Sorry - what am I meant to be looking for in a secondary school?

[ahundredtimes]

We are touring schools.

I don't even know what I'm meant to be looking for.

Facilities? Happy pupils? Are teenagers happy though?

What else?

It's VERY hard. I went to a school with no rules but a lovely staircase. I don't feel qualified.

Tips would be welcome.

We are currently doing the rounds and it is a mare.
I've been to four and each time I feel like a little kid again...please Miss, can I use the loo?
One did have a particularly impressive staircase...but it was over an hour away.

which also means that any state school getting over 1000 is doing really well

non-selective state school, I should have said

you can find the most recent league tables here if you really want to look. I'd echo the advice from others - visit on a normal day, what are the relationships like, staff-students, students-students etc, how do they behave in the corridors, what are the extracurricular activities, what do they do/where do they go at lunchtime and breaktime, is the emphasis purely exams or on rounded education and what are the toilets and library like.

Thank you all. Have another open day this weekend, and then will try and see on a normal day. Shall spend this next open day insisting that my surly guide show me the loos.

Yurt - yes, I've done alright, in a fairly unorthodox way. I am good at winging it! This no doubt a result of my patchy education.

But your question does kind of get to the nub of my problem. Which is that half of me is obsessed by formal education and half of me thinks it is just a bit stressy and demanding. Hence not knowing what I'm meant to be looking for.

But I think I know now. So that's good. Thanks all.

plenty do, amicicissima.
and plenty of selective schools do FA in the way of improving attainment, they just rely on the baseline data and do the bare minimum.

The headmaster at my sons' school (in his open day speech to prospective parents) said his school educated boys who went on to become, amongst other things: doctors, lawyers, scientists, writers, artists, academics, politicians, dot com entrepreneurs, bankrupts and drug addicts. I liked that. I didn't want my lovely sons to be moulded into a type of boy. I wanted them to learn lots of really interesting exciting things from lots of really interested excited people and they really do.

Good luck with your search.