The other thing, when asking around other parents ask them "why?" they do or don't like a school. Some schools can have a reputation, good or bad, that when you look into it has no basis or is based on some silly prejudice. The best people to talk to are the ones who send their children to those schools, not the person who heard once from a neighbour's brother that the school was good or bad.
totally agree, this is why I suggested talk to parents at playgroups, kindy etc as many have children already at school.

I'm not sure where you are or what you are looking at private vs public, but remember many have waiting list and are doing interviews now. We need to get a move on, as one place we wanted to look into is currently doing interviews and the list is huge.

Also what are all the staff like, can you communicate easily with front of office staff as this is who you will be dealing with a lot. One lady couldn't even spare us a minute so they didn't get our vote.

We have a stupid amount of schools close by making our decision very hard. Arrrggghhh not fun is it.