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Choosing a Secondary School for Your Child
Primary Times have compiled some helpful advice to help take away some of the Secondary School selection stress and help you make the best decision for your family…
As parents, choosing a Secondary School for your child can be quite an overwhelming and emotional time. Whether it’s that you can’t quite believe how fast your little one has grown up, you’re concerned about making the right choice out of many, or you’re simply confused about your options – it can be difficult to know where to start with making a decision.
Where to Start?
The first port of call for a prospective parent is to check the websites of the local Schools – and you’ll find a wealth of information online regarding their ethos, school values, and even reports on their performance, funding and statistics.
It’s beneficial to do your homework on this and learn some key facts on the schools that are local to you. But, it’s widely agreed that to really have an accurate view of a school it is essential to visit their open days and see it for yourself.
What to Look for When Attending Open Days;
While a website can give you figures, a visit will reveal the school’s true atmosphere. How contented do the students look? An open day is an excellent opportunity to see if a schools’ students are happy and relaxed, if they seem to have a good relationship with their teachers and if behaviour is on a level that you would expect.
Where you can, it’s always useful to find out the head teacher’s ethos and how they currently implement the school values – as well as what plans they have for the improvement of the school in the future. Some good questions to start with would be;
What are the school’s current goals?
How are they supporting their students to achieve them?
If there’s a Head teacher’s talk scheduled, make sure to attend it! Or if the Head is present at the open event, don’t be afraid to approach them with a few of your questions.
When you get the chance, you should also always ask some students what they think of the school, if they like it, and how they feel about their teachers. Although the students you’ll come across will probably have been hand-picked by the staff, it’s likely that you can still get a good insight from them - there’s little more honest than a teenager’s opinion!
What Makes a Good Secondary School Ethos?
Is a secondary school ethos really that important? Well, yes - it is! And here’s why. The ethos gives a direct insight into the culture that the staff at a school have worked towards creating. It will be the basis of the learning environment that they’ve aimed to provide, and what they refer back to when faced with challenges in the classroom.
So, it is important when choosing a school for your child to pick one that has an ethos and a value system that you resonate with. To make it a little easier for you, we’ve picked some key aspects of a good school ethos for you to look out for.
A positive school culture is one that ‘CARES’ – look for an ethos that covers these five points;
Celebrating student’s achievements
Access to support
Respect in school relationships
Emotional wellbeing
Safe environment
Top Tip - Getting Ahead of the Game with Grammar Schools:
While you won’t usually start looking at secondary schools until your child is in year 6, where Grammar Schools are concerned you may want to start looking at local options when your child is in year 5, giving them time to prepare and sit the 11+ exam.
Dates for Your Diary
31st October - The deadline for applying for a secondary school place
1st March - Local councils will release offers for secondary school places