11 Plus Exams Forum

Seems a bit obvious, but how do you actually judge a school. I understand the Ofsted reports, however because these change during a five year period its difficult just to base the future of DS based on a single report.

I have not been to any open days yet, I guess this will give us a feeling of the school. Recently visited in passing Emanuel in Battersea and was impressed with the manor of the children there and the care they showed, certainly improved my initial thoughts from their website.

Trying to understand how to build a preference list, could I ask how people are looking forward to building theirs, I suppose from this I could then build the CAF entries that I will need soon enough.

Frankly....gut feeling. We have schools from diverse regions on our CAF. We were told to have back up schools or some very high on CAF. But we chose the schools which would be better suited to our son's personality. I would not choose the same schools for DS2. While filling the CAF, we each chose(me, DH, DS) our top 3 schools. Our opinions, for the top 2 coincided so that was good. The rest of 3 spots took loads of discussion. The 6th spot went to the local comp. Till now I and dh argue about the 3rd choice . Hope our dh gets in one of the top two choices or I and dh will fight till he is passes out of High School!!!

I think it is rather like finding a house that you want to live in. The best way to find out what you really want in a home is to see a lot of houses. Then you begin to refine your needs and understand what you dont want. Go to a lot of open days and go two years in a row and you will be surprised how different some of them seem. I think you will know the ones that suit you when you see them. Have a purpose to open days, target subject classrooms that are important to you. Ask about streaming and setting, do they sit the children boy, girl or are they allowed to sit with their friends. Check the range of A levels and the options for Triple Science GCSE. Find out how many sports they can do. Finally talk to lots of parents and collect as much data as you can find. DG