Missed year seven open evening

[Simsim1]

I called the school today to ask if I could come in and take a look around as we missed open evening and was told "no we don't do that I'm afraid". Is this common practice?

If they don't do daytime tours, I'd suspect they were hiding something.

Noble, i can't think what it would be. They have very good results and a recent outstanding ofsted. Also spoke to another mum yesterday who said she really liked the school.

Ah, if they are outstanding then it is possible that they are smugly oversubscribed and can't be arsed with recruiting.

Yes that's what I thought. Will put the school down anyway in our options, but still a bit peed off.

There is a school locally that only shows pupils round on one Open day a year. It's so oversubscribed that, apart from siblings LAC and Statements, there are approx 10 children for every place so they really don't need to actively recruit pupils.
We did look round but didn't get to meet any pupils which put us off!
I would be reluctant to put a school down that I hadn't visited especially if you only have 3 preferences.
Perhaps you could try asking on local boards if any parents know this school. What helped for us was taking to parents with children at secondary school already to find out what schools are really like!

I wouldn't think they were hiding anything, just that they were v busy and can't accommodate lots of tours of visitors.

You can find out lots of what you need to know from studying the curriculum pages on the website, the ;policy pages and the prospectus: do they do triple science, can they do 2 or more MFL, can they do Geog AND history at GCSE, etc.

Then study the data on the Dept of Edn website in detail - how does each ability group achieve against target - is a good average outcome based on a good base level ability or is I value added?

No it doesn't mean anything except for the fact that they cannot accommodate visitors at other times. Members of staff would need to be free up to tour you round, you would be interrupting lessons to see inside rooms/talk to teachers etc. That is why they schedule events where all prospective parents can come at the same time. It is less disruptive to the education of the pupils this way.

Our local "smugly oversubscribed" school has an "every day is open day" policy and you can phone up any time to arrange a tour. So no, I wouldn't say it is normal practice to refuse visits.

Personally, I would be extremely reluctant to put down a school that hadn't let me in through the door. It would make me think that they will be similarly unresponsive when my child has an issue at school which I need to discuss with them.

Also, as it happens, I really didn't like the ethos of the "smugly oversubscribed" school when I did look round. We went for the "slightly shabby but with a big heart" comp down the road instead. It was the right decision!

Our school has regular daytime appointments, but post open evening this becomes more difficult due to time restrictions; it is only a week to half term.

Members of staff don't tour the parents round, kids do. We get Y8 to do it. Teachers are told which mornings the tours will be, they don't interrupt lessons usually, just look through the window in the door.

Not all parents can make it to open evening, but most do, so there usually aren't that many parents looking around.

I missed DD's school open day because she was offered a place late. The yr7 support worker arranged for DD to show me around after she had started at the school. Other than that I had to go by recommendation from other parents.

HT PA showed us around. Not that demanding on her, I dare say. This was in late May for a September transfer. I would view the intransigence with suspicion, too.

Sounds like a smug oversubscribed school. There's one near me like that. In addition to the above advice, I've also hung around outside a school to get a feel for the type of children, behavior etc. I remember disregarding one based on what I saw.

It won't give you a whole picture, but better than nothing.

Thanks everyone. I sent the school an email and they have come back to me inviting me to a tour on Monday morning with a couple of other parents.

Oh brill. Love happy endings!