Reception choices - School A or School B

[JC21]

Hi everyone,

We are looking to send our son into reception next year and are stuck between two choices and wanted to get your opinions. I have detailed our journey so far below.

We have two schools in mind. School A is on the same street as us, new opened in 2018, and just got their first sats results after covid. The parents who send their kids there only say good things and kids are happy. For the longest time this was the only school we had in mind for him to go to primary and he already attends preschool there. He loves the preschool.

We recently decided to also look at other schools. School B is a church of england school in s small village 2 mins drive away. Class size is about 30 per year group.

We visited both
Impressions -School A

Everything looks really nice, kids happy and running around but can't see much learning, the kids look abit distracted, maybe because it was end of the year and bit more relaxed.. we visit sometimes to pick our son up from preschool. Teachers faces sometimes seem abit stressed. We find dealing with office staff difficult sometimes our son came with us to the visit he was very happy. Head teacher told us alot about the awards they have got and extra curricular activities on offer. School is part of a trust and leads up to what used to be one of the best public secondary schools in the area, although from what I heard and researched its went downhill a while ago and requires improvement. We know some parents and kids at school A they are positive about it.

School B
We were very Impressed with the relationship between students and teachers. Students are very well behaved, amazing manners and appear to be having alot of fun learning and happy. The staff we very warm to us and can feel their kindness and compassion. They teach at quite a high standard and was surprised level of some things they are teaching. Big field outside for kids to play on. From what I heard as small school lots of interaction between year groups and students help each other out.

As you can see already very different types of school. The students backgrounds are also quite different. We are bordering the edge of town so between a very quite poor area and quite a rich suburban area. School A is more diverse there is no catchment criteria for this school so alot of kids from the poorer area go here, and more kids from varied backgrounds, with English as a 2nd language. White british are a minority, wheras school B is mostly White British, but with a few other mixes as well. School A accommodates to everyone of mixed backgrounds whereas school B probably doesnt need to do this much. The character of both schools is nice, both good on oftsed, and we would be happy at either one. We were in favour of School A however we saw the sats results

Sats results
School A - "well below average" in writing.
Reason may be because what I mentioned above and or relativly new less experienced staff
School B - constantly very good results. High in reading which they seem to put lots of effort in.

This was a big shock to us as we really had school A as our first choice. We thought back about what we saw and experienced and we started to consider school B for our first choice instead.

However school A results may get better. How much should we judge just from Sats?

On the other hand, our son is quite bold not shy, sometimes bossy, but really cares listens and does well in preschool. I start to wonder if school B, small school education might be restricting or there is silent pressure to do well as a whole group or keep people happy. They have class leaders, somethjng about a rainbow flag if you are a good student etc. On the other hand It is easy to see how school A is, bigger, more relaxed inclusive, educationwise dont know what they are doing but still a good school (so people say), but don't know much about what is happening at School B and little info in terms of reviews on the Internet. I talked with 1 lady with 3 kids there and she says it's a brilliant school, but in certain ways feels abit more like a risk than school A. But if School A sats results were better maybe we wouldn't have been shaked or changed our minds.

On top of all this in addition -

I then saw this bad review for school B saying that they are teaching 5/6 year old about same se marriage. I have nothing against that but was thinking it is quite young to teach those topics. I researched the schools se.Ed curriculum and they teach body parts and appropriate names for them in year 1 or 2. And they start learning alot of more detailed things properly from year 4 ( i guess ks2). Which in my experience seems way early but maybe this is how schools are now. I have no idea... but was a recent concerning point. They use somethjng called jigsaw framework? If this is the case I'm starting to feel School B maybe too serious about educating from a young age.

I was wondering what you guys think about this situation. What would you think is the best option? Any thoughts you have no matter big or small would be greatly appreciated. Apologies for such a long post. As you can guess I've had alot on my mind.

What is the secondary like that school B feeds into?

We have a school on our street and chose to send DC elsewhere. DC have benefited in some ways (academically) and lost out in others (socially), so it depends on what your priority is.

Where will your son be happy?

EAL is not a bad thing, children pick up languages they are immersed in very quickly and the children who are not EAL learn odd (usually rude) words from other languages.

By the time your son is in year 6 he can walk to school A on his own, or more likely in a group of friends.

I think I would go for school A.

2 minutes must be a typo, surely no-one drives for 2 minutes.

