Feeling Disheartened With Private School Visits: Very Unpersonalised & Felt Like Cattle Markets

[roses2]

We're in London and have spent the past few weekends visiting private schools. We are huge state school supporters but willing to pay for the right private school.

We've visited four private so far, all well known in London.

1. School 1 - Great tour - we'll apply for this one
2. School 2 - "self guided"; didn't reply to my email query I sent regarding common entrance exam; bell rang at end to signify "please leave"
3. School 3 - "self guided" again
4. School 4 - had a student guide but they seemed unmotivated; couldn't help with half the questions

2; 3 and 4 all felt a bit like cattle markets. And all charge ~£25k/year. This is our first venture into looking at private but I expected something a bit more personalised especially if this is the sales part where they should be selling the school to me. I'm thinking of scrapping half of them from the list.

Is this what visits to popular private schools are like? Where you are just a number? Does it get better once you are in??

In many schools there are 10 or more visitors for every place in year 7

This seems to be the case for most schools in London/Home counties. They can't reject parents from registering from Open Days as many parents don't show up but even my local (not highly selective) private school are over subscribed. Once you are serious about applying, usually equates to paying the fee to register for exam entry, you will get a better experience.

Definitely agree that Open days aren't the best reflection of the school and most good schools prefer in school visits. I actually feel sorry for the tour guides, usually year 8s who have had to get up early to attend the day and that's possibly the worst age due to teen hormones.

I think talking to current parents is the best way to determine the culture of a school and use the Open day to see the facilities.

I would understand "huge state school supporters" to mean "we understand state schools can be brilliant and private isn't necessarily better and would still vote for a political party that prioritises better funding for state education even if it impacts us negatively e.g. on taxes and VAT on school fees, and wouldn't vote for a political party that wants to make it easier for rich people to go private by raiding the state school budget e.g with voucher systems"
Nothing wrong with that.

We aren't in London and the schools landscape is very different around here. The schools with self-guided tours are sending a conscious message "we don't have to do anything to convince you how great we are" - they will fill all their places no matter what. That doesn't mean they are bad schools - the same situation could be either a positive endorsement or a red flag depending on how deserved the reputation is.

My kids go to a private school in outer London and my son was doing open day tours yesterday.

For secondaries, the sheer numbers are hard to cater for in an individual way (I couldn't believe how many cars were coming out as I drove in). I suspect quite a lot also comes down to the tour and how chatty your guide is.

My son had a mum and son for his tour but his friend had four families who each wanted to see every subject classroom (for sixth form entry) so the tour took 2 hours and probably felt a bit endless.

Our school is heavily over-subscribed (and academically selective) so it's a case of trying to put on a decent open day for the numbers attending. The marketing material is quite slick but they don't have the time or need to do much more. Prep school open days tend to be more personalised as they don't have hundreds of people visiting.

This is bad advice given how competitive applications are.

I'd ask around and try to get a feel for the schools from other parents. I never understand why schools use student guides- DS's school used to do this and it was crazy. They told the kids they have to come in and show people round, giving up their Saturdays. The prospective parents would then the kids a load of inappropriate questions about A level grades and Oxbridge success rates, as if they were talking to the head of admissions, which the kids quite rightly had no idea about 😂 They now do self-guided with teachers and kids in the classrooms to demonstrate things and answer questions and I think that's much better.

Exactly this - private schools are banker schools if we don't get into the preferred two state schools.

Yes these private schools are super competitive but if I'm going to part with £25k/year x 7 years then I was expecting a bit more woo'ing, not a bell sounding which the email said is time for me to f off!

I bet the preferred two state schools are academic selective.

A lot of parents think academic selective state schools are essential "free" private schools but the fact is for many reasons it isn't.

The parents just want the "academic select" part characteristic of the schools.

I bet the preferred two state schools are academic selective.

One is based on random allocation within a catchment area and the second is based on distance. Both produce well above average results.

A couple of the schools we visited in London limited us to visiting only in the year before admission and only one parent could attend with the child. It was still absolutely rammed even with the imposed restrictions.

The reality is that every child is sitting for numerous schools these days and so demand for open days has increased rapidly. There just wouldn’t have been enough tour guides to go round I imagine to give you a personalised experience.

As for the bell, the students and staff need to get home. It can’t be an open ended thing. Much easier to do that than try and herd everyone out manually.

When you go to these things I think it’s an opportunity to see the facilities and get a general feel for things. It’s far less about the specifics.

To be honest I was more put off by the class sizes at some of the schools, some of them had 25 in a class. One of our main reasons for wanting private was small class sizes so we discounted them purely based on that. All schools with amazing reputations but I felt victims of their popularity.

If you look at less sought after schools further out of London then, as a general rule, you’ll get a much better open day experience.

Everyone there is willing to spend £25k a year. The school will fill their places. Rather than feeling miffed about not being special think about what the facilities and pupils were like. What was the Headmaster/headmistress like. Would your child fit.

