Moving- looking round schools

[sufficatedsue]

Hi

We're recently on the market and are starting to think about schools, when do you properly go and visit? When you've put in an offer that's been accepted? Or before? We know the area we are looking at and there's 3 primary schools available

Thanks

I'd check their Ofsted reports, attainment and have a look over the fence at this stage (provided you'd be in the catchment area of all 3). If the first impressions are good, then you could make your final decision later.

I would look at their admission criteria to see if they are oversubscribed, and the number of allocations and what priority they were based on. This information should be available on the Council website.

Then I would go and look at schools and narrow down your choice.

I would talk to the parents collecting children from school, it is how we heard about the primary school my children attended, from parents at another primary

I would check there are places available in the years you need! This is by no means certain. By "available" do you mean they exist or that they definitely have places at all three. Go and visit each one and talk to the Head.

We spoke to the council admissions team, narrowed down the choice and then visited (secondary). So glad we went to look as the only one in catchment with places available wasn't what we expected, and quite by chance one of the new neighbours recommended a school I hadn't even considered - an hour later we were being shown round and were able to apply there instead.

Available as in there's 3 local schools. 2 are in catchment and 1 isn't

Thanks everyone

You will probably need to speak to council admissions to see where they have places available - year groups may be full although some schools might have discretion to take an extra pupil or to take someone out of catchment.