Bromfords or Beauchamps for Brandon

So we now have a big dilemma with Secondary School’s for Brandon and have until the end of the month to decide between the two schools in our catchment area.

When we were looking last year for Joshua, both me and Tina initially preferred Bromfords but couldn’t really put our finger on why we preferred it and what we didn’t like about Beauchamps, it was more a gut feel. Joshua was not convinced though and given that Beauchamps has the better Offsted report, better GSCE results and a lot of his friends were going there – we couldn’t really argue against his decision. Ultimately you send your kids to secondary school to get the best education possible and Beauchamps appeared to fit that criteria better and hence we put that down for his number one choice. We must have visited both schools about 6 times and on the final visit to Beauchamps me and Tina were specifically looking for a reason not to send him there and came away with nothing, in fact our perception of the school just got better each time we went making it even harder to argue against him. However, had Joshua of liked Bromfords then because our gut feel was that we preferred that school then at the time we would have happily put that down for his number one choice.

Brandon has been dragged around all the school visits last year when we were looking for Joshua and is very familiar with both schools. Currently it sounds like lots of his friends are choosing Bromfords and his preference is also Bromfords which is where our dilemma now lies. Since looking for Joshua last year that landscape has changed significantly and we have since heard some concerning things about Bromfords. The deputy head who we really liked and was primed to take the head teacher role has left because last year’s results where down and he was subsequently not offered the head teacher job which he was promised. We have also heard that they have a high turnaround of staff and a substantial use of substitute teachers. Perhaps more worrying though is recent reports of bullying and fighting at the school which has recently involved teachers getting hurt breaking fights up and the playgrounds and fields being temporarily closed off to the kids. None of this seems to bother Brandon, but it bothers us – a lot!.

Brandon cannot give any really strong reasons for his choice of Bromfords other than he thinks it is better geared up for sports and he thinks Beauchamps is very untidy, chewing gum under the desks and that the windows will fall out!!!! Logistically it makes no difference what school Brandon goes too. Both schools are within a 30 min walk from home but in opposite directions, but the boys would rarely, if ever, go to school together as they would meet up with their own friends. Hand-me-down uniform is not an issue as Joshua is so much bigger that anything Josh outgrows won’t fit Brandon for at least a year or two due to their size difference.

We are really struggling to make Brandon see what we believe is the sensible decision to choose Beauchamps. We could quite simply overrule his opinion and put Beauchamps as his number one choice and Bromfords as number two, but then our concern is whether he would not be comfortable at Beauchamps and would not be as motivated and enthusiastic given it wasn’t his first choice. In Abacus they keep telling the kids that it is their decision and they need to pick a school they are comfortable with in order to flourish and develop. So what to do?????