Applying to only one would be extremely brave.

What is the open day experience of these two school like? Tax payer money well spent?

Obv don’t know which schools you’re applying to but for the more academic private schools in London there can be 10+ applicants a place, so they’re not really suitable as “bankers”. The London private school market is v different from lots of private schools outside London, where they do indeed want your money and are happy to woo you. In London it’s the other way round.

I’d suggest some more research on the process and entrance tests etc- the boards on MN are usually quite helpful. Do bear in mind that the majority of applicants will be tutored for the entrance tests- not all but enough that it makes it harder for non-tutored applicants.

“One is based on random allocation within a catchment area and the second is based on distance. Both produce well above average results.”

Another bet is both schools are in London prime location catchments with other ability intake routes, e.g. doing band and etc.

Open Days anywhere in outer London are rammed. Our local state school is so rammed that the Police and Council have to manage the local roads on Open Evening with usually 30-60 minutes at the end when no car can move. The tours themselves are so packed that there is gridlock in the corridors too.

I agree it's a poor show that some of your tours have been self-guided. DC was helping at their school yesterday - fortunately in a subject room but still 4 hours on a Saturday. Some of their friends conducted 4 tours of a large site in that time. I expect they were less enthusiastic towards the end.

A lot of private schools to a very 'open' open day but also have a bookable evening which is much friendlier. I'd try those if that's an option for you.

@DibbleDooDah Unless your DC specifically needs a small class size, I wouldn’t reject a school based on 25 in a class in the lower years.

Our experience (30+ state primary class to selective independent with up to 25 in some classes) is that the experience is hugely different between the two. The class size matters much more where the range of abilities is very wide, I think. The secondary has much smaller groups for some classes like PSHE, and certainly the teachers (even in the larger classes) seem to know my DC as an individual.

Another bet is both schools are in London prime location catchments with other ability intake routes, e.g. doing band and etc

Nope. Other than children in care and children of employees all other routes into the school are purely based on catchment. No test, no music or other ability which gives priority.

@HighRopes My DC has a hearing issue so class size is important. Not just to help with hearing but also if she needs help during the lesson.

Otherwise I agree with you.

Sorry but that is just not true. Most schools still do 10 gcses.

For both schools? Or just one of them? If results are well above average without other intake element the catchment location must be prime.

Without all these factors the only other factor is some extreme discipline teaching approach.

My son had a mum and son for his tour but his friend had four families who each wanted to see every subject classroom

How completely unbearable the moneyed middle classes have become.

Without all these factors the only other factor is some extreme discipline teaching approach.

Both schools have this approach. And it's one which I feel would work well with my son.

Anyhow this isn't what this thread is about. This thread is about schools who make little effort at the sales stage.

Don't think that is correct.

In 2021, 12.9% students in England took 10 GCSEs compared to 27.1% who took 9.

Only 15% took 10 or more.
85% took 9 or fewer.

The numbers are similar for the previous three years too.

Source : https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infographic-gcse-results-2021/infographics-for-gcses-2021-accesible

"This thread is about schools who make little effort at the sales stage."

Why would you expect the school use current fee paying parents money to make an effort to attract future fee paying parents? If they already oversubscribed.

My daughter attended 3 private schools (1 primary and two secondary) and all had very warm welcoming tours. However, I noticed that the more famous the school the less welcoming the open day, as they arrogantly assume that parents will apply anyway (which put me off).

If you're anywhere near North London, my daughter's school is having a Saturday open day on 30th October 😁 My daughter will be there doing some of the tours- not sure what impression she'll make 🤣but the school is lovely

The source here does not include private schools (and iGCSE)

@Spirallingdownwards i did a lot of work researching this three years ago when looking. That’s a common misconception and the data is released annually. It definitely used to be the case but has changed. You can see it here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infographic-gcse-results-2023/infographics-for-gcse-results-2023-accessible#number-of-gcses-taken-in-2023-by-16-year-olds-in-england
The average across England is actually 7-8.
WHS, one of the more popular London schools does 9, Surbiton, offers four pathways leading to 8, 9 or 10, Kingston Grammar, 9. Yea, there are schools still doing 10, like Hampton which is mentioned here, and some of the grammars, but then if you drill into who is actually ending up sitting 10, it won’t be the whole year - when we visited with our Dd a lot of the schools on ten were saying they will lose a gcse if they can’t ‘keep up’ which worried me a lot. This was a massive thing for us when looking for DD and I think the ‘more the merrier’ approach to GCSEs is a thing of the past. Now looking again for DD2 and even over the past three years I’m seeing a lot of the schools that were doing 10 are now doing 9. Of course they offer, as DD1’s school does, “extras” like astronomy, Greek, further maths, Russian, Italian etc as after school courses, but there is most definitely more schools now than when we last looked who are doing 8 or 9 as standard.
im not saying oP shouldn’t consider this - I think GCSEs offered is one of the main considerations (it was for us) but it’s incorrect to think that most schools are still doing 10 for all.