How to choose a local secondary school

Finding the best secondary school for your child is not easy. There are considerations for today, like distance from home, quality of GCSE grades, after school activities, and there are considerations for 5 years down the line, like does it have a 6th form centre, what job prospects are there and so on.

With all these considerations, finding the right local secondary schools for your children requires some serious thought, and probably some input from your children themselves. So where do you start?

Firstly, search the locality. Look around your home or their current primary school in a realistic radius. You can now begin to make a shortlist of the schools which you might consider them going to.

Next, check the OFSTED reports. This allows you to see how good the school is and what OFSTED rating it achieved at last inspection. Here you can view links to OFSTED reports for local secondary schools and see for yourself how they got on.

Next, check the transport links. You need to find out whether you can get your child safely to and from the school and if the school runs its own school bus facility for your child to get on. It is important to consider how much additional time and resource you will need each day, as there are far fewer secondary schools than primary schools, so the local secondary schools will potentially be further away from your home.

Next, think about what you want your child to achieve at school. All schools offer a range of extra-curricular activities, some more important than others. You need to consider just how important sport or social activities are to your child’s development and whether the local secondary schools you are considering offer enough scope for your child to develop in this area. For some, this will not matter at all, for others, this is a huger factor in choosing a school.

Next, consider the quality of the catering and the school meals. This subject has attracted much publicity over the last 5 years and for good reason too. School meals need to be nutritious as this will have a big impact on your child’s development and their ability to both concentrate and learn. Ask the school for a sample menu if you are not sure what the facilities are like, they should be happy to provide you with one.

Finally, when picking the right local secondary schools, look at the job prospects or the availability of a 6th form beyond the 5 or so years at that school. This may not seem important now, but it is vital to think about where you want your child to be studying or working in years to come. If they have ambitions to go to university or want to follow a certain career path then this is well worth thinking about today.

With over 9,000 local secondary schools in the UK to choose from, or more realistically 10 or so around your home, it is important to make the right choice for your child and their development. Choose well now and reap the benefits later on.

For more information on local secondary schools or to see OFSTED reports and ratings for any schools you can visit localsecondaryschools.com and search your area.

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This release was published on openPR.