Questions to ask when looking at schools

Discussion of the 11 Plus

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ConfusedFather
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jul 13, 2015 9:35 pm

Re: Questions to ask when looking at schools

Post by ConfusedFather »

ToadMum wrote:'How strong a school's alumni is'.

:?

'How strong the alumni are'?(alumni is plural). An interesting question but not sure it's one many schools would be able to answer. Certainly my old school has never to my knowledge surveyed alumnae (it was all girls in my day) as to their physical development or exercise habits.

Do you mean 'is there a thriving "old pupils' organisation?'. Or 'how many people I might have heard of went to this school?'.

I suppose the former might be a sort of gauge as to how happy the school makes its pupils feel and how much loyalty it engenders. The latter might be mildly interesting but not really a deal-breaker, I would have thought.

Or do you mean, how much financial aid do old pupils give to the school?
I assume that the question regarding the alumni is to assess the networking potential of the school. Which, depending on the choice of career, maybe be quite an important choice. (I assume going to Eton may open many doors... and close some too)
Osho
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Aug 15, 2015 12:00 pm

Re: Questions to ask when looking at schools

Post by Osho »

The school open evenings are normally staged. One thing is for sure though, irrespective of all , it is ur kid who has to perform and set the standards. If the kid is not performing , then the best school and environment is all smoke and mirrors and it is all gonna end in tears.
Personally I think it might boil down to not what schools u like but what schools u get.
11+RiponGrammar
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 11:24 am

Re: Questions to ask when looking at schools

Post by 11+RiponGrammar »

I asked some of these questions last night at an open day and got some honest and frank answers, because they weren't expecting questions about bad behaviour etc, refreshingly I got the same answers after asking the same question to a few. Asked one student about the food, her response 'forget it, bring packed lunch' made me lol, in the next breathe she said was joking :lol: :lol: :lol:
Aethel
Posts: 1190
Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 6:24 pm

Re: Questions to ask when looking at schools

Post by Aethel »

This is more a question NOT to ask.... Overheard on a school tour today....

Parent A: have you looked at any other schools around here?

Parent B: yes, we're thinking of School A and school B because we live in <this place>

Parent A: have you thought about <grammar C>, it's quite near you?

Parent B: oh, we don't want *that* grammar, it's gone terribly downhill recently and they have an awful Ofsted.....

Parent A goes silent... guess where their older child goes.... :lol:
ToadMum
Posts: 11946
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:41 pm
Location: Essex

Re: Questions to ask when looking at schools

Post by ToadMum »

Tour of lower school site, hitherto visited not very local comp given to DD as a Non Ranked Allocation (otherwise known as Nearest Undersubscribed School), accompanied by two other DC obviously in the same situation, i.e. they had failed the 11+. But unlike DD, their parents had paid school fees for years for them to end up where we all were.

Mummy A: obsessed with whether every corner of the school and all the bits between were covered by the cctv, whether every single camera was working and whether they were all monitored every single moment of every single day.

Mummy B: disappointed that not getting a tour of the upper school site - a mile away - as well, because all she knew about the upper school was the violence and the drug taking.

Daddy B: What about the shooting? He knew all about the shooting, courtesy of his uncle, who had been working as a contractor at the chool at the time of the shooting.

Needless to say, in reality, where the cctv did or didn't reach and when it was or wasn't monitored wasn't an issue. The violence amounted to no more than average low-level disruption and guess what? The shooting never happened. Fortunately, though, families A and B chose to carry on in their beliefs, as DD reported that neither boy turned up in September. I don't know whether Mummy B ever found an alternative drug dealer :lol:
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
rit
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2022 6:34 pm

Re: Questions to ask when looking at schools

Post by rit »

Questions for teachers:

Extra support for students who can not finish up their HomeWorks or classwork, especially some subjects which they may not be good at?
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