Please help me choose a school. Which would you choose?

[SantasComingToTown]

I know choosing a primary school is a really personal choice but I am currently torn between two schools - the two people who I have been discussing options with are my husband and mum and each of them are very biased towards the opposite school, which is making it difficult for me as they are both very negative of the school they don’t like, and aren’t willing to remain open minded. I feel like piggy in the middle! I would really appreciate some opinions to help make the decision as it’s really important to me that my son gets the best education he can. I have done a ticklist comparing the two and they both scored equally but on different things!! Which one would you choose if you were sending your children there?

Both schools:

• Have small class sizes/years (approx 18-20 per year group).
• The quality of classroom based education is equally as good because of the small class sizes.
• Staff are lovely, get a really good vibe from the headteachers and their staff turnover is low as the teachers all love working there so much.
• Kids all seem happy and engaged. We took my son to an open evening at each school and he loved both!

School 1:

• Building is huge as used to be a middle school so the kids have loads of space both inside and outside of the classroom.
• The facilities at the school are brilliant - they have a dedicated cooking room, art room, music room and a huge library. They also have tennis courts, two huge fields, on site forest school, two main playgrounds with go karts and slides etc. Then the Early years, year 1 and year 2 each have their own outside play area as well.
• Walking distance to our current home.
• Has own kitchen facilities so food is cooked on site.
• The children who were there on the open evening were so enthusiastic about the school and were so excited to show me all the things they had been learning.

Negatives for me:

• Shared toilets, I just don’t like the idea of it especially for girls starting their periods (even though I have a boy).
• Breakfast and after school club provided by external company so is VERY expensive, will cost about £150 per week for both.
• As the site is so big I got the impression that they feel they don’t need to leave the premises very often and school trips are nearly all within my local town (I lived here my whole life and there really isn’t a lot going on). - they have said they are conscious of parents and not wanting us to spend lots of money which is lovely, but I feel they have gone too far and the children basically never leave.
• They don’t give children the chance to participate in extra curricular activities and sporting tournaments. Very rarely are they present at local school tournaments or competitions either, so I feel they are very isolated in the schooling community. My son is very active so I can see him enjoying sports and probably being quite good in some areas as he gets older.
• As the kids are now there until they go to high school it worries me that my son will never have experienced much outside of the primary school and might find it a bit of a shock.

School 2:

• Small village school
• Quality of extra curricular activities is excellent, and school trips are brilliant. They take all ages groups out to various places, some are free, some cost money so there is a good balance.
• As the school isn’t as big the children get to go off site frequently to do things like forest school and they have the option to participate in lots of local school tournaments so they get to engage with lots of different things outside of the 4 walls and get lots of life experiences.
• Breakfast and After School clubs are provided by the school so they are more reasonably priced and the hours are better in the morning which means I wouldn’t need to adjust hours at my current job.

Negatives are:

• We would have to drive every day as walking isn’t possible due to it being in a village location (only 5 minute drive from my house as I live on the edge of the town).
• The school building is very small in comparison to all the other schools we’ve looked at so there really is only the classroom for the kids to use in each year (the other school has areas outside of the classroom to use as well where they can do bigger group activities). They do have a lovely field and although the playground is smaller it’s still a good size for the size of the school and has similar activities the other school offers, just on a smaller scale.
• After reception, the year groups are in shared classes so year 1 and 2 are in the same class etc. - not sure how I feel about that. Does anyone have experience of it?
• No on site kitchen so food is ordered in but still plenty of options.

My husband isn’t a teacher but has worked in school 2 a couple days a week for the last 8 years doing PE and sport clubs so is very biased towards it, he can’t see any of the negatives that I can. That being said he has got inside knowledge of how the school works and I know he wouldn’t want to send our son to a horrible school.

Very interested to hear your thoughts and which one you would choose!

Sorry for the long post, tried to shorten it as best I could.

Can I ask if you remember what she’s didn’t like about the shared classes? This is one thing I just can’t see how it would work!

I have also tried to have this conversation with him about what if the head teacher retires, he doesn’t care. Honestly at this point I think the school could leave the children outside in the rain all day on their PE kit and he would still say it was best thing ever lol.

@SJM1988 honestly your concerns are exactly the same as mine are about the collection etc. I’ve picked my husband up a few times when I’ve had days off and it is a complete pain. It’s also in the opposite direction to both of our works so I would have to be going back on myself. I also slightly worry about having to collect him in really bad weather. And as the weather is getting worse every year it’s a real concern for me. The other thing is I will always have to drive him - from reception to year 6 there is no other option for my son to get to school, so it’s a real commitment!

what do you like about mixed year groups if you don’t mind me asking?

thanks for the information re after school clubs. My son is an only child at the minute so I’ve never had to think about it before. You are right though, that if he likes a sport I can always sign him up to a proper club!

