How To Find A Good Secondary School
Choosing a good secondary school for your child can be a difficult process. Ralph Lucas gives his advice to VideoJug on finding and choosing a good secondary school.
Step 1: Plan ahead
Thinking about secondary schooling as early as possible, even before your child starts primary school, will give you the best chance of getting them into the school you want.
Secondary school will generally come with the primary schools in the state sector. You're looking at schools which will select geographically. Where you have chosen for a primary school will have a secondary school allocated with it. You should, when you have been thinking about where you should live generally, if that's the decision you've taken, have looked at what the secondary schools are like – so you've probably taken the decision some long while before that this is an area we like because the secondary schools are good. So you can look anytime, if it's a question of moving. If you're looking at an academic school, or a selective school in the private sector, then often you don't have to look far in advance. Often you will be able to get onto the list as late as a year before your child is likely to go. Some of the very selective schools, three four years ahead, but not much more than that.
Step 2: Do your research
Make your choice as educated as possible by finding out as much as you can about secondary schools in your area. Your local authority is a great place to start.
Look for the local authority brochure on secondary schools They give you a lot of information about where the school is, how many get in and where they get in from. So that's the basic starting point
You've got lots of ways of finding out if a secondary school is any good, because they're starting to produce real examination results, they're starting to include pupils that you can talk to almost as an adult. So, looking in from a distance – look at the Ofsted reports, look at the exam results, look at the prospectus. You can gather from that, and particularly from analytical sites like the GSG, how well a school is doing – against its peers, against any objectives that you set for the school – are the physics results good if your child is a budding scientist? Has it really got strong drama, is the music enticing? There's a lot more info there to look at.
Step 3: Visit the school
The only way to find out what a school is really like is to pay a visit and get a feel for how the school operates. Most schools have open days, or you might be able to arrange a personal visit.
Go round the school… talk to the children particularly, see whether they are the sort of children you would like your child to turn into; if what they're interested in is what your child is interested in, if they look as if they're the sort of people who will make friends with somebody like your child. And look for the things that you realty care about – whatever it might be. It'll be something that just happens to appeal to you or your child or be important to them. Make sure they're things that are freely talked about, are freely supported. If your child is someone who is likely to be bullied, you want to hear lots of stories about bullying being solved, about how easy it is to tell people how you feel, about how supportive the teachers and the other pupils are – if that's what's really happening in a school, you'll get told those stories without having to prompt too much. So you need to be out there and listening for what you care about and not allowing yourself to be focused by the school on whatever they think their particular high points are.
Step 4: Talk to the children
The pupils at a school are likely to be frank in their opinions, and much less concerned with a sales pitch than members of staff. When you visit a school, therefore, speak to the children and ask them how they feel about the school.
If something it really good, then the pupils will be enthusiastic about it. It's what they will talk about as you go round the school. If you ask them who their favourite teachers are, or what's really well taught here, they will tell you. They won't so much tell you about the bad ones, because pupils, when you're visiting a school, they will tend to be loyal about it.
Step 5: Know your child
The most important factor in choosing a school is making sure it is a place where your child will thrive. This relies on you knowing your own child and getting an accurate sense of whether a particular school will suit them.
You start with a real understanding of what your child is like – particularly their character. Because its how a school is going to respond to what your child does in that school – whether they're studious, whether they're disruptive, whether they like to play the fool, whether they really need discipline or inspiration to make them work – is the school set up for that kind of child. Schools' characters differ a lot particularly in that kind of area,
you should listen to your child, you should involve your child and take what they say into account, absolutely. Because they will be telling you things about a school that you don't sense any more. If you're taking your child round with you they will be getting a feel for how they as a personality will fit in with the personality of the school. That will come through to them much more directly than it would to you.
If you choose on that sort of basis, and that will involve looking around a school, getting a feel for whether what's on offer will suit your child, then you are going to be giving yourself the best chance of making a good choice.
