personal review of brooklands primary and st margarets primary lee

[samster132]

i have a ds starting reception in 2013 and have been visiting local schools over the past few weeks. i have in the past looked for reviews here and have found them to be very useful, so just thought i'd share my thoughts here.

went to see brooklands yesterday. it wasn't even on my list of ones to see or apply for as we live about 900 m away, but i am so glad i went. my first impressions walking in on a rainy, gloomy autumn day weren't that great as the building looks a bit tired on the outside, but all that changed the minute i stepped inside. a delightful little school. good facilities - nice size of hall, open classrooms, lovely outside space, both paved and green. headmaster really in tune and very progressive in terms of finding new and effective ways to teach. he talked about giving the children projects: year 6 are opening up an onsite cafe and have done the entire business plan, advertising, layout, H&S themselves. year 5s were given a budget to organise a halloween party etc. so all about empowering the children. they look at individual needs of children and set targets accordingly. children all seemed very bright and sparky. very well behaved, well spoken. i didn't like the fact that there was no uniform, but got over that quite quickly. i would give it an A star.

last week, i saw st. margaret's in lee (400 m from where we live). 10 church places (which apparently never get completely filled - so church goers have a very good chance). 20 open places which are highly oversubscribed. last year's catchment area was 270 m i think. the building is nice - the facilities are great - really liked the library where the entire ceiling is a skylight - bright and airy classrooms - very clean. headmaster was a really nice likeable youngish man who was very keen to improve the facilities even more - talked about improving the outside space, repainting classrooms etc. deputy head was really lovely. came over while the children were giving us a show around and introduced herself - really nice touch. a lot of my DS's nursery friends are already there in reception and DS goes to a top notch nursery so i know that the current reception class is really good. wasn't overly impressed with Y6, but it may have been just the 2 children i got assigned to show me around - they were very well behaved, but not as charming as the 2 in brooklands. i really liked the school. really nice, community feel there. parents get involved quite a bit. kids are doing a cinderella production this year and they did all the designs from scratch -from dresses to shoes etc. apparently they did a lion king one not too long ago and the entire backdrop (which was in the hall and looked very impressive) was handpainted by one of the mums! school is not overly religious either, unlike All Saints, which I went to see 2 weeks ago, but that's another story for another time!

[ThatScrotumCat]

My son is at nursery at Brooklands, he is thriving there & I would love for him to offered a reception place there. Sadly I think he will miss out due to distance.

Opinions on All Saints would be very welcome OP.