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Call around your local schools, some will be offering tours - probably out of school hours, some will have virtual tours. See if you can speak to the head teacher and or SENCO. You might decide that the most local school is the best option so they have local friends and will have the same friends at most extra curricular groups, or it might be that there's one a little further away that just "feels right". We moved areas just before our (birth) son's school application had to be in. We looked online and emailed 5 schools, only 3 replied. We picked our top 2 to look around and, although they were both fine, I just didn't like them. I panicked and called the third and they said "the head teacher likes to show everyone around and she's watching her son's Christmas concert this afternoon, can I (receptionist) show you around and the Head call you later". I was sold in that phone call knowing that the Head Teacher wanted to show every parent around herself but even more so that she put her own child first.

Hu TechGeeks

It sounds like you are adopting a child already at primary school. If you can, visit your child's existing primary school. Hopefully, this will give you a first hand insight into what your older child needs from their new school. As you will already know, changing schools can be such an almighty upheaval for our children, on top of everything else they will be going through i.e. leaving their foster family, moving to a new area and meeting you and their new family for the first time etc.

We adopted a 6 and 7 year old. The best thing my partner and I ever did was to go and visit our children's primary school. It was the "birth family" primary school i.e. their siblings had attended or were still there. The school was right in the middle of an inner city council estate and clearly had a very strong, caring and supportive bond not only with our children, but with the entire birth family. We met all our children's teachers and the head teacher etc. It was both a humbling and joyous experience. We learnt so many wonderful and valuable things about our children to be and it helped us to decide on their new primary school i.e. a similar school with similar values and demographics etc.

When I look back, I think we made a good choice of primary school. I wish you luck, it is a very difficult choice to make, especially when you don't know your children. Easier said than done I know! But try to stay calm and take your time, it may not feel like it, but time is on your side :-)

Hope this helps.

Simon x

I'd email the virtual school for your Local Authority and ask which local schools they have a good relationship with as a means of short listing; they can also probably provide resources to sign post things you should be looking for in a school. It would be useful to find out about the size of current school as it's probably a good indication of the size of schools you should be considering.

I've not found a school that is happy to do an in-person tour at the moment, but all have been happy to arrange zoom/teams meetings. AdoptionUK have some good school finding resources too.

You've had some good advice so far, I would certainly speak to Head/SENCO. Just to add a couple of extra things. All schools have to have a designated teacher for looked after and previously looked after children. I'd make sure you know who this person is and maybe speak to them.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/designated-teacher-for-looked-after-children

Also, to have in mind some questions you want to ask before speaking to anyone at the school. For example, knowledge of attachment issues, experience with adopted children, training for staff on these issues, asking about and looking for visual clues in classroom on behaviour approaches, how pupil premium funding is used.

Hi, I have just bumped a thread with an excellent post from Becky for you. Good luck.

I'm sure others will have mentioned this already, but it might be worth looking into Trauma-friendly/ attachment-aware schools. Other than that, it might be good to look for a school that is Unicef Rights aware or Rights respecting. Steiner schools might be your bag too, and other than that, there is homeschooling and unschooling that you might be interested in.

Hope this helps !!