Any West Leeds parents around with RECENT experience of the following schools?

[ChateauneufDuTwat]

1. Crawshaw Academy

1. Pudsey Grangefield

1. Farnley Academy

1. Benton Park

Trying to decide on preferences for DD. Have visited Crawshaw and Grangefield and liked both and going to the last one tonight.

Farnley has an outstanding Ofsted rating but that was awarded in 2013 with no interim inspections since (is that normal?) so no idea if it's still merited.

Has anyone sent their DC to any of these schools and if so could you offer any info/opinions?

DD is super bright (I know, I know but she actually is) but also very into art and music - we want somewhere that is strong in both subjects but also generally academically focused.

Ideally I would've preferred to send her somewhere like Horsforth or Abbey Grange but both are non-starters for distance/religious reasons so we're trying to make the best choice from our realistic options.

Thank you for reading 🍷.

[ChateauneufDuTwat]

Hopeful Friday night bump

[ImpossibleMountain]

I don't know if this will be helpful or not but both my children attend/attended Morley Academy which is part of the Gorse Trust of which Farnley is part of. Outstanding like all the rest of them, they were the original turn it around school.

They are all very closely linked as as MAT so I believe the ethos is the same across the board. They are amazing, staff, pastoral, responsive, you can tick a box in the planner to ask for a phone call home, emails are responded to within a couple of days, they hold a lot of evenings for parents to show how they teach lessons which you attend with your child. They are incredibly strict on uniform too which I like.

My eldest child now attends their sixth form, again strict on clothing, come down on you hard if you are not putting effort in, want to see you succeed type attitude.

I know they took on a school geographically in the middle of Morley and Farnley (Bruntcliffe) because many parents were turning away from it and it was sinking. They have turned it around and improved the reputation of it.

Basically Morley is a no nonsense strict school. If you want the long read there was a TES article about Sir John (knighted for contribution to education) and he doesn't apologise for any of his methods, they work, it works, the results speak for themselves. www.tes.com/news/long-read-big-rewards-and-really-harsh-punishments-meet-man-who-says-he-has-behaviour-silver

Like I say don't know if that helps. Some of the Gorse websites have been hacked today, they have a virus on so if a message comes up saying prove you are not a robot kill the tab immediately, it contains ransom virus.