Best London state secondary school in your opinion?

If the school has a space, with no waiting list, it must be given to the next applicant, regardless of who they are (with exceptions for twice excluded children) and where they live. A catholic school cannot insist on that evidence if they have a space and only one applicant. The evidence is used to rank a waiting list, and cannot be used as a blanket entrance requirement.

I don’t know why I’m so invested in this, but if you follow the links. the poster actually used crime statistics for tower hamlets (a much bigger area) and not Whitechapel.

Population of tower hamlets - 348,804. Therefore probability of violent crime per head 0.00633594

Also you worked out Woodford wrong - on those figures it’s 0.0213512.

So your statistical likelihood of being in a violent incident appears to be higher in Woodford than Tower Hamlets.

If you are coming to look you could do a lot worse than coming to mass in South Woodford or wanstead and asking people with similar age children afterwards. There will be teachers as well as parents in the congregation.

Catholic schools are hugely huuugely oversubscribed especially those that have great results and it is a very rare situation that anybody resigns. Also, even if miracle happenes and you find a space for her then the same rules apply as for everybody there: the priest needs to sign the document stating that you and your child have been actively attending masses for last years. This can be from abroad but without proof that you are practicing family and of course baptism certificate you will not secure the place. The fact that she attended Catholic school will not be enough.

Thank you! With Catholic schools do you have to contact the schools direct and non-denomination it should be on the Borough website for vacancies?

Yes catholic directly, it's worth phoning/emailing as admissions stuff usually work some days during the holidays.

Actually, ime, the very best state faith schools often have vacancies after year 9. Their catchments tend to be leafy and parents tend to have had the noise to play the game to get their dc in. Many of those committed parents decide the schools aren't quite the ticket academically or socially for their DC and vacancies do arise further up the school, often at times when parents are less likely to uproot a child from another local school.

Usually yes - but grammars will also be their own admission authorities. Schools may also know themselves. There will be a place somewhere I’m sure. Woodford/wanstead is a lovely community and very safe for teenagers - although so are some other places mentioned, like Wimbledon and Sevenoaks. St Alban’s apparently also good for schools and would tick many boxes, although your commute would be longer (it really is quick from East London, and you could drive!)

Hello, just to add to above about Woodford - Woodbridge in Woodford and wanstead high in wanstead (next door) are both considered very good schools, and trinity the catholic comprehensive is also very good. Plus great area/community and relatively underrated due to being in the historically unfashionable east. If you lived between there wouldn’t be a bad option. There’s also the grammar school Woodford county girls - you never know where might have spaces.

school admin will typically reopen around the time of A-level results in mid-august.

oh & St Philomena's

Also there are less rules about headcounts so schools may be willing to squeeze another pupil in as it all adds up to extra money.

Good schools are oversubscribed and with waiting list.

It really depends on location. Many London schools have places where people moved out of London but you need to phone up the schools.

St Andrews is a good shout, excellent Catholic school. Living in somewhere like Worcester Park means you could be in reach of St Andrews, Ursuline & the New Malden one (Holy something).

Check which schools have places. Good schools are oversubscribed and with waiting list.

As has already been mentioned, you need schools with places. The most popular schools will be unlikely to have places, and most of the schools on this thread will fall into that category. Living close to any of these schools will put you high up the waiting list, but that isn't of any use unless a place becomes available. There is unlikely to be much movement now and you ideally don't want to have to appeal, as that will slow down her starting.

Flip things around and find out where has places. Ideally a school with a few places or a couple of schools nearby with places, so places will likely still be there once you move. You may just need to choose an area and get an address so you are ready to apply. As an aside if you are looking for rental, that is a competitive market, so I would get started on that and not overly focus on a particular school. If a school has a place and no waiting list, they will give you the place regardless of the distance you are living. Someone mentioned Haverstock had places, which might be worth a look. Hopefully there are other schools.

Not sure if you are aware, but Catholic schools are often popular even amongst those with no particular faith. This makes them more oversubscribed. Other areas known for good schools will attract families and also be more oversubscribed. For example the Borough of Sutton (not especially convenient for you) apparently has no spaces in any of it's secondary schools according to it's vacancy checker.

Given schools start in 5 weeks, I would start pretty quickly looking at rentals, find out about spaces nearby and apply as soon as you are able. Hopefully you will get a place you are happy with fairly quickly.

@GonnaGetGoingReturns Coloma is in Shirley (Croydon), not Purley. Purley is the other side of Croydon.

Woodford population 12, 833
Whitechapel - population 18, 841

So Woodford violent crime per head = 0.00007792
Whitechapel violent crime per head = 0.1179738

But that doesn't tell you anything about your likelihood of being a victim of violent crime, as it does not describe what sorts of crime they have aggregated. They won't all be stranger muggings - they will include the numbers of armed robberies of shops, drugs "wars" and gang related activity.

But yes, as a general rule, areas with higher rates of markers of deprivation tend to have higher crime. As do areas with more businesses and shops.

Even if those stats weren't meaningless, I'd rather take my chances in Whitechapel than live in Woodford any day

Basically, individual risk is calculated by the number of events / number of potential targets. The bigger the population, the lower the statistical risk per person.

But the larger the population, the smaller the risk of an individual encountering one of the violent events.

Please explain how that works. I don’t believe that to be true. Are you saying there are 10 times as many violent events, but having more people around acts as some sort of buffer or forcefield?