The learning proper names for body parts early on is standard and necessary for safeguarding purposes

It’s probably too late now but what are the school fetes / Christmas fayres like? I think you can tell a lot about a community that way. We have a similar decision to make for 2025 entry. We’re rural so all schools are an 8 minute drive. I think you need to choose based on your child’s needs. Our two top are a town school with 300+ students and a CofE that has about 90 pupils. But our son is a big personality and I think the larger pond will be better for him. Even though I am a communicant member of the CofE and want him to attend a church school. Smaller schools have fewer resources but there’s a belief that will get more 1:1 time; because of this my friend, who is a teacher in a small rural school, has 12 SEN students in her class of 29 and no full time TA.

Why is 5/6 too young to learn about same-sex marriage?! I've been talking about that with my daughter since she could speak. She was curious about why some children have two mums etc.

I would choose school A as it's walkable and diversity is good. I didn't speak English when I started school and I don't think it negatively affected my peers :-)

Would you meet the admission criteria for school B?

I moved my dc from a school (very similar sounding to school A) to school B, and it was the best move for our dc.
The classes are smaller, and it has a more caring and nurturing environment to school A. Smaller classes which suit my ds well as he has asd, and he gets a lot of support and time from staff due to small class sizes.
I also love the values in a Church of England school, but that’s just me. I honestly can’t fault my school B, and my ds is thriving, which he wasn’t in school A… but again the small school is what he needs.
It does depend on your dc personality and where you think they will be happiest, but don’t think about test results and Sats just yet.
I think as long as they are happy with good caring staff then you can’t go far wrong.

I agree with a PP that primary school is a crucial foundation for learning, and can set the pattern for good habits and behaviours going into secondary school. We deliberately went for a more high aspiration, high expectation school (C of E) further away over the more middle of the road one we could walk to, and I'm really glad we did. DD has continued to a high aspiration and expectation secondary (again, C of E) and is equipped for it, unlike others in her year. I would go school B from what you've said.

I'd say B, it sounds like a better school. Don't let the fact your DC already goes to the school A preschool sway you! Lots and lots of children go to different nurseries to their school - private nurseries/ childminders etc, that is totally normal.

You can pay for a month subscription for this website, it has lots of good info of schools going back 5 years, so you can compare results, leavers destinations, catchments etc.

https://www.locrating.com/

Unless there is a compelling reason, go for the walking distance school.

I think that as you're undecided, there is no compelling reason. Stick with school A

Agree with PP - always the closer school unless very compelling reason not to. there are so many compelling reasons to go to a school that is part of the local community. When your child is old enough to walk to school and play out, they will be able to - they won't be reliant on lifts all the time (guessing 2 minutes drives must be a typo as no one would drive for 2 minutes rather than walking).

I suspect the results are inline with the intake. You don't mention admission criteria or whether you would actually get into school B - but it's likely that they have a faith criteria, which will tend to mean that they select a more able intake.

Even if they don't go to the super local school it doesn't stop them making friends / playing out with local children. The people I used to hang out with didn't go to the same school as me (which happened to be just over the road).

Depends on the child. My DC also played out with local children, some of whom they didn't go to school with, however there were some children in the road who refused to play with anyone they didn't already know.
OP has no way of forseeing at this point, what type of child hers is likely to be.

And even if OP's DC is happy to play out with random local children, they are likely to want to see their school friends as well - which is made much simpler if they can get themselves to the friends' houses under their own steam once they are old enough.

I dont know.
Our school use jigsaw - i agree it really is too young for all the names etc. Luckily dc1 missed a lot due to covid.
Sats- schools manipulate the data. So exclude the kids who cant read and below ks2 from the data. Writing probably does mostly reflect the school teaching whereas maths and reading can be due to a lot of support at home. When dc1 started school x and y had really good sats results. Our school z nowhere near as good. In the 7 years our school started online maths app and sats prep books so improved. And got very good results. But of the 1/3 of the year with high ks1 sats only 1 kid got exceeding on reading at ks2.
Likewise 7 years ago dc1 had 2% non white or eu kids. By now ended with 3%.
but dc2 class from reception has been more like 14%.

I agree with pp state school standards are low (but with tough curriculum). Mainly in terms of supervision, homework marked and effort to bring children up from where they started. There is little incentive to make kids exceed.

