Secondary school in September? How did you ....

[LadyMelsie]

For all those who have children off to secondary school in September - can I ask

How did you choose the school your child will be going to?
What are the important qualities you look for in a secondary school?

I'm just starting to research secondaries for my currently year 4 child. We are based in east Surrey - I'm at a loss really on how to start, so your answers to these questions will be of great help. Thanks MN secondary school veterans and good luck to our children on this new chapter in their lives.

I am also at the same stage with a Y4 child. Just starting to think about how to look for schools that would suit him and work for us as a family. Woudl also be really interested to hear

Are you talking about state schools or independent? Unless you are extremely fortunate, you might find that you don't have much choice of state schools.

You can express preferences, but many of the most popular schools are very oversubscribed, so you wouldn't be guaranteed a place unless your child has been in care or has a statement of SEN.

My advice would be to make a list of the schools that your child can feasibly get to, then look on their websites for the admissions criteria. Some schools publish the furthest distance to be offered places for the last few years.

To give you an example, the people living in a road only qualify for entry to school W, which is more than two miles away. If they live at the top end of the road then they have a chance of getting a place at school R. If they are Catholic then there is the chance of school J.

It doesn't matter what other schools they put on their form, they won't get a place at any of them, because they don't meet the admissions criteria.

Once you have a list of the schools for which your child meets the criteria (this might be one, two or more) then there's no harm in looking around at the open days this year. Many of the state secondary open days / evenings are in September / October.

Different parents look for different things on open evenings. There is usually a talk by the headteacher. You can also tour the facilities. I like to talk to the students, and see whether they are enthusiastic about learning and how positive they feel about the school.

I visited a lot of schools, both State and private. I talked to the primary head.
Then with my DH we visited those who made the short list - my DC had a realistic chance of getting in and I liked. Then finally I visited with my child. Then we applied using an order of preference based on all our opinions.

We ended up discounting Private, as of those my eldest could have got into, he hated the quirky one we liked, and the others held few advantages when compared to a long commute. For State school it is essential that you list a school you are very likely/ pretty much guaranteed to get into.

I looked for: discipline, good academics, offer of triple science, University destinations, good library hours and "feel". But it also needs to match your individual child.

My first consideration was how practical it was to get my daughter to that school. We looked two schools, and that really helped us.

The first school we were met at the door by a teacher who explained what would happen. We were introduced to older pupils and were able to ask them questions and they showed us around every department. Teachers were present in every department, were clearly proud of the children's work and would give you as little or as much time as you wanted. A lot of them talked and interacted with my daughter. When leaving the Head was available at the main door for any last minute queries and an invite to come back to the school while lessons were taking place. This school just happened to have a glowing Ofsted report.

The other school, no one was around so we hung around for a while before deciding to look around ourselves. We spoke to a couple of pupils who actually told us some of the teachers were horrible (we didn't ask them anything along these lines), I know kids say these things but not what we wanted our daughter to hear. There were teachers around in some departments and in all fairness they answered any questions, but very little work was on display and no one spoke to our daughter. My daughter particularly wanted to see the drama studio and it was closed and no one was in that wing. The Ofsted report was average/verging on below average. We knew this school didn't have a brilliant reputation but wanted to see it for ourselves, so we knew we'd thought the options through.

Needless to say, we went with the first school and at the end of Year 7 know we made the right decision. So I'd say look around all possible schools, allow the full two hours or whatever they give you, take your son/daughter with you, see if they show any interest in him/her, ask questions no matter how trivial. You can always ask yourself if you can look around in lesson time and see what reaction you get. Yes, a member of staff will have to give up their time to show you around, but most schools want everyone to feel comfortable with their choice.

