September 2021

[Eggplant1]

Hi all, I've been thinking alot lately due to covid that if schools are not back in September how do you think the new year 6's will be able to look around potential secondary schools

The schools will hopefully go back but visitors will not be allowed. Online virtual tours seem the way forward.

That's what I thought, but I feel like you won't get a proper feel for the schools though.

Our secondary has just said they aren't expecting to go back in September either and possibly not whole academic year so not sure there will be school as normal to see. School websites give an idea, normally a curriculum section, parent bulletins can be quite insightful, if you know any parents with kids at the school worth asking them. The open days we went out gave a feel for the size of the school (5 times size of primary), buildings and what was taught in lessons (similar across schools) but schools tended to be very much showcasing their best behaviour so didn't always get all of the reality. In reality as well we didn't have a choice, you got given the nearest school unless you had got into the very selective grammar which was about 1 child per year - my DD did get in but hated that. The secondaries atm are overwhelmed with problems to sort out especially for GCSE and A level students so not sure what they will be offering in the way of open days, if anything other than the website. The children do get taster days though and you can try to swap schools quite late on - we moved in July after taster day not going well for DS and got into a more suitable school. Open day was good but Head left shortly after.