Schooling in London

[moviebuff]

Hi all - My son is 18 months at the moment but me & DH have already started getting worried about how to go about deciding which school to try for and which ones to avoid. We would like our son to get through an excellent primary school but also keeping very few prep schools in mind as a back up.
What I am interested to know is how do you all go about starting to look for the right school? I live in East London but we are renting and work in the city so we are happy to move anywhere for our son's schooling as long as we can commute from there by public trasport.
Looking forward to some expert tips here - TIA x

St Michael's in Highgate is excellent and lots of kids move on to Highgate senior from there. I think the catchment area is pretty small though.

If it's Highgate primary you're interested in you shouldn't have much of an issue. It's not one of the highly sought after ones in that patch. I think the last distance offered went out to over 1.5 miles last year which for London is huge.

Muswell Hill has several outstanding primaries to look at if you're considering North London. Lovely community as well. Have a look at Coldfall, Muswell Hill Primary and Rhodes Avenue. Prepreps to consider would be The avenue and Annemount.

Thank you all so much for all the information you have shared with me. I am considering all of your advises and hoping to shortlist a few schools to go and take a look at - state and private alike.
@Devina - I have PM'd you so please do reply when you get some time.
@Blu - Thank you for your advice on the cut off date - and if thats the case we have very few but great primaries to look at close to our home address. We have Blackheath, Kidbrooke in SE London and Muswell Hill, Mill Hill and Hampstead Suburb Gardens in North London as options. So will have to look up primaries around these areas specifically, otherwise have to opt for private.
@newmummycwharf1 - We went for the Open Day at SPCS and did not like what we saw. The school hardly had space and all the parents were cramped in to the classes we were visiting. The children looked bored and the canteen was extremely dirty (presumably just after lunch time). Just didnt feel right but maybe it was a wrong day for us to visit - not sure.

East London has the best schools!

user1489855835 - Could you give a few examples?

Oi, East London is massive bruv.

If I lived in Canary Wharf, I would definitely look at Forest.

Hi, to be safe, I would definitely apply to a few prep schools in east London as a back up- I like Forest school and City of London. I will likely send my child to an east London prep like Gatehouse school or Snaresbrook. I love Highgate too, but the reality is that the prep schools are highly oversubscribed there and many kids won't get their first or second choice. So for me I decided to stay east when the kids are young and then we'll probably move tO hampstead later on. I've just seen so many times people move their entire life banking on getting into a primary school and when it hasn't materialised be so disappointed and then stuck in an area too. Good luck and let me know if you have any questions xx

Bellini - Thanks a lot for your perspective and i think on the same lines. However lately I have been a bit worried about whether we should consider Primary school initially to save some money and then apply for Independent secondaries or not. It is all so confusing. I am not from the UK and did only my masters here so I am not familiar with what the school life in the UK is like and don't really know what my son will be losing out on if he goes to an outstanding primary vs getting through a selective private school.
I have been reading a few threads on mumsnet to get an idea and have realised that most people are of the view that there aren't too many decent state secondaries in London and thus opting for an independent secondary would be wise.
It would be very helpful to get a bit of clarity on this so that we can either decide to go live in an area where the primaries are outstanding (e.g - Muswell Hill) or stick to the area we are living in at the moment (CW) and send DS to a prep school that will prepare him for the independent secondaries like City of Boys/HABS etc.

There are hundreds of excellent state secondaries in London.

Not all, it is true. And not all areas have access to one. But frankly anyone who had the financial option to consider private at any stage has the capacity to choose an area with good state secondaries. Which are not always in the most expensive / fashionable / chic areas, either.

As said before be careful of catchment areas - our friends live in Muswell hill and just squeaked into an excellent state primary but the catchment radius is 310m from the school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And every year it gets about 10m smaller! Their neighbours 2 doors up the road were 'out of catchment' and ended up out of all catchments and were offered an 'undesirable' school about 30min bus ride away. So if you plan to move - keep this in mind!

Hello! This thread has been so helpful! I have sent u a pm pls check :)

Ellie2015 - Sorry it took me so long to reply to your post. Thank you for letting me know that you found this thread helpful. There has been such good advice here that I am very grateful to the lot who took out their time to tell me what they think as well.

I will reply to your PM shortly :)

Thanks a lot for the insight nat73 - we have heard similar stories as well. I have now realised that we will land up spending either ways - whether on a catchment property or on a private school so sending DS to a good private school seems more like making use of the money spent rather than spending on the property and then leaving it to chance to get an outstanding primary school. So I think as of now we are leaning towards the pre-prep/prep school but who knows if we change our mind by summer next year when we are actually planning to buy.

Would you mind what you decided to do in the end? Having a similar dilemma and would be great to hear how the visits went etc..

Hi Thisnameistaken - Believe it or not we are not in any better position since I wrote this thread. The only difference is we have now decided that we will go private. We have registered for a few schools for which our son has to sit a 4+ assessment to get through and currently deciding between 2 non selective pre prep schools to register with as a back up plan. Do let me know what you guys have planned :)