Yes, go and look round. Ring the schools you are considering and see when they will show you round - most offer guided tours which will usually be conducted by year 6 children IME. Gives you a very good idea of morale and what kind of kids go there.
We applied to three - the nearest and biggest, which I hate actually but people kept telling me how fabulous the new infants head is and what improvements have been made since its last (disastrous) offsted.
People with kids in the juniors told me it was 'grim'.
Also applied to the cliquey one in town, a bit further away with one class intake and 16 sibling places taken. Needless to say it was a no hoper.
Third we put the good-reputation one which is up a steep hill and has two classes per year.
We got a place at the big, local, horrible one and immediately regretted not putting the inaccessible one as first choice. So we rang them and were put on the waiting list and told we had no chance as there were 5 kids ahead of us.
In July they rang and said a place was available. We bought a car
Having since been around the local one and seen the mums and kids I know I was right to go for the other one. I might sound like a snob but I went and stood in the playground there at the end of last term, and most of the people there looked so unhappy...many were smoking, swearing at their kids etc.
Where we are now (up the hill) has high morale and the children are kind to Ds rather than teasing him as they did anywhere near the local school (swings etc.) There is a large proportion of university families so the parents are generally more educated and the kids seem happier.
I would advise you to go with your gut feeling as it is your child, and you know what they need. If we had a perfect family at home I wouldn't have minded so much him going to a lower standard school with a lot of SEN kids, but fact is we're a single parent family and he has enough to contend with already. I don't think he could have survived it judging by the kids we used to meet at the swings next to it.