Visit to possible school

We visited a possible school for Boy H on Friday morning. We have shortlisted four schools and this one was at the bottom of our list as it’s the one that’s furthest away from the house (so we would need to drive him and the kids he meets at school won’t be local to our area) and it’s on the three-tier rather than the two-tier system (most schools in our area are on the two-tier system of primary and secondary schools as opposed to the three-tier system of lower/middle/upper school). On the plus side we know it’s a good school academically, but of course we have other considerations when choosing a school (such as their experience of looked-after children and the support they can provide). So anyway, we thought that since it was our least favourite ‘on paper’, it would be great to visit that one first to get some experience of visiting schools, meeting heads, asking questions etc. Well, we absolutely loved the school. The staff were brilliant, the school is not tiny but it’s not huge. The lower school is right next to it and all the kids move from lower to middle school at the same time, so any friends he’s made would be in the same group as him). It had a really good atmosphere. We watched every class and the kids seemed to be engaged and not bored. In fact we saw kids that I’d met in the nursery I volunteered at (I was really surprised they remembered me since they left last year!) and also a kid that used to be in Glen’s beaver dam. When we spoke to the headmistress she seemed to be really frank, thorough and interested in Boy H. To top it all, his teacher would be a woman who has two adopted children, so she’s very aware of the challenges of adoption and the behaviours of adopted children! We are absolutely delighted, but of course we have another three schools to visit, so we won’t make our minds up until we have. We’re also visiting Boy H’s current school next week, so we’ll be able to ask a lot of questions then. We will make the decision about which school he will go to with the input from his local authority and social workers, so their opinion will matter as well.