Sats results matter more if they are used to set at your secondary. (All schools use to create the gov targets). So if say school 1 was only getting most kids 100 for all sats that might predict 4s. But your child is competing in the same secondary with kids from school B who all have 107-109 for eg.

Many schools where a kid fails at ks1 they still fail at ks2. Even with high average marks there can be lots of kids who still didnt pass.
I would say overall each childs experience of the same school is very different.
Most important being how self motivated to do all challenge work your child is and their behaviour

Teacher might have looked stressed once or isn’t good with parents but you have no idea what they are like as a teacher.

The fact you are shocked that 5/6 children are learning about same sex marriage is really sad, this shouldn’t be a big deal just a normal part of life.

They don't have to be random children though. Maybe OP knows her neighbours and can arrange playdates, or they can get to know people at clubs / the playground / wherever. Even at the local school there's no guarantee their friends will be literally down the road either. I lived opposite my school and all my friends lived at least a 10/20min walk away, which I wouldn't have been doing on my own till at least year 5 or 6 by which time you're nearly looking at secondary school. It was mostly playdates straight after school and then parents picked up or dropped off after. 2 mins drive away to the other school doesn't sounds like it is miles away....

I would personally choose school B from your description if driving every day won't be a problem. Well below in writing is quite bad. I wouldn't worry about a smaller school for a confident child, that's why they leave when they get to 11 as they become more independent and need more from school. The one on your road does sound a lot more convenient though so that's a big thing to consider.

Have you asked School A if they think the SATS results are a fair reflection and what they are doing to improve them? I think the answer to that will allay (or not) your concerns.

Personally I'd suggest a school that is improving is to be more sought after than one that one that may be resting on its laurels (not saying this is the case for School B, but you need to do more digging to find out the reasons behind the results - my theory would be it's related to intake, but you need to validate that).

You don’t mention how you feel about Christianity being front and centre of the teaching at school B. It’s a church school, this does mean that the religious teaching will be up a notch from the basic legal requirement for acts of worship in all state schools. Make sure you research this very very carefully. There was a thread on here recently from a parent who seemed surprised that a church school was talking about Jesus to their child.

I’m on my 14th year of primary school runs and unless there is a very good reason not to I would always go for a school within walking distance.

My older children went to a desirable primary school, supposedly one of the best in the area and yes they did well in their sats and started secondary school with high expected grades but it really doesn’t seem to have given them any true advantage over their peers from other schools.

I moved house when they were in years 3 and 5 and spent the next 3.5 years driving them to school just to keep them at the ‘better’ school but with hindsight I would have moved them.

My younger children go to a town centre school within walking distance. Very mixed intake, over half start there not speaking English. Rated much lower than the old school in league tables. Yes my children have learnt to read and write a bit later than my older ones did and objectively it’s not such a good school academically but we’re really happy with it. Interestingly I was recently at an event where both schools were present and the behaviour and engagement from the children at our current primary school by far surpassed that of the children at the old school.

Obviously that is largely anecdotal and your experience will not be the same but I would always choose to walk unless there was a really good reason

Also this

In terms of walking always being preferable, is this from a time point of view? How about if the walk to nearer school is 15 mins each way but a drive to further 'better' school would be 10 mins each way? Curious as I am also choosing schools atm and this is potentially the situation we are in.

Because schools are beyond chaotic traffic and parking wise during the school run, if the car breaks down then it becomes an annoying issue, if you're poorly yourself and still have to do drop offs being able to walk a short distance is often more enjoyable than driving through traffic and attempting to park probably a fair distance from the school and having to walk the rest, good habit for a child to walk to and from school, if there are evening events etc it's less stressful, their friends likely to live close to school and their parties etc- just makes you more reliant on driving. If a school is walkable in 15 mins then should you need to drive for whatever reason it'll be tonnes quicker than the other school!

Each to their own but we moved DS after the first term as we chose a 'better' school we had to drive to and it was just such a pain with a tired child that it's changed our mornings and pick ups being much closer. The main factor for me though needing to use it would be availability of wraparound care, that's the only thing I'd be prepared to drive to school for!

@Ilikepinacoladass with driving you need to factor in traffic, parking availability, and the walk to school from the parking. Plus unexpected things like roadworks, crashes etc.

The school we had to drive to could take 7 minutes on a good day... and 45 minutes on the worst day!

Basically when walking you are in control. Driving you are at the mercy of other people and events.