Is it okay for a school to tell you you cannot view it untill after your child has been accepted?

[PippiCalzelunghe]

if not what would you do? write, talk to them or nothing?

and would you send your child there based on other people's opinion/experience? (I think I've answered that already tbh.)

I'd be interested to know what proportion of the 1 in 4 (or whatever figure is correct) are victims of abuse by a stranger. I think it is a sad fact that many young children are abused by members of their own family

Not that we shouldn't be aware of the dangers, but I think the myth of the dirty old man waiting outside the school gates with sweets is probably outdated.

The number of children abused by anyone is small. The number of children abused by a stranger is VANISHINGLY small. The number of children abused by a prospective parent visiting their school is, I suspect a number approximately 0!

Rather than worrying about their privacy, children love to be the ones to show visitors around the school. The best schools often let the children do the guided tour and they are free to say anything they want.
Seeing the Head interact with the children is a very good guide to the school. I once discounted a school purely because the Head missed out a lot of classes.

Well, like BonsoirAnna who is in the Republic of France and here in the Republic of Ireland - not The Democratic Republic of Congo lalalonglegs - (I think that comment was a bit off TBH )- we will have to pay 700 euros to see inside the school we are interested in sending DD to... You'll notice that neither of us are in the UK.

Maybe people in the euro zone have different ideas to you! maybe better, maybe worse - maybe neither, who knows!

So we must conclude that some of us have different ideas and expectations of what they want for their children than you do. Yes?

I have no intention to be offensive Seeker - I don't want my child viewed as an exhibit, that's all. If you don't mind, that's OK.

But I find your statement that you "don't believe" it when I say one in four children is abused in my country is strange. How did you come to that belief - blind faith? transmissions to your fillings it certainly has nothing to do with facts or statistics.
You say: "The number of children abused by anyone is small."
Unfortunately you are very misguided, and you are wrong.
Here is a link for you One in Four in case, contrary to your name you couldn't find it.
You will see that one in four people, that is over 25%, as reported in the figures, IS abused. That is not a small figure. More's the pity.

There is a very high reportage of abuse in the ROI - higher than other countries - it is thought that this high figure is not exclusive to the ROI, just that the abuse is reported more here.

My ideas about a child's privacy are obviously not the same as some of you, and how I feel a school should or could protect the privacy of the children it looks after, is not the same as the way some of you feel.

Fair enough. There's no need to say I'm wrong just because I disagree We come from different cultures, and that might explain why we have different opinions, different feelings, different expectations.
And that's OK - there is room for everyone, and robust debate is always a treat, no?

I feel the same way as the OP's school across the road that she mentioned, and the school BonsoirAnna mentioned in Paris, and the school that I mentioned in Dublin, most of you don't agree with either them / me / us. OK.

I do understand OP that you felt that the school you were interested was high handed, and maybe a little curt?
Maybe armed with the (any?) insights my posts have given you?? you can ring them again and ask out of curiosity why they don't have a Grand Tour?
Maybe they have a couple of students with AS who get very upset with strangers walking through their working space?
You never know.

Maybe, and this is hypothetical, as indeed were my other comments above, they have had an abduction, or some kind of incident at the school gates!
You never know.

I think we can all agree we want what's best for our children. That's a given, and I hope that whatever school you choose for your child, it fits your family, your child and your life perfectly, wherever you are.
It's been very interesting talking, and learning from you.

I'll ask again to zazeb and bonsoiranna: are you talking of regular state schools?

sorry, zazen (dd is 'washing' my hair .)

like I said I did try to speak to them and get a constructive answer. I did get none. i am sure that the reasons are far simpler than those you mention: they are oversubscribed and the head cannot be bothered. it is this simple I am afraid as we are no talking about supercalifragilist schools. just a good normal school in suburbia. I am pretty sure that those you and anna mention are a different type of school.

so if I may ask how have you decided that that school is the right for you?

