How did you choose your primary school? SATS?

[Humpdayruminations]

We need to pick a primary school for DD next year and are starting to view a few. We live rurally and realistically will have a choice of 3 or 4. 1 of the 3 is usually oversubscribed and has really good KS2 Stats. It would seem the SATS results along with an ofsted outstanding are driving parents to it. Is it simply a given that we should go for this one?

Negatives of small schools

• fewer choice of friends
• quite possibly fewer extra curricular activities & sports teams

(remember that split over 2 year groups means half the class is different each year)

re SATs.
Some schools get good SATs results via solid consistent teaching from yR-y6.
Other schools get good SATs results via average teaching yR-y5 and then throwing everything bar the kitchen sink at y6, including throwing out the rest of the curriculum, booster classes after school, endless test practice and loads of booklets to work through as homework.
You need to find out (by chatting to parents at picking up time, or some other method) which type of school it is.

personally I'd choose a primary based on

• location
• feel/vibe
• how well they teach phonics (ask about their y1 phonics screening results, expect almost all to pass) (also don't expect to hear they use pictures as clues)
• after school club if needed
• ofsted / results

It looks like a lovely school to me. If you don't work full time you can ferry your children to extra curricular activities. A lot of doing well at school is natural ability and the effort the parents put in.

I heard what the local schools were like through chatting to parents at local playgroups (who had older school age children).

Good luck.

Personally, I'd say it's too small a school. 15 per year - because your year group are the only ones who will be static in your classroom, half rejected as friends as they are boys (my son chose a girl to take to early lunch when he won that as a prize - it's not a given girls will be her only friends, but it is quite likely the class will divide into 2), and you are down to 7 possible friends. Too restrictive come the older years.

We were in a massive school abroad (2500 kids, 3-18), and have just looked at secondaries. Kids from the local 90 place school were overwhelmed by the size (mine werent). I would imagine coming from a school of 90 secondary would be a massive jump.

Bigger schools tend to have better facilities.

Go look, go see, then base it on gut feel if you cant decide!

Personally, we took places at the catchment school for reception, then the only school who had vacancies when we moved for YR/Y2 (and moved them a month later when places appeared elsewhere- the school was awful - no space, no discipline), and again Y4/Y6. I'm possibly not the best to advise..... my oldest has been to 4 primaries, and only one shift was actively our choice..... I'd say look for a school where the head is involved (not shut away in an office), that offers as wide a curriculum as possible - sport, music, languages, arts, science so the kids get to experience it all. Look for kids who are happy and involved in the lessons, look for teachers who are approachable, but in control. Outside space!!!!! It doesn't need to be fabulous, but space to run, kick a football, do a cartwheel.

I picked performance and Sats results as my filter.

At the end of the day they are there to learn and I want dd to go to a school where the children are meeting their targets and doing well.

This school is clearly very good. I can see why it is outstanding and, assuming the leadership there continues, I cannot see why it would not be suitable having looked at the web site. I doubt very much, in a school like this, that DC are just pushed in Y6. These DC have not had average teaching throughout the school. They have almost certainly had excellent teaching. I also know that well run, successful, schools attract the best teachers and retain them (other than for promotions and leaving because of DH's job). Staff like working in a very good school with excellent leadership knowing they are doing their best for the children. It is what we all want from our workplace, don't we? Teachers are no different. You can see the enthusiasm from the clubs and activities.

You have to bear in mind that it is a high achieving school. I do not think SEN matters to the majority of parents because the majorty of DC do not have SEN. That is a bit "what if" and may never apply. However, I have seen academically OK DC think they are poor because so many others are very bright in schools occasionally. Some DC will need to be robust and secure in their own learning but at least there is no grammar school selection here that I know of.

The Inspection says 107 on roll. So it is around 15 per year. That is small and that will be "the" trade off. You could not expect particularly good sports teams. I would think music might be oK but I would want to check that out in terms of instrument teaching. 15 definitely could be an issue for friendships. 15 might be 13 boys and 2 girls It could be 10 girls and 5 boys. You can see what the problems might be and friendships can be problematic with small numbers later in primary school.

It is also a C of E school so you need to be prepared for what that entails. C of E religion will be more obvious in the ethos of the school. The school state they are nurturing and I would be inclined to believe them. Your best bet is to look but I am not sure I would turn this down if it was my catchment school. I think you could supplement sports by joining local clubs if need be.

I went for the one furthest away (1 mile walk) we walk past another school to get there. But its on a slightly nicer estate. Outstanding behaviour and a good Ofsted. The one nearest to me is nice enough but my daughter's shy and I wanted her to go somewhere that seemed to have good behaviour. Some schools seem full of of bullying near me and don't score high in many areas.

Also when we looked around the kids were all working hard and looked haooy. I liked the reception outdoor area. I liked the uniform. The kids were polite and helpful. The teachers were friendly. The corridors were also bright and colourful. They provide after school clubs too. I won't need them at the moment but it's good to know it's an option.

