# Questions for school?



## flower power (Jun 8, 2008)

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone has any ideas of suitable questions I should be asking when I go to look at schools for a reception place next September. The open day is next week and I want to be prepared!
Our little man has been with us since July and has settled well with us and attendeds a local pre school for 2-3 sessions a week.
I'm aware that we have a fantastic opportunity being able to select the school of our choice and I don't want to waste it or get it wrong for him.
Any ideas would be great.
Thank you.


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## AoC (Oct 28, 2008)

Oooh, exciting!  You need to know how they handle comfort and soothing, and how they handle discipline.  Do they use punitive systems like yellow/red cards?  Or reward-based systems like accumulating points or earning privileges?  How do they expect you to handle drop-off if LO is distressed?  Has their SENCO any awareness of attachment difficulties, or the sorts of behaviours common among adopted children (a good 'closed' question on this might be have the staff had any training on attachment)?  What do they plan doing with the Pupil Premium money the school will get for having your LO?  How much homework are reception children expected to do?  How much of the learning is play-based, and how much structured?  How well can they manage situations where a single child might need to do things differently to the rest of their class?

One good tip I'll give you is find out if they've got any Christmas Fairs or anything coming up?  We managed to get Bug to two school fairs before he started, so by the time he went there, he connected school with games, prizes and cake!  He was DESPERATE to go!  LOL!

I know there are a lot of school-and-adopted-children horror stories, but our school is wonderful with Bug, and really know what they're doing.  

Good luck!


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