Yes I get 20% off

@Iloveagoodnap if I am honest, I think my gut is saying school 1 but I also feel like I make most of the decisions in our house so I want my husband to feel like he has a say as well.

My mum isn’t being bossy about it, i was the one who involved her to begin with and wish I hadn’t. I was just looking for someone impartial as my husband isn’t at all, but it really did end up giving me more grief than anything lol. I was going to invite her to the open days so I could look round with someone who had a open mind but didn’t in the end as it would be like walking round with my husband all over again haha!

@VeggPatch my husband won’t be at the school by the time my son starts next year. He is actually going back to Uni to do teacher training. If he was already a teacher there I would send him without question because it would make total sense, but as he isn’t and could end up anywhere it’s not been a deciding factor.

How old it the Headteaxher - that is a huge thing for me because it is transient

plus the fact your mum is a red herring because it is you who prefers School 1

with the shared classes she found the wide variety of ages meant it was hard to give her boys the level of education they needed - because they were trying to hit to wide a range

plus is school 2 worth the extra travel time for you

You could look to get a local wraparound childminder for a lower cost who does school pick up and drop off, especially for school 1.

Also trips are overrated - expensive, take a whole day to be there a few hours. The space they are in 90-95% of the time make so much more difference.

Parking is always a nightmare around schools so think very carefully if you want to commit to driving every single day - twice a day - for 7 years

@Bounty95 thank you, I’ve never been to a small school, all of the ones I went too had 3 form intakes because at the time they were only one of 2 schools in my town so I have no experience of it. That is definitely one of the reasons I like the village school, that being said the other school has the same class sizes, just a much bigger building so it’s kind of the same thing.

the bigger school also doesn’t believe in homework 😅(apart from reading, which I am fine with)

And don’t send your kid to the school yiur husband is a teacher at

It wouldn’t be heavy traffic. I took that route for years at rush hour when I worked in a nearby village and it was always fine getting there. It’s more the parking and picking up as the school is on the side of the road near a bend, so the little car park there is in the village will get rammed!

it’s nice to hear from someone who uses a village school. I do appreciate the enrichment activities they have as well. They even take the early years on trips to museums and they are taking them to see Santa which I thought was lovely. All the other schools near me don’t take the smaller children out. I know my son would love it!

@Drivingoverlemons ah I didn’t realise that. It’s the only school we looked at that had shared toilets. They do have the floor to ceiling cubicles, I’m just a bit uncomfortable with it myself. I think it’s important for girls to have their own space, especially when starting their periods etc. I don’t even have a girl so it doesn’t affect me but it’s something I do really strongly believe in.

@usernamedifferent for me and my husband walking isn’t a issue, because as you say it would be in the way or from work. I’m more thinking for grandparents if they offer to collect after school. I know my mum would definitely prefer to walk as she hates driving. And she lives closest to me and also doesn’t work so she is more likely going to be the one doing it instead of my husbands parents.

that’s really interesting to know about the funding per pupil! I had no idea about that. It’s obviously a deciding factor for me at the minute as I have the luxury of choice (10 schools in my town), so if that did end to happening I wouldn’t be any worse off than sending my son to another school.

You’re right, I can’t guarantee it would never close but I think it’s highly unlikely as it’s the catchment school for all the surrounding villages.

Unfortunately I don’t know anyone who has children at either school. A couple of people I used to go to school with had kids that did, but they are all at high school now so it was too long ago to get a proper opinion. I did do a post on a local Facebook group but the responses I got were ‘you just need to go and have a look, it’s a really personal opinion’….so they weren’t very helpful

@Tiswa both headteachers are in their 50s so not retirement age yet. I can’t see the headteacher at the village school ever leaving until he retires as he has been there his whole career and works his way up. The other headteacher was actually one of my teachers at school so she has also been there for years and unlikely to go elsewhere but I’m not as sure about her.

the travel time isn’t really a issue as they both take the same amount of time to get too, they are just in opposite directions. I’m more concerned about the weather really because the road in an out of the village can flood when it gets really bad and then I’m not sure how I would get to my son. Whereas school 1, even if roads flooded I could still get to him or even walk if needed.

It is very odd, if they have built a new primary to accommodate children from your town, that School 1 keeps small classes.

I would presume this is because it is perceived as ‘relatively undesirable’. How do its:

• Results
• Ofsted grade (and year)
• %Pupil premium
• %SEN

compare with School 2, and more importantly with the other schools in your town that you might have a chance to access?

Small classes may seem like a boon BUT do mean less money, and a school can end up in a ‘death spiral’ where poor results/low Ofsted grade / high numbers of children from deprived backgrounds or with SEN cause a school’s applications to drop; funding drops; it then becomes very difficult for the school to invest to recover or to meet the needs of its high needs pupils.

