You need to choose your child’s next school, but where do you start?! You know your child best, and that’s very valuable. You just need to find the right information to use in tandem with that personal knowledge, to identify the ideal school for them.
In this blog, we will cover the first steps parents need to take and the things they need to consider at the very start of thinking about choosing their child’s next school. These steps apply whether you are simply planning the move from primary to secondary school in your current area, or whether the family is relocating within or from outside the UK.
In next month’s blog, we will move on to explain how best to make a shortlist of schools. These will be the schools to which you apply. Our guidance will include refining your key criteria, planning school visits, who to speak to and what questions to ask!
How To Help Your Child Choose a School
- What do You Want?
Be clear about what is important to your family and your child. At the most basic level, you need to decide whether you want a co-ed or single-sex environment, and whether you want a state, state selective or independent school. After that, consider how close the school needs to be to home, and whether you want a day school or one that offers boarding or flexi-boarding.
Consider the entry requirements you are likely to face. A state school’s admissions criteria will be based primarily on a geographic catchment area, but state selective schools will have entrance exams, while academically selective independent schools will often have both exams and interviews. We will go on to look at academic selection in more detail. - What do You Need to Know?
Once you’ve established your basic criteria, you will need to research the schools that meet them. You can do your initial research online, viewing school websites and reading Ofsted reports or Independent Schools Inspectorate reports. Do remember to check when each inspection took place and whether there have been major changes since then, such as a change in Headteacher. The reviews undertaken by the Good Schools Guide is always a great additional resource, providing more insight into school life and culture than the official inspection reports alone.
If you are looking at secondary schools, it can be helpful to look at league tables as well as senior schools’ GCSE and A Level or IB results, and leavers’ destinations, but do remember that these results are attained by groups of individual children and cohorts might differ in ability and ambition. This is where Value Added figures can reveal a lot about the quality of teaching in schools, because the academic ability of each cohort can vary widely between schools at the point of admission, depending on their academic entrance requirements.
Are there certain subjects or school activities that matter most to your child? If so, look at the results, resources and time given to those areas, both in the curriculum and in extra-curricular activities such as sports and the arts. - Making a Longlist
To create an initial list of schools to consider, it is a good idea to focus initially on academic standards to ensure that your child will be able to cope, but also won’t be bored. It is vital that a child goes to an appropriate school. It can be as difficult for a child to go to a school that is below their academic level as it is to go to one which is beyond their ability. In both cases it can be a negative experience for the child, which is why it is essential to find out your child’s academic potential.
How do you know which schools offer the right academic level for your child? The first step in fact is to establish how our child is performing at school in relation to the national average and assess their academic potential to establish whether they should be looking at selective schools. Equipped with detailed academic knowledge of both your child and potential schools, you can create a longlist of potential destination schools that would be the best academic fit for them. - Visiting the Schools
Open Day events can give you an overview of the facilities and how a school rises to an occasion, but it’s also very important to visit schools during a typical working day. First impressions are very important. Just like buying a new house, you will get an immediate feel for a school, based on its architecture, atmosphere and people.
Pay attention to the class sizes and pastoral care, and whether students seem focused and well-behaved. Ask questions about extra-curricular activities on offer and whether the school has special resources that might fit your child’s interests, e.g. a music recording suite. Go back to the basic criteria you decided upon at the start of your school research and take along a list of things to look for and a list of questions about anything you are concerned about regarding the school.
Speak to students, parents and teachers at the schools if you can and make a definite point of meeting the Headteacher so you can ask about any specific issues you’ve identified from your research or through the local grapevine. Ask questions about discipline, anti-bullying measures, staff turnover and school trips, to help you get a feel for the environment.
Always take your child with you on school visits and watch their responses to the school as you move around it: do they seem engaged, relaxed and enthusiastic? Different schools have different styles and it is important to choose one where your child will feel comfortable and motivated. - When to Move?
Competition for school places is increasingly fierce, particularly for secondary schools and especially in London. Part of your early research into future school options might involve choosing the age at which you want your child to move schools. Many parents are seeking to avoid the highly competitive entry point at 11 plus, by using the 4+ and 7+ entry routes into selective independent schools, although one result of this is that children are now facing increased competition at a younger age.
The 11+ remains the major competitive entry point to both independent and state selective senior schools, as well as the standard start-point for state secondaries. Some combined day and boarding senior schools in the independent sector have also added two-year lower schools in recent years, therefore adding an 11 plus admissions opportunity to what used to be simply the 13+ Common Entrance admissions process. Even those schools with a 13 plus intake generally use ISEB pre-tests in Year 6 for entry in Year 9, so it pays to be prepared well in advance. - Knowing Your Child’s Academic Potential
It is crucial that you choose a school for your child that is academically appropriate for them. It’s not good either for children to be bored, or to be out of their depth and struggling to keep up in class. Therefore, it’s important that they aren’t pushed towards a school that it is too academic, or one that cannot meet their curiosity and need to learn at an appropriate level.
Assessing your child’s academic achievement and potential is a key step in finding out which schools might offer the right academic environment for them. A Dukes Tutoring Academic Assessment establishes how your child is performing at school in relation to the national average, identifies their strengths and weaknesses, and how they learn. Unlike most assessments on offer, it also assesses their academic potential, which can help establish whether they should be looking at academically selective schools.
To gain entry to most state selective schools, children need to be currently performing in the national top 5%, and have the potential to succeed and thrive in an academically ambitious environment. Children should only apply to schools that are appropriate for them, not tutored to get them into a school beyond their natural ability where they would ultimately struggle. We are of course very happy to provide tutoring to ensure that children can achieve their best in entrance exams, if the schools are a good fit! - What Next?
Equipped with detailed academic knowledge of both your child and any potential schools, you can create a longlist of potential destination schools that would be the best academic fit for them. The Dukes Tutoring school admissions experts can also help you at any stage in the selection process, drawing on our extensive knowledge of the schools themselves and our students who have successful applied to them. We can advise on local school moves, or on relocations from within or outside the UK, and we have a long-established track record of getting children into the right school for them.
Our advice is to do your homework early and if appropriate, ensure that your child has the right preparation to achieve a place at a school where they will thrive, be happy, and achieve their full potential. Listen to advice, listen to your child, and never assume that the “best school” for your child is always the one at the top of the league tables. It is always the school that best suits your individual child – academically, socially, ethically and geographically.