without the worry of my son not getting in.