What to Expect During a Virtual School Open Day

Virtual open days were born in lockdown and survived because they turned out to be genuinely useful — above all for international families, working parents, and anyone trying to shortlist six schools without spending six Saturdays on the motorway. Most UK independent schools now run them as a permanent part of admissions.

But a virtual event is not just an open day with worse coffee. It changes what you can observe and what you can’t — and parents who understand that difference get real value from the format, while everyone else watches a webinar and learns nothing. Here’s what to expect, and how to work the format properly.

The Typical Format

Most virtual open days run 60–90 minutes and combine some or all of:

• A welcome from the Head — live or pre-recorded; your first read on leadership style and priorities
• A filmed campus tour — 360° walkthroughs, drone footage, or a pupil-led video tour of classrooms, facilities and boarding houses
• Live Q&A panels — the Head, senior staff, pastoral leads and current pupils, taking questions via chat
• Subject showcases — short presentations from department heads, useful if your child has a strong interest
• Dedicated sessions for boarders and international families — boarding life, guardianship, EAL support, travel logistics
• An admissions briefing — deadlines, assessments, scholarships and bursaries; have a pen ready, this section is pure logistics

What the Format Gives You — and What It Hides

Honesty first: a virtual open day shows you exactly what the school chose to film. You will not smell the dining hall, read the corridor atmosphere, or catch the unscripted moments that make in-person visits so revealing. Anyone who tells you a virtual event is equivalent to a visit is selling something.

What the format does give you is underrated:

• The live Q&A is your inspection window. It’s the one unscripted element of the event. Watch how staff handle questions they weren’t expecting: does the Head answer everything personally, or defer to the teacher who actually owns the topic? (The second is a good sign.) Are awkward questions — bullying, fees, staff turnover — answered directly or managed away?
• Pupil panellists are still pupils. Even curated children leak honesty. Their answers to “what would you change about the school?” are nearly as revealing on screen as in a corridor.
• Efficiency you can’t get anywhere else. Six schools in a fortnight, at zero travel cost, with recordings to rewatch. As a filter — deciding which two or three schools deserve an in-person visit or an application fee — the format is unbeatable.

The smart approach, and the one most experienced families now use: virtual events to build the shortlist, in-person visits to make the decision.

How to Prepare

• Treat it like an appointment, not a video. Calendar it, close the other tabs, use a laptop rather than a phone, and take notes. Half the value is lost by families who half-watch while cooking dinner.
• Prepare three questions in advance, and make them questions that force specifics — not “do you support wellbeing?” but “if my child was struggling to settle in their first month, what exactly would happen?” Submit them early; some schools take advance questions, and early submissions get airtime.
• Watch with your child if possible. Their reactions to the pupil panellists and the filmed tour are useful data — and for international families, watching together is often the first time the idea of a British school becomes real to them.
• Check the time zone twice. A 7pm GMT webinar is a very different commitment in Singapore than in Surrey. If the live slot is impossible, ask for the recording — but try to attend at least one event live, because the Q&A is where the value is.

The Follow-Up: Where Virtual Families Win or Lose

Here’s the part almost nobody does, and where the real advantage lies: the virtual open day is the beginning of the conversation, not the end. After the event, schools will happily arrange things they’d never offer unprompted:

• A one-to-one video call with admissions to discuss your child’s specific situation
• A call with the SENCO, EAL lead or houseparent if you have specific needs
• Connection with a current parent from your country or region — many schools keep informal networks for exactly this
• A recorded taster lesson or sample class for your child to watch

Ask for all of it. A school that engages generously at this stage is showing you how it treats families; a school that goes quiet once the webinar ends is showing you something too.

Virtual Red Flags

• Everything is pre-recorded, with no live element — you learned nothing the prospectus couldn’t tell you
• Questions are filtered to the flattering — if only softballs get answered, assume the hard ones had answers the school didn’t want to give
• No pupil voice at all — a school that won’t put its children on camera is managing its image harder than its culture
• The hard sell — pressure to register or pay deposits off the back of a webinar, before you’ve had any personal contact

The Bottom Line

A virtual open day can’t replace standing in a school — but it can tell you whether a school deserves your Saturday, your application fee, or your flight. Use it as the efficient filter it is, work the Q&A like an inspector, and treat the follow-up as part of the event.

Finding these events used to mean monitoring every school’s website individually — which is precisely the problem School Open Days was built to solve. Register free to see upcoming virtual, hybrid and in-person open days at independent schools and colleges across the UK, all in one calendar, with reminders before booking closes. Wherever in the world you’re watching from, your shortlist can start tonight.