Others have already said what I would have said about small schools!
Socially wise they can be isolating - you have much less chance of finding "someone like you" and if you fall out with your group of friends (as tends to happen frequently when they get to junior level) you have nowhere else to go.

School funding is per pupil so they won't have so much to pay for necessary resources (I suspect that parents will end up paying for things indirectly via PTA events or "voluntary" donations as this looks like an affluent area). Sports teams will be problematic (not enough children for a team). If you are educationally an outlier (in any direction), do the school have the resources to deal with you? I suspect this school is great if you are a hardworking bright child. I'd like to know what it does with the ones that aren't. At your child's young age, you don't know yet.

I wonder if the composite classes would help with some of the social issues? There are still in a class just spread across two years. Essentially they will mix in with the class above and below in alternating years.

It's normal for a state school this size to have composite classes. It still means there are very few children in the school for your child to gel with.

Have a look at these threads for more inputs re small schools:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/3700991-Very-small-village-primary-help
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/3478568-One-class-vs-Two-classes-per-year-group

My DC went to a 4 form entry junior school. There was a steady stream of incomers from the nearby school with an intake of 15 in a year - all the parents cited the school becoming too claustrophobic and not providing enough opportunities as their children got older.

(though of course you could aim for a strategy of putting her in a smaller school early on, where you get more of the nurturing benefits that a small school brings, with the idea of moving her later- maybe Year 3)

DC1 is only just in reception, but some of the differences I've noticed between our and friends' schools are:

• How quickly they progress with phonics, do you want them to have a gentler or a more formal start?

-How much homework they do at different stages of school?

• How they communicate with parents about what children are learning, e.g. how much do you find out about how they are teaching them to read / what they are doing each day?

My DC is at a village school slightly bigger than the one you are looking at, and there is a constant trickle of entrants from the big town schools so here it's not a one way stream as @RedskyToNight suggests. From what parents have mentioned, it's often bullying issues that are the problem at the bigger schools.

I really don’t think parents should be asking for all these details about day to day activities. Honestly - the poor teachers.

Yes, a child in a class of 30 will make friends but when in y5, the year 6s will leave. They could be your friends. So y6 might require new friends to be made. It is not certain that anything will go wrong at all of course. You could be delighted from yr to y6. It’s just possible friendships will be limited. External clubs such as scouts and sports clubs can help with this though.

Village schools around me tend to attract the disaffected from the bigger schools. I wouldn’t start at a yr-y6 school expecting to leave and unsettle DC as a Plan. If you need to move, so be it. But don’t Plan upheaval.

Honestly? It was local. All the local schools were distinctly average but I wanted to walk them to school and for them to have friends already. By the time they left it was OFSTED outstanding.

Turned out to be the right decision, the school was fabulous for my dses, they were nurtured and stretched and DS1 has just done his GCSE's getting an 8 and 9 x 9's.

As a teacher, I would never base a school on SATs results. So much changes in a school from when your child starts in Reception to when they take their SATs in year 6. Some results are good because schools teach the bare minimum of history, computing art ect and only focus on English and Maths. Some results are good because the school teaches them how to answer questions in a test rather than teaching children to really understand mathematical concepts. Some results a good because the teachers are amazing but staffing is always subject to change. And many results are great because schools cheat when no external exam invigilators are around (this happens more than you would think.) I would want to know that my child is getting a well rounded education in various subjects, being taught resilience and has a good ethos. SATs results won't show that. Visiting a school and seeing how the teachers and students are will give you a better insight.

When looking at schools, I use this website a lot:
www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/140278/buckland-church-of-england-primary-school/absence-and-pupil-population

I pay particular attention (may get flamed for this) to free school meals eligibility and English as a second language, coupled with Ofsted report as a first pass.

Upon visiting the school I’d want to know about their behaviour, safeguarding and bullying policies, extra curricular activities (whether music is offered for example) specialist teaching etc. Whether the school is bright and welcoming rather than grubby. Size of playground/playground. If the children seem happy, confident and well mannered.

This school at first glance on the above link looks fantastic but I’d have to meet with the leadership team and reception teachers before making a decision. Ultimately you get a gut feeling about a place by visiting it that no reports or websites can give.

Results
Ofsted - the report tells you a lot of information regarding the school plus stuff like aspirations of the school and the children etc
Curriculum
Teaching staff
Children
Feel of the school
Extra curricular clubs
Feeder high school

I’m not a fan of mixed year classes, because it’s difficult to really match the curriculum to the year group. You could say that the younger group will benefit from the higher year curriculum if they are bright, but what happens when they’re the older ones. I really think it’s more difficult to personalise.

The only way, in my opinion, is to visit the schools and decide which one most fits your ethos and expectations. I’d also look at it holistically and see what their pastoral support is like, extra curricular activities.

Personally, I would really consider carefully whether an emphasis on university education is appropriate for a young child. Even though it’s an expectation in your family, it doesn’t mean that your child will be best suited to it.