With T’s first term at school over and done with, it’s made me realise not only how fast each term is now going to go (where did those 6 weeks go?!) but how far T has come in the short space of time that he’s been in school. He’s doing really well mentally and academically, and I can honestly say that we chose the best school for him. It’s probably not the best in terms of stats and accolades, but to us, those numbers don’t matter as much in comparison to how comfortable your child will be in school, as well as how supported they will be if problems were to ever arise. As soon as we visited T’s school we knew we had found the right one.
As a same sex family we were naturally anxious when we were viewing schools. Researching Ofstead reports and school results are easy, but it’s the stuff in-between, probably the more important things; such as school policies and attitudes in and around the school, which was harder to research and look into.
We were probably the “nightmare parents” when it came to open evenings as we were the ones looking through library books, the artwork on the walls, and asking dozens of questions about equality and inclusion and, dare I say it, their bullying policy. Don’t be naive to think that bullying won’t happen – regardless of whether you’re from a minority group or not – but it’s still important to know how a school deals with issues after that’s important.