1. Read its OFSTED report 2)Look around 3)Talk to the head and the staff about the CHILDREN and the schools ethos
2. Talk to other parents

If I was unable to do number 2 - that would say EVERYTHING I needed to know!

obviously. but if you cannot do 2 nor 3 and 4 is very mixed messages (as it would be) you are only left with ofsted (and 4 schools near me have same report). now what?

Not being able to do 2 would tell me everything that I needed to know!
I wouldn't care how popular it was, what the other parents thought or how wonderful the Ofsted was; if the Head can't be bothered to show you round I wouldn't send my children.
To be honest I think that I was in the catchment area I would hound the Head until I got an appointment and if I couldn't I would threaten to write a letter to the local paper and MP.
You can't be expected to choose a school unless you see it on a normal working day.

Well that's the thing, Pippi, the regular state schools here, as you put it, are called National schools, and are so open door that even the children just pop in for a class.

The national schools are defacto the faith or (roman catholic) parish schools, as they are run by the parish: the roman catholic Parish Priest and his Board appoints, and fires, teachers who don't live up to his / their catholic standards - even though the national schools receive funding from the state to run.
They are free to attend and are always over subscribed, having 35 plus children per class.
National schools are taxpayer funded Roman Catholic crowd control for the under 12s basically.
And traditionally this is where most of the child abuse happened - there is a strong history of clerical child abuse within these more open schools and church system.

Ethically I'm not interested in a school that I pay taxes for, but where on the whim of the Parish priest, a teacher can be sacked if she is seen kissing her boyfriend. Not to mention the book and bell worthy excommunication from the pulpit, scandal of having a partner with whom she's living in sin!!!! This happened quite recently

So no, the school I'm talking about is not a faith based / qua state school, it's a Junior school, which charges fees.
?I suppose in the Uk it's called a public school maybe?
Here, it's called a private junior school, which has it's own way of doing things: and it's own democratic Board.
And they make their own Admission policy, based on their own long experience which informs their opinion of the childrens' best interests in the Irish context.

The junior school we are interested in sending Dd to seems like the school across the road from you to me. I certainly see where 'your' school is coming from, based on my own experience within the Irish school system context.

But if you feel that they just coudn't be bothered being polite, then I think you have to go with your gut, and look elsewhere.

Or just keep badgering them and tell them how you feel being put off so abruptly: the image of the school they are giving off, and keep asking them for an appointment, reminding them what an asset you and your family would be to the community feeling in the school (being so near etc).

Good luck - I hope your hair turns out beautifully - my Dd loves combing mine also! [ouch]

I work at a junior school (and I'm often helping in the office, though not as far as I'm aware a 'complete hag' )

We have 'Talk and Tour' sessions for prospective parents just before they have to put in their application for transfer from infants, but we also get a fair number of parents at other times - sometimes the child is only 3 or 4 because the parents want to see what the junior school is like before they apply to the linked (but separate) infant school.

Our head is always happy to take prospective parents round - it might happen twice in a week, but not every week - if she can't manage it, then it might be one of the assistant heads if they happen to be on non-contact time, or if not she will arrange it for a time when a couple of Year 6 children can give them a tour, and will try to see them for a few minutes herself.

The tours are hardly disruptive, even the children know not to take them into a classroom where there is input from the teacher, or a test going on. (So judging a school because classes are 'missed out' is not necessarily fair) But where there is work in groups they will ask a teacher if they mind them coming in and answer any questions.

Oh and we have more than a couple of children with ASD, as we have an ASD resource, they spend a lot of their time in the mainstream classes and don't get very upset at strangers walking through their classroom, because they are properly supported and prepared in advance for changes in routine.

zazen I look like the witch from the wizard of oz!

I am afraid the school across the road from me is nopthing like your. it's just a CofE state primary. I wish there was a more 'interesting' and worthwhile motive behind this all. But I guess truly not. Now I regret participating at their fairs and events. They won't see a penny from me.

And, thinking about it, if I lived in a country where 1 in 4 children is sexually abused (I haven't had time to read that report yet, but I will) it would be even more important to me that I saw how teachers interacted with the children. I certainly wouldn't sent them into ANY environment I hadn't been able to make an informed choice about!