I'm here!
We don't all vote for John Redwood you know!
He once came canvassing down my road - he didn't knock on the doors himself, he sent somebody to knock and ask 'Would you like to speak to John Redwood?' I nearly asked how much it would cost, but I managed to restrain myself.....
Anyway, Winnersh was once a lovely little village, but it's grown rather a lot over the last 30 years & is now a bit of a sprawl, centering round a hellish crossroads with a big Sainsbury's. Avoid Rainbow Park....
Wokingham is expensive,but lovely ?we?ve lived here nearly 18 years. It?s now getting a bit more varied ethnically, which is good, but it still can?t be described as anything but predominantly white mc.
Sadly the children's bookshop, Chapter One, has now closed along with a good few other businesses. There have been plans to revamp the town centre over the last few years but they have so far come to nothing - the last one foundered when they got to the final planning stages before the council realised that they didn't own M&S's car park which they were planning to build over - and M&S said No....
I live in the southern part, not far from the big Tesco. There are about 30 nursery/infant/junior schools in the borough - a lot of the primaries are actually separate infant & junior schools. We're in the catchment for Wescott infants/Westende Junior, but the catchment areas are rather strange & need to be studied carefully before you choose your area - children from quite close to us also go to Walter County Infants/St Paul's Junior or Emmbrook Infant/Junior. There's also a high achieving over-subscribed Catholic Primary school, St Theresa's, but no corresponding Catholic Secondary.
I actually work at one of the Wokingham junior schools, & I don't want to (a) appear biased or (b) out myself, so it's a bit difficult to give advice ? also because there are so many schools & I don?t know a lot about many of them ?but feel free to ask any questions.
The secondary in Winnersh, assuming you mean The Forest is boys only - the corresponding girls school is The Holt, which is in Wokingham town, about 2.5 miles away. DD went there, but I really didn't like The Forest when I looked at it for DS, & I put him down for St Crispins instead, but I never found out if he would have got in (we're not in catchment)as he got a place at Reading Boys Grammar school. However this was 10 years ago & they have a new head, which takes away a lot of my reasons for not liking it....
The council have recently closed one of the borough schools -Ryeish Green, in Spencer's Wood, which had had falling numbers for years - they now only have a couple of year groups left. The council want to build a new school to the south/west, possibly on the site of Arborfield Garrison which is closing, but the strong rumours are that they will do it by moving The Emmbrook School which tends to flood whenever there is a heavy shower, but this is being strongly resisted by the parents who live nearby, and lobbied for by those who live in the south (I told you the catchment areas were complicated ? Embrook's is actually in two completely separate lumps.)
I am aware that I am now rambling, so perhaps I'd better shut up for now & just answer any questions you have....