Welcome

Welcome!

Here begins the quest to make the right decision in where and when to send Poppet to school. What I expected to be a fairly straightforward option has become a complex process. Where once the idea was that we enrolled our children into the closest or most convenient school and sent them off with crisp new uniforms, shiny black shoes and a lunch box yet to have stickers applied, it seems to be no longer, then again, perhaps it was never like that, it was only my naive impression.

There are now countless experts who will tell you when and why to send you child to school, there are marketing professionals (very much like me) who will develop strategies on how to encourage you to send your child to their school, there are tactics to ensure a school will be amongst the highest achieving establishments and there are the opinions of every Mum whose child is at one of these schools. So how do we make the choice? What information do we gather? Whose advice should we rely on? What does actually make the best school? And then again, who is it best for, you or your child? Will they attend the religious school of your choice, regardless of what the academic standards or will they be sent to the most prestigious, simply because you can afford it?

I will embark on a campaign between now and January 2012 to make the decision for us. Along the way I will share with you the funny comments from the mums, the sheer marketing babble (I recognise it very clearly, as I often write it myself) the honesty direct from the students and the style of the teachers and principals.

Open days, phone calls, unorganised playground chats, newsletters, advertisements, school showbags and prospectus' all lead to influencing the decision, so these will be my source.

Join in and add your comments, but note this blog is not about degrading any schools, teachers or students, but about acknowledging they all differ slightly, and finding what is best for your family may not be as easy as you think!