Schools 2 has the obvious disadvantages of snall schools - lovely when a child is small, can be stifling when they get older; little opportunity for age group sport (18-20 per class = 8-10 each year group, I presume); very vulnerable to eg moving into a federated structure with a head / SENCo etc shared between multiple schools. I’m not a great fan of mixed age teaching but it’s usually ok if the staff are experienced and your child is average.

@cantkeepawayforever village school is Ofsted good with outstanding features. The bigger school is currently waiting for a Ofsted inspection due to delays in our local area but they have had visits from the council and they have said they would consider it outstanding. I feel in reality they are on par with each other. Both schools have low % of SEN children. 2 of the other schools had a very high percentage of SEN and it did unfortunately show. If my son was SEN I would send him to one of those because they gave the facilities to support but as he doesn’t I didn’t think having 5 teachers/TA trying to take care of 1 child was very good. When we looked round a member of the office staff had to come into the Early years class as the teacher was overwhelmed and her TA had to go to help get 2 children inside who were running round the school.

We’ve looked at all the other schools we were interested in (5 in total) and these are the top two. The others are just overrun with children and the environment is not as nice because they were too full.

The new school was opened because it’s the other side of town from school 1 in an enormous new build estate. It was part of the agreement when the developers took the land that a school had to built because the was no where for the children to go within their catchment area as the other schools are all over subscribed in that part of town due to years of over development on the surrounding fields There were delays so a lot of the children are already in one of the more established schools. I wasn’t even able to look round them because they weren’t in my catchment and they said there was no chance of me ever getting a place.

If we still had the old 3 tier system and my son was only there until year 4, I would go for the village school, but as he will be there until high school I’m finding it more difficult to make a decision because of the lack of space.

I don’t usually weigh in on these questions, and it’s hard to know what things you prioritise as a family….but if it’s helpful, we’ve been in schools with smaller areas/bigger/mixed and non-mixed year groups etc.
I would just go for school 1 without a shadow of a doubt. Yes, it’s closer but also it’s got amazing facilities, non-mixed year groups are generally better for the kids, and trips are a few days a year tbh so I wouldn’t consider that myself, as others say most kids take up things out of school to do other activities eg join a football team. The sport etc is frustrating but perhaps you could help set that up with other schools as well? Good luck with your decision!

School 1, if it remains open and at 18-20 per class, will have place if you start in School 2 and the small size becomes stifling? You could treat it as an infant / junior situation and aim to move at tge end of Year 2?

The risk is, of course, that School 1 either becomes very popular (eg if the Ofsted report is exceptionally positive) OR moves to mixed age classes of closer to 30 for economic reasons. Then movement would be more difficult as there would be no guarantee of a place.

(The economic drive would be to mix classes to reduce class numbers and make the numbers in each class 30 eg R + 10 Y1; 10 Y1 + Y2; Y3 plus half Y4; rest of Y4 plus Y5; Y6. 5 classes not 7 is a BIG saving - is the school local authority or part of a MAT?)

40 years ago it was not an academy led landscape
Historically large school supported small through the schools forum but as big schools and more schools opt out as academies that isnt possible
Village schools are closing widely- especially C of E as it cant afford to have them in their academy trusts

Actually @WhitbyBee raises a good point @SantasComingToTown what is the academy/Trust situation for both of these - how are they run as academies

https://financial-benchmarking-and-insights-tool.education.gov.uk

also gives you spending and the amount each school has - might be useful comparison to see exactly where the schools are

That’s a fascinating website! Thank you!

The one you can walk too... absolutely... Theres good pros and cons but for primary all other things pales into insignificance...

Local friends, more likely to
potentially share drop offs, when older potentially walk to school..

They both sound good

It is isn’t it - it fairly new I think but really helpful in circumstances such as these to see where spending it

particularly @SantasComingToTown as you are concerned by that with school 1

What are the admission criteria for each school? If school 1 is your nearest school, I imagine you meet the distance criteria as you’re in walking distance. You may not for school 2, if you need to drive there.

Neither are academies. They are both independently run church schools.

I’ve just been looking at that website! Really interesting. Based on the latest lot of data the smaller village school out performed the other one and they also had more boys in that year as well. The village school was ‘well above average’ for reading, writing and maths and the other school was ‘average’

The school which is technically marked as closest, we didn’t like (and it’s always over subscribed as it’s known as being good for SEN), however the bigger school i mentioned is literally one road next to it. Both of the two schools above are equal distance from my house in miles, the smaller one is just along a country road to get to it so you can’t walk but distance wise pretty much exactly the same. As they are both under subscribed each year I will have no problems in getting into either. I was looking on the site linked above and the village school has capacity for 160 children and they currently have 115 and the bigger school has capacity for 315 and they have 165 currently so I think they will happily take my son. There aren’t any new housing developments near either school at the minute so they won’t have places reserved for that like some of the others in my town.