Sorry gone on a bit, but hopefully this helpsl

Make sure that you understand the admission process of every school in your area, and those outside of your area that are a straightforward commute.
Make sure that you understand the transport options for each school, and that they work for you. Ds2's "favorite school" turns out to be impossible for him to get to, despite being equally distant from our house as my favorite school. Wouldn't have taken him to the open day if I had checked first.
As 3B1G suggests, draw up your shortlist and do some investigation. These were some of the questions that I made sure that I knew the answers to, but parents and children differ widely!
a) when does the school set/stream and for which subjects?
b) how often are reports/parents evenings?
c) what languages do the children study, and how are these chosen (eg in some schools, children are allocated a language, in others there are options, some have taster sessions etc)
d) what subject choices are available to pupils, and at what stages?
e) what are the class sizes for each subject at Year 7? And at GCSE?
f) what support is available if your child is struggling in one subject? (eg booster groups, 6th form mentoring, one to one with teacher etc)
g) what level of continuity of staff is held from year to year. This in part will be down to the size of the school eg they may only have one or two RE teachers for the whole school. your child may have different maths teachers every year

h) homework policy - what is it, and is it clear? How many year 7 homeworks involve "make a poster..."?

i) how many children leave at 16 and where do they go? What is the churn rate at 16 if there is a 6th form?
j) Extra-curricular: depends on what is important to child, but we looked at what range of clubs were available, and how easy was it to get into them (waiting list, limited places, high cost, need to be particular grade/level?). We wanted a broad range of experiences, but others are looking for a high level of achievement in specific areas. This area really depends on whether your child already has particular interests/strengths or not.
k) where do other children come from? Will your dd be trying to break into existing friendship groups, or coming in with her friends, or one of many who are the only one or two from their primary school.
l) if something is not going well, who can you approach as a parent? Are they approachable?!

I do agree that gut feel makes a difference when you compare schools, and how schools come across on open days certainly affects the emotional response to the school. But I think questions around setting/streaming and subject choices are also pretty key, and not always immediately obvious from the open days.

I you are in an area that is not heavily oversubscribed, you just need to go to schools that your child can get to and get a feel for them - we went to the one we thought was the most suited to us on the open day in Y4 and 5 and an open evening in Y5, and booked a separate day visit for the start of Y6. We were happy and thankfully we had a choice.... as it is not our closest school (so we don't get a bus pass, but hey ho...)

How did we choose? well we kind of " stumbled through" with the eldest. She went to a super selective grammar and trying to get the primary to give guidance was like pulling teeth. We sort of knew that the non selectives, whilst big on " nurturing" weren't the right place for her.

The other 2 followed her path really. We became increasingly confident we were doing the right thing too.

Most of all get your application for right.READ the info carefully. Don't be one of the terribly upset parents who have no place in SEptember because they didn't " like" the nearest school so didn't put it down, and actually don't meet the criteria for anything else.

and.... always accept an offered place, you can still appeal and go via waiting lists but you do not have to be offered another place at all.

We only had the option of two schools, and were fortunate to know that dd would pretty certainly get a place at either (one is the designated Welsh medium school for the county, the other our catchment school).

We visited in year 5, looked around, talked to the teachers, and went for the one where we felt the pastoral care was going to be best as dd is more likely to need support on that side, it was also the one where dd felt most comfortable.

If she'd strongly preferred the other school we'd have been fine with that too. We're hoping she / we made the right choice, only time will tell! She is having a bit of a wobble as several of her friends are going to the other school. Academically both seem fine, the one we went for is a bit lower achieving in terms of results but I'm pretty sure that's mainly a question of intake.

Of the information you have been given op - a word of warning....a lot can change in the blink of an eye. For example basing your choice on extra curricular activities will depend on all the current staff never leaving etc.

As a secondary teacher I would recommend not only the results but the 'feel' of the school. OFSTED should not be the priority (especially the latest changes) but your gut feeling

With results I mean the CVA- not the headline figures as they give a truer picture

In our LEA there is only one high school that I would have considered. As we live in the catchment area and DD's primary school was a feeder school it was a no brainer. I only applied to that school and no others.

DD chose. I didn't have a strong preference.
I talked over all my concerns & factors that I could see that might matter, but she chose.
I think she chose exactly the right one for her. I couldn't have done better.

Thankyou - you've all certainly given me heaps to consider - ill be back soon with more questions, I'm sure.

We considered:

• pastoral care
• do they cater well for the academic level of my child

(e.g. from BTEC options OR ability to get loads of A* )

• ethos of school (eg results oriented or whole child oriented)

Also, though less important

• do they set individual subjects rather than stream across them
• ease of getting to/from school independently
• ease of contacting teachers if necessary
• results / OFSTED
• feedback from parents with children currently at the school