Ten questions that make a school tour actually useful

You do not need to perform intelligence on a tour. You need a few questions that cannot be answered with a leaflet, and enough quiet to notice the building while somebody talks.

Take a small notebook. Write the child’s name at the top, and the time of day you are walking. A Friday at 2 p.m. is a different school from a Tuesday at 10. If they only offer the glossy slot, still go — then ask whether you may stand at the gate at pickup another afternoon, from the pavement, like a civilised spy.

Before you walk in

Read the admissions page and, if it exists, the last inspection or accreditation letter. Circle one thing they are proud of and one thing they were asked to improve. You are not going to prosecute them. You are going to see whether the proud thing is visible and whether the weak thing is still a hole in the floor.

Leave at home: the league-table question, the “is this the best school in the city” question, and the speech about your child’s giftedness. You can mention a support file. You should. Bring the reports if they asked.

The ten questions

1. Where does a new child sit in the first week? Not metaphorically. An actual chair, an actual lunch table, an actual name they can use when they have forgotten the teacher’s. If the answer is only “a buddy system,” ask what the buddy does on day four, when the novelty has gone.

2. Who notices if a child goes quiet in November? A named person — class teacher, tutor, house dame, year-head — is better than a philosophy. Ask how that person would know. Some houses still believe children tell an adult. Many children tell a friend, or a silence.

3. What did you change last year because it was not good enough? Schools that can answer this are alive. Schools that look wounded are telling you something too. Follow with: and how do you know it is better?

4. How do you talk to parents when something is going wrong? Speed and tone matter more than a portal login. Ask for a recent, anonymised example: homework that collapsed, a friendship that went sharp, a language that did not arrive. You want to hear a human sentence, not a policy number.

5. What happens after 4 p.m.? Homework club, a dark bus, a pitch still full of shouting, paid after-school care until 18:00, a boarding house supper — these are different childhoods. If you will work late, this is the question that decides the school. Ask the price if it is not in the fee PDF.

6. Which children thrive here, and who needs a different kind of soil? Honest schools will risk the second half. Listen for age, language, noise, sport, and whether a quiet academic child is actually seen. “Everyone thrives” is a postcard.

7. How do you handle friendships that go sharp? Especially at 9, 13, and 16. Ask whether they separate, mediate, involve parents on day one, or wait. Ask what a child is supposed to do at 9 p.m. if they board and the corridor has turned.

8. What does “academic” mean in this building? Some houses mean silence and scores. Others mean a stubborn curiosity and a willingness to be wrong in public. Ask how a child who is brilliant at music and late to algebra is spoken about in a staff meeting.

9. May we see an ordinary classroom, not the show one? Then look at the desks. Work on the walls that is all the same colour was photocopied. Work that is a bit messy and named belongs to children. If they will not leave the theatre, that is data.

10. What are you proud of that will never fit on a prospectus? Then wait. The pause is the point. The good answers are small: a Friday choir, a teacher who still writes reports that sound like a person, the October arrival who had a joke by Advent.

If you only remember one extra: ask a pupil what they would tell their best friend before the first day. Thank them as if they have handed you a map, because they have.

Questions that belong to your brief

Add two or three that match the fridge list, not the internet.

Languages. How many hours of the host-country language, in which sets, and what does a January arrival do? From which grade does English support stop? Is mother-tongue a timetable subject or a privately paid extra?

Money. What does this year’s fee include? What did a typical Grade 6 family pay in extras last year — a range, not a promise? If an employer pays, who is liable when the invoice is late?

Support. Can you staff what is in this report? What would a 1:1 assistant cost? When do you say you are not the right school?

Leaving. For this child, which paper are we aiming at — IB, a national exam, a school diploma — and who has gone from this path to the universities we actually mean?

Boarding. Who is on duty when a child cannot sleep? How does Sunday evening feel? May we see a bedroom that is lived in?

What to watch when nobody is answering you

• Whether children step aside in a doorway, or expect you to
• Whether adults use children’s names, or “sweetheart” for everyone
• The sound of the dining room. Hungry and loud can be healthy. Brittle and loud is not
• Displays in a second language that look used
• A noticeboard with last week’s date, not last September’s open day
• How the guide speaks to the receptionist when they think you are looking at the trophies

Take ten minutes afterwards, in the car or on the tram, and write six lines while the feeling is still rude and honest. By supper you will have polished it into what you expected to feel.

After the tour

If you liked it, apply only when the file they asked for is actually ready. A rushed OpenApply with the wrong reports wastes a non-refundable fee.

If you did not like it, you are allowed to stop. You do not owe a famous campus a second visit to be polite.

If you liked it and your child went quiet, believe the child first, then ask them a smaller question: Was it the noise, the guide, or the idea of leaving your room? Those are three different noes.

Friendly orientation, not formal admissions advice. Always confirm dates with the school.