Open days are weird. You queue up with 200 other parents. You get shown round by Year 10s in shiny shoes, watch a bit of a science demo, and leave feeling either over-impressed or vaguely uneasy. Either way, you've usually learned almost nothing useful for the actual decision you're trying to make. Most parents come away knowing more about the school's exam results than about whether their own child would actually thrive there.
That's the problem with grammar school open days. They're sales events. Polished, well-scripted, designed to leave a particular impression. If you want real information you have to ask for it. And most parents don't, because they don't know what to ask.
Sound familiar? Here's how to fix it.
Go in with a list
You're going to be there for two or three hours. You'll meet the head, a couple of department leads, a handful of pupils, and probably someone from admissions. Each of those people knows different things and most of them won't volunteer anything that isn't on the script. Write down your questions before you go. Print them. Carry them around. There is nothing weird about a parent reading from a list.
If you don't, two things happen. You forget the question you actually came to ask. And you end up nodding politely while the head talks about Oxbridge offers, when what you really wanted to know was how the school handles a child who's gifted in maths but struggles with handwriting.
Questions about what life there is actually like
Start with the pupils, not the staff. Pupils will tell you the truth almost by accident. Ask them what time they got home last night. Ask how much homework they had this weekend. Ask whether they ever feel stressed and what happens when they do. Ask what the worst thing about the school is. The good ones will laugh and tell you. The well-trained ones will give you a corporate answer, and you'll learn something from that too.
If you want a single question that cuts through more than any other, try this. "If you could change one thing about this school, what would it be?" It puts the pupil in honest mode. The answer is almost never the polished line they were briefed to give.
Ask staff different things. Ask the head of year about pastoral support. How do they spot a child who's struggling? What's the procedure when a child is being bullied or excluded socially? Don't accept "we have a strong pastoral team" as an answer. Press for the actual process. A school that can describe it confidently has done it. A school that gives you a vague reassurance probably has not.
Questions about academics that go beyond results
Every grammar school will hand you a glossy sheet showing GCSE and A-level results. Ignore it for a moment. Ask instead about what happens to the children who don't end up at the top of the year. How does the school stretch a child who's already two years ahead in maths? What support is there for a strong all-rounder who hits a wall in Year 9? How is set movement handled? Is it fixed, or do children move up and down between sets through the year?
If your child has any kind of special educational need, even a mild one, ask directly how the school accommodates it. Some grammar schools are excellent at this and have proper SENCO provision. Others are quietly built around the assumption that everyone is academically uniform. They will struggle if you bring them anything different. You won't get this from the prospectus.
Ask what the typical homework load looks like in Year 7. Then ask what it looks like in Year 9. The honest answer for most grammar schools is "a lot". Worth knowing in advance.
Questions about the jump from primary to grammar
The first half of Year 7 is the hardest period for most grammar school children. They go from being top of the class at primary to being middle of a much sharper pack. Some take it in their stride. Some genuinely wobble. Ask the school what it does to support that transition.
Specifically, ask how the new Year 7s are grouped. Are they mixed by primary school, or kept together with friends from the same one? How does the school handle the academic gap between children who arrived from prep schools and children who came from state primaries? What happens in the first half term to settle them?
A school that's thought hard about this will have a clear answer. A school that hasn't will say something like "we have a robust induction programme" and move on. That's a tell.
Questions about the bits no one mentions
A few things almost never come up in the standard talk. Ask them anyway.
How big are the classes, in actual numbers, not the published average? In some Berkshire and Buckinghamshire grammars the official class size is 30 but the practical experience varies a lot by setting and subject. How long is the school day? Some grammars run 8.30 to 4.00. Others are closer to 8.45 to 3.30. That matters if you're commuting in from a village. What about after-school clubs: are they free, paid, compulsory, optional?
How often does the school communicate with parents? Some send a weekly note. Others go silent for months and you find out at parents' evening that something was off. If you're the kind of parent who wants visibility, you need to know which kind of school this is.
If your child is likely to need to travel, ask about the practicalities. Where do the school buses go? Is there a late bus for after-school activities? What do other families in your area do for the journey? In Reading, parents from Caversham or Earley often share lifts to schools like Reading School or Kendrick. In Buckinghamshire, the bus network around the Aylesbury and Chesham grammars matters more than people expect when they're choosing.
What to do once you're back home
Write your impressions down the same evening. Two days later they all blur together. Note what your child said about it, not just what you thought. Children pick up on things adults miss. They'll tell you which corridor felt friendly and which one felt cold, and that intuition is worth listening to.
Then compare schools using the same questions. If you've asked five schools about pastoral care and only one gave you a substantive answer, that tells you something. If you've asked about set movement and only one school had a clear policy, that's data.
Open days are a snapshot, not a full picture. Combine them with the school's Ofsted, results, parent forums, and conversations with families whose children already attend. No single source is enough. But going to an open day with the right questions is much better than going with no plan at all.
Want to know whether your child is on track for the grammar school you're considering before you commit to a year of prep? ReadyFor11 is a free benchmark test that scores your child across the four 11 plus skill areas in about 30 minutes. You'll get a band score and a clear read on where your child stands. Take it at readyfor11.co.uk.
FAQs
Should we visit grammar schools more than once before applying?
If the school runs a second visit option, take it. Open days are stage-managed. A weekday tour, if they offer one, gives a much truer picture. You'll see real lessons, real corridors at break, and real pupils not in their best uniform. Worth the half day off work.
My child is in Year 4. Is it too early to go to open days?
No, and going early is one of the smartest things you can do. You don't have to commit to anything. Walking around a few schools in Year 4 helps you decide whether grammar is even the right path before you spend a year prepping for an exam. It also gives your child a vague image of what they're working towards, which makes the prep feel less abstract.
What questions should my child ask, not me?
Anything they want to. Children's questions tend to be better than parents'. Mine asked one head whether the food was any good and got an honest, slightly embarrassed answer. He also asked a Year 7 if she missed her primary school friends. That gave us more useful info than half the parent questions combined.
Are virtual open days worth it?
For a first-pass shortlist, yes. They save you a Saturday and you can see roughly what the school is about. But they're not a substitute for being in the building. If a school is on your real list, go in person. The atmosphere of a school is something you have to feel.