Exam results don’t always reflect the reality at a school - Julia Polley

Choosing a secondary school is one of the biggest decisions a parent will make. It is also one of the hardest. While it’s natural to look first at exam results - they matter, and they always will - after nearly three decades in education, I can tell you that a results table only ever tells you part of the story.

This summer, Wensleydale was inspected under Ofsted's new framework and awarded a Strong standard for Inclusion - one of the first secondary schools in North Yorkshire to receive it. I am proud of that. But what struck me most about the new framework is that it looks beyond a single headline judgement and takes in the fuller picture of what a school actually gives a child: their relationships, their confidence, their sense of what comes next. That, in my experience, is exactly what parents should be looking for too. And with the government now pushing inclusion up the national agenda through its schools white paper, it's what every school should be asked to show.

So when you walk through the school gates, what should you actually be looking for? Ignore the open evening banners. Ask to visit on an ordinary Tuesday morning and ask to meet the headteacher. I give every prospective family their tour personally, because I want them to see the school as it really is, not as it's staged to be. Watch how pupils greet the staff. Do they use first names? Is there eye contact, genuine warmth, the kind of interaction that can't be faked for a visitor? In a small school, those moments aren't manufactured, they're simply what happens when nobody gets lost in the crowd.

Look too at what high expectations actually look like day-to-day. It isn't shouting or rigid enforcement. It's calm corridors, pupils who know the routines well enough not to need reminding, a uniform policy pupils understand the reason for rather than resent. A school with genuinely high expectations rarely needs to raise its voice.

On results, context matters more than people realise. A school that is genuinely inclusive - one that welcomes the full range of ability and need, from the most academically gifted to pupils with SEND and EHCPs - will sometimes see that reflected in its data.

In 2018, we admitted a group of Year 11 pupils with very high needs. It was the right decision for those children, and every one of them moved on to a positive next step. But it affected our headline results that year. A spreadsheet cannot measure human context, and parents comparing schools should always ask what sits behind the numbers, not just what the numbers say. It's a point I hope isn't lost as the national conversation about inclusion moves from white paper to reality.

None of this means exams don't matter. It means they aren't the whole point. I tell our pupils, often, that we are preparing them for life, not just for a set of papers in the summer. That means resilience. It means being able to hold a conversation, cope when something goes wrong, and know that effort counts for more than natural talent. It means understanding that every workplace has its own unwritten rules about behaviour and respect. So we make ours explicit here, rather than leaving pupils to guess.

It also means opportunities beyond the classroom. We serve an 800 square kilometre rural catchment, where traditional after-school clubs simply don't work for every family. So we built enrichment into the school day itself, as an entitlement for everyone, not a privilege for those who can get a lift home late.

When you next visit a school, don't just ask about results. Think about whether your child will be seen there. That, more than any grade, is what will determine whether they thrive.

Julia Polley is the headteacher at Wensleydale School.