One of the things I discovered quite early on when I started visiting schools as part of my job was that you can get a pretty good idea of what the school is like from the Reception. It made me realise that the old adage, first impressions count, really is true.
In the article linked to below, I was focusing on edtech companies rather than schools, but the principles are exactly the same.
At one of the schools I taught in, the headteacher once made an announcement in the staffroom to this effect: