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.

I really wouldn't read too much into one year's data, especially with such small schools. When I worked in a small village school, our data could be amazing one year and below average another year, depending on the needs of the cohort. Each child is worth such a large percentage in a small school. A few SEN or low attaining children in the year group can really skew the results and doesn't tell the true picture (those children may have made amazing individual progress). The following year there may be no SEN and several naturally high attaining children who swing the results back the other way, even if they came from a high starting point and probably would have achieved great results at any school.

I'd only pay attention to data if it's consistently good or consistently poor. Data from just one year can easily be explained away due to so many factors.

I’ve just found the financial details and the bigger school doesn’t spend anywhere near what the other does, which isn’t surprising. They seem to have spent most of their funds on the main teachers and scaled back on everything else which makes sense. The smaller school reported an overspend last year as well of £10k whereas the other school was well within budget.

The schools may not be at capacity or oversubscribed, but it will also depend on the number of reception applications. ICS are capped at 30, even if there are spaces in other years.

And where does that leave the school financially overspending?

academies make schools much more financially like a business

what are the trusts they are part of as well

those do lean towards the smaller then - composite classes still would put me off though!

I think if its you mostly having to do drop off and pick up ( its me in my situation - my choice that works great for us) then you have a bit of a bigger sway in which school to chose. My DH doesn't have to deal with the daily school pick up situation so doesn't really understand how a 7 min walk and not fighting for parking is 1000 times better than a 4 min drive and fighting for parking. Yes its rubbishing walking in the snow and rain but at least i know no matter what I will be there to pick my DS up.

The shared classes appealed to us as between the school we were looking at, it seemed the shared classes school pushed the top end of the scale children more. E.g. with year 2 and 3 being together, if your child was a top end of the scale for year 2 they could start moving to year 3 work before the offical move in sept. If you get what I mean. And talking to friends who are teachers of mixed years, it also helps with children on the bottom end of the scale too.

My DH is a private school (abroad not UK) child so was very keen on the pushing academically factor of school. He also didnt understand the doing activites outside of school thing as where he comes from everything is done through and by the school.

Ultimately I'd say the driving vs walking factor outweighed the mixed classes positives. I'd also look at where your child's friends are going if at nursery. That was also a big factor for us. 20 of my DS class of 30 went to his nursery.

The larger school being at barely half capacity, with uneconomically small class sizes, should make you nervous enough to raise the question of sustainability and WHY they are half empty with the school. It may be that it has a historically ‘too large’ capacity from its days as a middle school, but having seen schools with falling roles closed unexpectedly (for parents - signs were often in the wall for those in the know
eg joining a new MAT; consistently under-subscribed etc) and their pupils split between other schools, I’d be seeking direct reassurance.