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Which primary in Highgate? St Joseph's RC or St Michael's C0E. Please, help.

5 replies

DoraOst · 13/11/2019 22:39

Dear Highgate Residents,
My son is to start reception in September 2019. I am hesitating between putting St Joseph's RC in Highgate or St Michael's CoE as my first choice. My son is already at the nursery at St Joseph's but I have just been to an open day at St Michael's and was very impressed. Which one of this school might be better academically and also in any other way? Thank you for your insight.

OP posts:
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LouMumsnet · 15/11/2019 14:28

Bumping this for you, OP.

Smile

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Paddington68 · 20/11/2019 07:08

Are you Catholic?

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jomaIone · 20/11/2019 07:14

Does either make a difference to which high school he will go to?

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DoraOst · 20/11/2019 08:00

Hello,
Yes, I am Catholic.
I do wonder about my son's options for secondary schools depending which primary we go for.

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Mutakirorikatum · 20/11/2019 12:09

I was sure I'd already replied to this thread - did you post an identical thread in a different topic?

Anyway: St Michael's is a long-standing middle-class sought-after 'honeypot' school, with a corresponding intake of able, well-supported children. Lots go private or state selective for secondary, and there's lots of tutoring en route. So read their SATs results with that in mind.

St Joseph's has a far more mixed intake, and has never been a 'fashionable' school among the middle-classes (although that might be changing?). They are not in any way trying to emulate a private school experience, so if you want that vibe, St Michael's might suit you better. What they do do fantastically well is to take a huge social and ethnic mix and achieve the highest standards for all of them, with lots of inspirational curricular and extra-curricular activities . My younger three dc went to St Josephs and have all commented at various points how shocked they were at secondary by the fact that many of their peers didn't know stuff that they'd covered years before in primary. St Joseph's was light-years better than the much more m/c primary my oldest dc had been to.

Most StJ dc go onto the local catholic secondaries - LSU for girls and St Aloysius for boys, although they also go to Parli, Camden, Ellis, Fortismere, Highgate Wood etc. A few go private or to state selectives, but this is very much a minority thing. The Catholic secondaries can't prioritise applicants on whether or not they went to a catholic primary school, so from that pov it doesn't matter which you choose.

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