Visiting secondary schools as an extremely prospective parent! (madwoman alert!)

[roseylea]

We are hoping to move house, to a new area. Our dcs are 4.5 and nearly 3. (So secondary school is obviously light years away yet).

However, we want to move to somewhere we will want to stay in for the dcs' whole childhood, so we are factoring secondaries into our decision-making process. So I've been looking at school websites and Ofsteds etc.

THe question is, if I approached any of ther schools I like the look of and asked if I could visit as an extraordinarily prematurely prospective parent, would they say yes or would they tell me to go away nad come back in 5 years?

I must confess I am a secondary teacher myself so I am probably a lot more critical than most parents.

Am I just being OTT and control-freaky? Or is this a reasonable thing to ask? (Hmm, maybe I sholud have psted this in AIBU!?!)

Thanks!

Personally I would say its a bit early. I guess the school could change (either way!) between now & when your kids would start.

The thing is that in 5 years time the schools could have changed beyond recognition.

Too soon!Life is unpredictable and i don't think you can look that far ahead.

Crikey! Well what would your head say to this request?!

Change of head makes a huge difference and as others have said a lot can change in 6 years.

Would agree with whizz that schools can change and also the admission policies. It is useful to know whether primaries feed into a particluar secondary. This website holds school profiles, some list where the children moved on to here
I was ina smilar posotion to you a couple of years ago. I didn't visit the secondaries but i did read ofsteds etc and asked around, just to make sure our preferred primary would lead on to a half-decent secondary.

well as others have said the school could change in the forthcoming years but I don't think they would turn you away as some madwoman.If the head has a few good yrsleft in them and isn't about to retire then it's likely thigs will stay the sameish.
Dd's secondary used to have a so so reputaion (about15 yrs ago) but now is oversubscribed and a fantastic school Two heads in that time.

Thanks for that reality check - I think I need it!

In fact where we are thinking of moving to there are a few good schools so we will have options.

~LOL! I think I could have written this post! I'm also a secondary teacher looking to find the village we're going to raise our children in but my kids are only 3 and 2 months! Personally I am going to view the primary schools but am just looking at the ofsted reports / reputation for secondary. ~I've also made sure that we're moving somewhere where there are a few good schools and private ones too within a reasonable commute.

hth

I wish we had thought of this when we bought our last house (dd was 18 months!!!). We had to move to ensure she would get a decent education that didn't involve fee paying at secondary level. The schools were bad when we moved in, and one was shut down the year she moved to secondary - compounding the problems in the remaining schools.

Too soon. Things can change, the head could go, and the school could be soooooooooo different by the time yours go.

Year 5 is (IMHO), early enough. Year 4 if you are mega keen

agree, too soon. My mum worked in a comp. for 10 years and when she began it was a zoo, kids literally standihng on tables during classes, when she left it was named a beacon school and the Head was off doing consultancy work to help failing schools!

All down to my mum's presence, of course but it shows how schools can change ocer the years.

she never taght me to type, my mum, obviously

It's probably a bit early but I'm another mad mother here, with ds1, 5 and ds2, 3 and I'm already worrying that where I live, they might be changing the feeder school boundaries - currently ds's will go to a fab secondary school, but there may be plans to change the boundaries and they'd feed into an utterly crap one. So already I'm wondering about moving house..! Now we're moving anyway (if the sodding house ever sells) but I wasn't going to move out of their primary school's catchment area 'cos the primary school's brilliant and ds1 has settled in really well. Now I don't know what to do...

So, empathy here for starting to think 5 years ahead!

It's true the utterly crap school might change over the next 5 years, but the good school's always been good and has got such a good reputation I think it's quite a gamble to wait and hope for the crap school to get better...

Where I live parents want to live in the right area (or get their children into school in this county) so they can go to the infants school that feeds the junior school that feeds the village college (11-16) so that their children can then get into the SIXTH FORM COLLEGE!