How to Choose the Right School
Choosing the correct school for your child is not easy. Schools will often do a good job ‘stage managing’ Open days to show the school in the best light. It’s important for parents to look beneath this veneer and gain a better understanding of the ‘heart’ of a school.
Jason Slack, the Head of Foundation, The King’s School in Macclesfield, offers a checklist of how parents might do this:
• Attend the Open Morning, but make sure that you speak to the children. Wonderfully, children are far too honest and will tell you ‘how it is’.
• Observe how pupils enter and leave the school at the start and end of the school day. Behaviour and body language of children will tell you a lot. How do they interact with each other? Do they look happy?
• Attend an extra-curricular event. Parents can pick up a lot about the atmosphere of a school from the side line ‘chinwag’ or interval chat at school events.
• Ask what positive lessons have been learnt during lockdown. It’s not all bad news: using online resources such as ‘Teams’ will have a lasting impact and application in strengthening the parental side of the partnership triangle of ‘School, Pupil, Parents’. Having a greater emphasis on outdoor education and valuing the outdoors as a teaching resource should also figure highly in any future curriculum developments.
• Ask how parents can get involved. A school with nothing to hide will engage with parents positively. Do the school run parental questionnaires and are the results published?
The last 18 months have worked to recalibrate the priorities of most parents. A more holistic approach of enjoyment and security is increasingly being valued, with broader skills such as resilience and perseverance occupying greater prominence.
