Primary school advice

Forum for families to exchange information on children's activities, schools and share the travails of parenthood
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michaelehughes
Posts: 1
Joined: 27 Feb 2015 13:12
Location: London

Primary school advice

Post by michaelehughes »

Looking for some advice about primary schools. My wife and I are planning to move to Sydenham or Penge later this year to be near family in East Dulwich. Our daughter is still a couple of years from school age but obviously it's something we're thinking about, and we're flexible about where exactly we buy. Should we worry about being in the catchment of a particular school, or are they much of a muchness? To judge by Ofsted, the local primaries seem very hit and miss, but I'm inclined to take their ratings with a pinch of salt. Any thoughts or advice are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Pally
Posts: 1492
Joined: 2 Aug 2014 05:38
Location: Sydenham

Re: Primary school advice

Post by Pally »

Haseltine excellent.
Eliot Bank excellent

One at each end of the Sydenham area!
Suzee
Posts: 196
Joined: 7 Jul 2006 12:42
Location: Sydenham

Re: Primary school advice

Post by Suzee »

We're really happy with Kelvin Grove. The head and teachers are great and our son is doing well there.
We're on Sydenham/Penge border.... Not many close schools to choose from but the walk is good exercise :-)
Parkrunner
Posts: 27
Joined: 27 Jun 2014 21:56
Location: Sydenham

Re: Primary school advice

Post by Parkrunner »

You can find out the furthest distance of the last child accepted to each school last year on the Lewisham council website - obviously changes each year depending on volume of applications, but it gives you an idea, as you look at houses, which schools you'd be likely to get into from there.

To be honest, they're all pretty good now as the bad ones have had lots of resource thrown at them. Haseltine was failing 5 years ago, had a super head brought in and is now Ofsted outstanding. Adamsrill got a bad Ofsted last summer and as a result the super head from Grinling Gibbons (best state primary in the country according to Sunday Times parent power list) has been brought in to turn it around.

Eliot Bank has long been outstanding so has tiny catchment area and house prices in it reflect that! The church schools (St Bart's & St Michael's (both CoE); Philip Neri (RC)) are all good on their Ofsted and seem to get good results with the children. They have differing proportions of church vs non-church places and different church attendance requirements to qualify for the church places, so check those out well in advance (ie. years), if you are thinking of going down that route.

Can you tell we've been through the school application process fairly recently? :-)

In the end we went with Kelvin Grove and are very happy with our choice - son seems to be thriving. It was the head's no-nonsense attitude that swung it for us. He didn't speak in Ofsted jargon and at the open days, he gave parents' questions straight answers. The top end of the school is a very different demographic to the lower half of the school and the children's SATS results reflect that. We felt there was real drive and commitment to make it an excellent school for all children from the head, the teachers and the governors.

Most schools will run a couple of open days in the summer term, if you want to just go and get an early feel for some of them. Good luck with your choices ahead - both house-buying and school!
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