How to identify a supportive academic school which doesn’t prize results over student’s mental health?

[RubaiyatOfAnyone]

I should preface this by saying this is a long time in the future for me as dd1 is only yr1, but i’ve been having a lot of conversations with friends who have yr6/7/8 kids so it is on my mind.

What do you look for when school hunting to find a good school for an academic child where they will be supported and challenged, without veering into regimented exam-factories with 15hrs homework each night? I have two friends who thought they’d got the right school but one is finding her bright yr8 DS (and his entire set basically) is largely ignored whilst less able kids are concentrated on (very necessary, but no reason it should be either/or), and another has described a school that is so heavy for workload in order to keep up their good reputation the kids basically lose any joy they ever had in learning.

Given one of them had to move house by yr 5 go get into the catchment of their chosen school in time, it is a big commitment to make on something that can go so disastrously wrong. To those of you who had bright children who enjoyed school work, and chose the right schools to enable/support/enjoy that, what did you look for? I just had a brief google of Hertfordshire schools and got quickly overwhelmed with not knowing what i was looking for.

Move into catchment area of Dame Alice Owens?

There are strict rules about catchment and you will need to live under 400m from the school.

Pay.

We’ve had to pay. It’s not easy and a lot depends on the personality of your child too.

I think even in one school, people's experiences of that school will be very different so you are kind of looking for an idealised version of school which probably doesn't exist.
High academic results for all is important and the school's reputation and desirability comes from this. You don't get this unless you concentrate on pulling up the ones just below. You don't get this unless you make the kids work hard.

Pastoral and welfare is important but schools are not social workers or mental health professíonals. Schools are doing more and more of this work but without the funding and expertise to do this work, this isn't going to be a strength of a highly academic school. Schools with lower results and more problematic catchments do try and invest more in this side of their work but then you won't get the academic push that you want.

The best thing you can do is to provide the support for mental well being yourself and let the school get on with helping your dc pass their exams.

The best thing you can do is to provide the support for mental well being yourself and let the school get on with helping your dc pass their exams.
This ^
What you may regard as supportive input from school another parent will dismiss as ‘fluff’. What you think is too much homework another will think not enough. You need to determine what your specifics are, your parameters, your must haves and your must nots. And why those are important.

Talking to people whose children are there already is a good start but honestly I've heard such a load of nonsense about both my children's schools which has turned out to be categorically wrong that really unless there is a consistent complaint about a school from anyone and everyone then really you are just going in blind. Anecdotally my son's school is poor pastorally which I've found to be completely wrong, they've been great. Conversely another local school which is supposed to be pastorally strong has been hopeless for my friend's son. So the answer really is, do a tour, hope for the best and if it doesn't work out then they aren't stuck there forever, you can move them, get tutors if academics are the problem etc.

The best thing you can do is to provide the support for mental well being yourself and let the school get on with helping your dc pass their exams

This is such a hard question to answer - only you can discover the answer through lots of research (which you are indeed doing, very early 😀). As a result, I’m sure you’ll find the right school! Identify five schools commutable to from you, then start looking them up - on here, via their websites, via friends who go. Can’t blanket say that all academic indies have great pastoral care (although many do), or that all grammars are exam factories (though many are), or that all comprehensives have similar approaches to care. Or another approach: identify happy academic teens in your circle and find out what schools they go to!