Primary/junior schools in Reigate - advice please!

[Karenp1980]

Hi

We're moving to Reigate and are hopefully going to buy a place on nr Park Lane East.

Looking at Surrey Council's website, it seems that Lime Tree would be our nearest primary school and The Priory our nearest junior school.

I have the following questions that I would be really grateful for some honest advice on:

1. Any reports on what Lime Tree is like? As it's a new school there are no Ofsted reports on it.
2. I have heard that the Priory's main feeder schools are Parish and Holmesdale. If our son doesn't go to one of these schools, is it possible to still get into the Priory? We would only be about 500m from the school gate (according to Surrey Council's website).
3. If Lime Tree wouldn't be a feeder school, would it be worth going private for the first few years to help get in to The Priory?

Gosh, moving house with a little one is tough; so much more to think about!

Many thanks in advance and any other hints and tips would be gratefully revived!

Xxx

Hi - I don't know the area well but info on admissions for this year is on SCC website here. Seems to show that after siblings admissions policy is just distance, with the cut off for Sept 2014 intake being 1.422km for the last child admitted. Have a look at Priory's admission's policy as well to check this, which will be on their website and also on SCC's.

Hi
I live in Sandhills Road.
There was a proposal to introduce a feeder link but its been dropped by SCC after a huge furore and the fact that the Parish is a religious school it resulted in indirect discrimination. The Hunanist society and secular society and Crispin Blunt all jumped on board against it.

They've just passed a change to Priory admissions to change the sibling priority.

Lime tree is only there temporarily as it will move to Merstham so your nearest school will be classed as Sandcross. I've checked and re-checked there is nothing to stop you moving from sandcross to Priory for middle school. According to SCC preventing you from doing this would be classed as conditionality and in breach of school admissions code.

Dovers green came out this far this year but holmesdale and Parish didn't.

Hope that helps.

I should add Sandcross came out this far too this year.

This year threw up some real dramas in the admissions, so actually having sandcross as your nearest school is not a bad thing - at least you'll get in and have the option to transfer to the Priory. The Parish is a nightmare and some poor person for whom that is their nearest school got offered a school miles away!!

Private message me if you want to

Thank you so much for the responses guys - really helpful.

Let's hope our offer on the house is accepted!

Thanks again.

K