HELP! Need to find school as moving near Peterborough

[allboysclub]

Hi, I have recently found out that dh's work is moving to Peterborough in 6 months time, so will have to move house as it will be too far to commute for an extended period. We are hoping to live just south, at least within 3 miles or so.
Ds1 is in year 6 currently, so would need to find a secondary school with available places as it has gone past any deadline for the new intake at year 7 in september. Unfortunately all the schools I have managed to find on the net so far have in excess of 1000 pupils, some as high as 2400! Are there any schools in/near Peterborough which are smaller? My son has ADHD with impulse problems, and altough quite bright, is easily lead. I am worried that he would flounder in a larger school.
I dont rely on league lables, so am currently trawling through OFSTED reports, but I realise that is not the whole story either. We will be totally new to Peterborough, so i am after some advice here from anyone established in the area.
Any responses would be VERY welcome.

[coppertop]

I'm in P'boro if that's any help? My 2 boys are much younger than yours so I don't have any recent experience of the secondary schools but went to school here myself.

I agree that the league tables can be very misleading. The schools at the top of the local league tables are far more selective than the average comp so it's not really a fair comparison IMHO.

There are plans to close some of the secondary schools and either merge them or turn them into one big Academy. This means that what might be a small school now will not necessarily be the case next September. IIRC the schools involved in this include:

John Mansfield School
Bretton Woods School
Walton School
Deacons School
Hereward Community School

[allboysclub]

OK, thats some help. I feel really sad that they keep merging the smaller schools. I feel that children can get very overwhelmed and feel 'lost' in the larger schools. I am also afraid that DS's special needs will be ignored, although that is not really the right word. How can teachers remember what particular child needs what specific strategies to deal with them if there are so many others in the school? How can they know any of them personally?

I will probably be ranted at by a school teacher now, but I have no personal experience of large schools - my secondary was 600 pupils, and I worked in one as a sci tech for 2 years with a role of only 450. I find the thought of 1000+ pupils scary myself, so lord knows how the kids feel.

[coppertop]

I agree. My boys both have autism but as they are so high-functioning they will almost certainly end up going to a mainstream secondary school (ds1 is already at a mainstream primary). The thought of him going to one of the bigger schools is downright scary!

Does your ds have a statement? If so then it's a lot more likely that he will get a place at the school you want as statemented children are given priority when allocating places.

[allboysclub]

No, he is not statemented, but at a lower level of special needs, "SA - special attention", although he was on SA+ until a few months ago, so they must think he is improving.
I think on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being statemented, and 1 being nonSEN, then he is a 3. I am even considering home schooling if I cannot find a suitable school, but I need to really think that option through as I have a toddler at home so it would be logistically difficult, but not impossible of course.