Open Evenings - what to ask/look for

[fourplusfour]

DD in Year 6 and we are currently doing the rounds of Open Evenings in local schools. There are two schools within catchment and due to very rural area little point in applying for schools outside catchment area. One of the schools is currently under special measures having had an inadequate ofsted report a couple of years ago. Unfortunately this is the school mostly to offer my DD a place. So, what would you want to know from the school to reassure you?

Is that school still in special measures? Have you read the report and any further correspondence such as monitoring letters etc? Why do you think it's most likely to give your DD a place - is the other one very oversubscribed?

I prefer to visit in the daytime so I can see the normal operation of the school and what the other kids are like.

1. Could you ask the staff how many children, who did not put the school into the council application form, were allocated it to the school. If you find some of them, just do not put them in your application. Leave it as a “last resort “, any way you would enter there.
2. Think, look around and make a list of the valuable school which most of all fit your DD. Yes, it is a lucky game, but there is a small chance.
3. Inadequate means inadequate, even if the school change their legal status ( already had a bad experience).

@elkiedee Yes school is still in special measures. I have just read the latest monitoring report and whilst there has been some positive changes Im not getting a sense of massive strides in the right direction. Maybe these things are always written with caution? The other school is very oversubcribed as no-one is choosing the first one iyswim. Our only matching criteria is was down the list of priorities in their admissions policy.

@actualpuffins I am pretty familiar with the school as have had two other DCs attend but they have both left before the poor Ofsted report.

You don't know about getting into other schools unless you try. The most over-subbed school in our county took kids from 30 miles away, few years ago (no SN or special conditions to help them get in).

Need to puzzle thru if the OfSted criticisms are things that can be fixed soon or could affect your own kid.

Problem with asking about discipline policies or setting strategy or what yr they start GCSEs is that it could all change in 3-4 years so be totally different for your kid. Plus, 2bh, there isn't time during Open Evening for all of the questions Soursprout listed. And you'll get different answers from each teacher coz they tend to only understand their own subject/dept.

I like to see ...
Clean & well-organised classrooms with lots of student work on display and energetic staff/kids engaging with the visitors.
Lots of kid helpers keen to help out & working well together.
HTs who don't waffle on but instead let the kids take leading roles in main presentation.
A parent portal or online system so we can A) pay for canteen B) see merits/demerits/recent reports about our kid C) up to date parent calendar of events that is easy to find & use.
Leadership & volunteering opportunities for the kids, junior chambre of commerce, sport fixtures, music lessons, etc.
Lots of celebrating achievements of individual kids in different types of areas
Focus on all-round development, not just academics
HTs who admit no school is perfect but they have multiple strategies to sort out problems (bullying, etc.)
Enthusiasm among the teachers for their subject. At Open Evening I got a 5 minute spiel about the mechanics & benefits of food tech GCSE. Odds are high DS won't attend that school, but it was great to see the teacher liked her job.

Unfortunately, it can come down to gossip, though. I heard a pretty damning tale of incompetence about local school this year, am hoping to steer DS away from there.

Things I wish I had tried to find out last year, though I suspect both could be a little tricky in the rush of the Open Evening tour and while trying to check that DS1 was ok (he was a bit daunted by the whole thing):

• policies on detention - he's just started and school seems to give out a lot of detentions for relatively minor stuff, some of which may not just be down to the kids - uniform issues, not being "prepared for learning" (pencil case and scientific calculator), not having PE kit and homework. Luckily DS1 is better organised than me and might manage to stay out of trouble - if he had DS2's attitude we would never see him. I was also shocked to learn that it has a negative impact on after school clubs as teachers have to do both, also most are sport based and PE teachers may well have to give more detentions over PE kit infractions.
• pastoral care - though in my family's case this would be more of an issue for DS2 - but so would all this detention malarkely.

ask about streaming. So important.

Setting more likely than streaming for the most part, I think.

I would look for teachers who are enthusiastic about their subjects and who interact well with their students.

Setting - How are they set? When does this happen? How often is the movement between sets?

Subject Choices - At what points do students have to make subject choices. Do they have to choose between some subjects after year 7 and narrow this further in year 8/9 before GCSE. How do the GCSE options work and what the options currently look like? What are the language options? Some schools offer a lot more choices at GCSE than others. This may seem like a long way off but some schools will ask students to make choices quite early which can limit choices further down the line.

As PPs have said try to visit in school hours as this gives a much more realistic experience than a staged open day when everyone is on their best

And and suss why thry got inadequate.

A school near me got special measures and it's largely accepted in the community and in education that they'd devided that was what would happen in order to force an academy conversion. Almost every teacher I know in the area would have sent their child to that school without worrying. Since the inadequate judgement things dipped because of all the pressures on staff etc going through it. Very sad case.

That sort of inadequate is a different kettle of fish to the school I worked in that was in special measures where little learning took place and the school was notorious (despite lots of name changes over the years).

See if they put exercise books on display (and a reasonable selection too so not just the ones with beautiful handwriting). If not then I'd wonder if they were hiding something major like limited learning.

Thanks everyone. Certainly lots to think about when selecting a school. I actually get quite a good vibe from this school - there's definitely a few really dedicated enthusiastic teachers there.

I think the poor Ofsted was mostly around leadership and learning not challenging students enough.