Choosing Schools

My DS1 (3.5years) will be in Kinder next year and obviously then going to prep in 2017.

one of our good friends has a boy that will start prep next year so we have been discussing schools a fair bit. I know its still about 12 months till I need to actually choose a school, but I was wondering if people could give me some insight into how you chose your children's school.

It seems so hard to me to be able to pick what my DS would require in a school at this point. Will he be better suited to a small school (say approx. 350 students) or will he thrive in a big school (600+) students? We have a few schools around both home and work (all within a 15 min drive) that are not doing a catchment enrolment. The local school close to us has about 300 students but is very diverse in students and from what I have read has about 25% of students that don't have English as their first language. I don't mind the diversity culturally speaking for students where my kids go, but I am worried with such a high percentage that will require extra support it will mean my son is left a little to his own devices?

not sure if that makes sense... its just a big decision and id like to make sure I have taken everythin into account and make the best choice!

My best advise is to talk to parents from the potential schools and look at the education reviews. Then when you have narrowed down to a couple of maybes go and have a look in the kinder classroom and get a feel for the school culture. It is a hard choice, but at the end of the day most kids will do fine wherever they go.

It can be hard, have just gone through this recently due to moving.

My main advice is to ignore rumour. If someone says a school is good or bad, ask why. Often their opinion is based on hearsay or out of date. As Artechim as says talk to current parents and go for a look.
You can get a good feel at times.

Schools can change though, so what is good/bad one year, can change the next, especially if there is a change of principal.

Go and do a tour of the potential schools, get a feel for what they are offering and how they function as a school. We did a tour of the 2 local schools around here, even though my older children had already been to one of them. We still decided that we would look at everything with fresh eyes, things change in the years. We ended up sending our DD3 to the other primary school, and couldn't be happier. What they offered was a better fit for our DD, and we felt that she would have the extra assistance available should she need it. The attitude of the principal swayed us enormously too, one was just going through the motions, the other was genuinely interested in every child, and to this day he knows every child by name!

Good luck with your choices!