A headteachers’ guide to school open evenings

It’s open evening season and it might seem like the pressure is on as you explore corridors and classrooms to figure out whether a school is right for your child.

It’s like an alternative game show - you have two hours to make your way through a designated location, gathering as many clues as possible before making a choice.

What should parents be noticing? What questions should we be asking? For help, Bitesize turned to Sam Strickland, headteacher of Durston School in Northampton and the author of a few books on school leadership for his perspective.

The first thing to remember is there's no such thing as a ‘perfect school’ that caters equally well for all children. Every pupil is unique and so are their needs, interests and abilities.

If your child spends every weekend playing football, then you’ll be looking for a school with a high-performing team and top-range sports equipment. If your kid's a big reader then you’ll want a well-stocked library, access to free e-reader apps and extra-curricular book or writing clubs. Or if your child has SEND needs, you'll want to know they're going to be supported in a way that's right for them.

Sam says: “You want to have a really firm understanding of your child’s ability and any potential needs they might have. If they're not secondary-ready, they'd need additional support with literacy or numeracy, reading, writing, comprehension. It might be that my child is super bright and is forecast to be Oxbridge-bound in the future, so what's the support there?”

The challenge isn’t to find the best school in your area, it’s to find the best school for your individual child.

Schools are under pressure to put on a show during open evenings, which is why what you see often doesn’t really resemble a typical day. Maths treasure hunts, performing arts showcases, jazzy science demonstrations, spot the Shakespearean phrase quizzes - you get the idea.

If you can, Sam recommends seeing the school in operation during the day - phone or email them and request a visit. But if that’s not possible then here are some tips for finding out everything you can to help you make an informed decision about whether or not to apply.

You’re heading along a corridor to check out the French classrooms and notice the wall displays haven’t been updated for at least a year. It may seem like a small detail but this can tell you a lot about the school.

Sam Strickland says: “As I walk through the front door, I’d be looking at the state of the reception area. What kind of welcome does that give? What is the state of the classrooms, the corridors, the displays or the toilets?

“How warm and friendly are the staff? I know those open evenings can be quite faux in many regards, but you still get a sense of what people are like as human beings, as to whether they're personable or not. That will tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, something about behaviour."

He also recommends taking note of who is giving a speech or presentation. If it isn’t the headteacher, do they have an unavoidable emergency, or does their absence suggest they aren’t as interested in the running of the school as they should be.

Starting a new school is daunting for even the most confident of children. It’s not just the kids waking up in the night worrying about not making friends, parents are anxious too.

This is why Sam says the main things to think about are: “In Year Seven, you want your child to settle in quickly, to be accepted for who they are, for staff to take an interest in them and for them to make friends, because obviously it’s a big shake-up.”

He'd also ask staff for their views on the school: What's the quality of learning? Are they able to teach or does behaviour get in the way?

Sam recommends looking into the extra-curricular activities: “What’s the enrichment offering after school? What trips and visits do they offer? Does the school run Duke of Edinburgh? That gives you a sense of the broadness of the school and how invested staff are.”

Find out about what happens if your child needs extra support? Ask about how they ensure a smooth transition from primary to secondary - or from pre-school to reception if you're looking at primary schools. If there are any current pupils available to chat to, asking them about their typical day helps to build up a picture of school life.

GCSEs, A Levels and other qualifications may seem like a long way off but it’s worth considering them now. Which subjects do they offer? What support is there for your child if they are struggling? If your child is academically successful, are there acceleration or enrichment programmes? What careers support does the school offer?

Navigating SEND support can be challenging, particularly as every pupil is different. Sam says he'd want to know whether the senior leadership team have a teacher with SEND responsibilities: “That to me would signify that Special Educational Needs is being taken seriously and the headteacher is aware of what is going on.”

He would also ask about the size of the SEND department, whether there's a SEND hub or designated area and for details about interventions and support.

What is a SENCO and how can they support my child?

What is a school counsellor and how can they help my child?

He adds: “I would also ask about the approach with higher level teaching assistants. Is it that a child has a teaching assistant glued to them and follows them around the school? Some parents want that, some parents really don’t.”

Once the open evening is over, there is still plenty of research you can do to find out important information about the school that will help you make a decision. From Ofsted reports to the price of school trips, Sam recommends checking the school website for details of policies and leadership.

You’ve listened to the headteacher’s presentation, met some of the senior leadership team and chatted to the teaching staff. They all seem friendly and like they can be trusted to support your child as they transition to a new school. But what if there’s another layer of management with policies and decision-making powers you hadn’t been aware of?

These days, there are many ways a school can be run: they can be local authority schools, overseen by the council; they could be one of a number of schools all part of a multi-academy trust; or they could be a standalone single-academy trust. All of these mean a different level of autonomy for the headteacher and their leadership team.

If the school is part of a trust, there could be policies that are decided at a higher level so it makes sense to find out as much as you can about them from the trust’s own website.

We’ve all heard Ofsted results quoted with an accompanying facial expression - “Did you hear this school was graded exceptional” (impressed smile) or “That school was given needs improvement” (exaggerated grimace). But without some context it’s hard to know what a particular report really means.

Not only have the grades recently changed from an overall description to a five-point scorecard but some schools have been inspected recently and others not for years.

Sam says to look out for when the inspection took place on the cycle of Ofsted frameworks: “There’s a natural ebb and flow to Ofsted cycles, which I think is really difficult for parents. We know in the sector that in the first 18 months of a new framework everything is hard as nails. Then it softens, and you probably get the right balance in the middle window of an Ofsted regime, and then at the back end it feels like the better grades are not as difficult to attain.

“If a school has got straight ‘strongs’ under the new framework in every area in the first year of that Ofsted framework coming out, I’d say that is really, really top notch. Just because a school got outstanding in 2009, is it really still outstanding? I don't know.”

Sam suggests reading the school’s policies and home school agreements on its website before deciding whether to apply. For example, what are their detention or phone confiscation policies? The sanctions might come as a nasty surprise if, for example, the school has found them using their phone and has confiscated it until the end of the week, meaning they can’t text you to say they’re walking home.

He says: “I would also want to familiarise myself with the approach to homework. Some parents don’t believe in homework. Other parents will say, ‘Hang on, if my kid’s not getting homework, then how are we able to support them with their learning at home?’

“What's the school's approach to marking? Because inside the sector there’s a big thing about the efficacy and impact of marking, and trying to minimise it.

And then the style of teaching - is there an identikit model where everybody does the same thing in the same way, is it a bit of a hybrid approach or do all the teachers do their own thing?”

Many schools’ websites will have copies of letters they’ve sent to parents in the past - Sam recommends checking these for the average price of a school trip. He says: “It’s 3 December and you get a letter for a history trip to Berlin. It costs £1,050 and they're going in June. That's a real pressure for families.”

This article was published in September 2026

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