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Seeing is believing Only an open day can convince you a school is worth your money, says Rachel Johnson my son at Wellington, I should add). She had found the open day that exciting.

harterhouse. Wellington. Marlborough. St Paul’s Girls’. Latymer Upper. Francis Holland. South Hampstead school for girls. Westminster. Stowe. Eton. Sherborne… and those are only the open days I can remember. Once I seemed to spend my entire life in the company of one charming sixth-former plus many keen prospective parents, viewing paint-spattered art rooms/ sulphurous science blocks/steamy sports complexes. I thought if I had to see one more, I would curl up into a foetal ball in a passageway hung with gilt-inscribed honour boards, and sob.

Even if I resent it on the way there, on the way back from an open day, I tend to feel it has all been worth it, and always for the same reason. We had either liked the headmaster and what he had to say, or we had been won over by the honesty and fluency of the child who had shown us round. ‘I tend to make a choice based on the kids who take you round,’ says the novelist and journalist Allison Pearson. ‘An error, obviously, as they lock all the druggies and mentalists in the PE cupboard for the day.’

I didn’t see the point initially. After all, one Olympic swimming pool looks exactly like another. All boys’ study-bedrooms smell of stinky feet and have posters of Katy Perry. I know, and I don’t need to take a day off work to know I know.

Another problem with multiple open days is the husbands and fathers. My husband went to ‘School’, i.e. he is an Old Etonian. Women who are married to OEs will sympathise when I say it is particularly hard forcing them to visit other schools, because they will never accept that any other school can be anything but second best.

Catherine Faulks’s husband Edward went to Wellington not Eton, but he had the same response when he attended a Bedales open day for their eldest son. ‘It was bedlam,’ she recalls. ‘The children were doing bread-baking and interpretative dance, and there was a very girlie display of karate.’ And what did Edward think? ‘It was not nearly alpha male enough for him.’

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Visiting in person can be an unexpected eye-opener. ‘Years ago, we went to see a north London bluestocking girls’ school,’ says Pearson. ‘We were shown round and in this class were these tiny little girls, pale as veal, and on the board was the structure of the heart. They were only about six years old. Anthony said, “Christ, what’s for homework? Open heart surgery?” We were banished with dirty looks. When I expressed concern about the stress levels, one of the mothers there chirped: “Of course, they’ve all got anorexia in the sixth form, but it does offer a marvellous well-rounded education.” The headmistress’s lengthy pitch made no mention of education as such, merely the results towards which the little darlings would be working. We gave it a miss.’

So when I talk to independent schools, I always say the same thing: when parents come to open days, don’t bother decking out the shop window. Forget about the guided tour of the fives courts. What will matter to the parents is not the ‘arms race’ of your five-star facilities, or even your league table ranking, but this: do the children look happy at the school? Or do they look wretched? And what do they say?

But then, they did send their son there, which tells us a lot. The reason why these open days go on — and they are not time-costly just for parents, but an enormous commitment for the school too — is that during the day some chemistry often takes place. For example, after we went to Wellington my daughter said, ‘I don’t want to go to Wellington after GCSEs, I want to go now!’ (although she ended up at Marlborough and

But one thing, I’m afraid, is non-negotiable. You have to see a school, in person, both parents, and there’s no getting around it. Even if he’s an OE.

Rachel Johnson is editor-in-chief of the Lady. CARDIFFSIXTHFORMCOLLEGE

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