Private schools in SE11, SW1 or City (primary). Any recommendations?

[Tanzie]

Have had a poke about on the internet and have found nothing. A couple in Greenwich, but that is too far in the opposite direction. Also how soon do you need to get children's names down? We are potentially looking at Sept 06, with one going into Year One and one into Year Three. One school I found on the internet said children's names needed to be put down from birth! Also needs to be not remotely snobby/Sloane Rangerish otherwise we will not fit in. Also having a look for good state schools in the area, but they seem to be few and far between, the good ones only seem to take practising Catholics or have a catchment area of 300 metres.

Lyceum in the City of London
Not much to go on here and I could not find a website for them, but a friend is very, very pleased indeed with this independent school on the Islington fringes of the City. Worth a try Tanzie.
I wonder if one of the Greenwich ones you thought was too far afield is ds' school! It is darkest suburbia but it is non-selective, very unpretentious and wonderful.

What about St Olaves just off the A20 or there are some good boys prep and primary in Bromley/Bickley and Stratford Hpuse have started to take boys now?? (Although they may be out of the way for you!!)

Marina - which school is that in Greenwich? I looked at Pointer School stuff on the internet and tried to find one called, I think, Heath House? But nothing on it. Greenwich would mean going about 5 miles in the wrong direction, whereas SW1 or City would be going in the right direction for me to get to work, if you see what I mean.

My best option would be to stay here and I will do everything possible to try and stay on as long as possible, but I think the best I can hope for is another year, and then perhaps we should think seriously about where we want to live in UK.

We are other end of borough from Pointer so even further out from SE11, Tanzie. I will use CAT to tell you ds' school details if you like but I honestly think you'd have to move house!
"Heath House" I have never heard of but it could be a nickname for one of the Blackheath Prep buildings fronting onto the heath itself. BP is considered very good if you want an academically competitive environment for your child.
There are some smashing state primaries in SE3 - Invicta, All Saints', John Ball, Brooklands - but as you say you need to be living in their back gardens to stand a chance of a place, hence the mushrooming prep school market in the area.
Contact me via CAT and I will give you an unexpurgated run-down of the SE3 market based entirely on local NCT/nursery/church grapevine .
I think you said previously you didn't want to leave SE11, though.
Good luck - finding the right school for your children is fraught enough when you actually live nearby. Never mind attempting it off-shore...

Oooh Marina, you're a star. I'll go and tell your Auntie so when I next go into Treasure Trove to buy some more books!

Tanzie, I'm going through the same thing; looking where you're looking, but also in East London (and EC1). I have some info on the Pointer School and a tiny bit on Heath House.

You can email me at pyke at clara dot co dot uk .

Also, have you done the free Gabbitas thing? Fill out the form that's mentioned here and they'll send you back a list of schools. It's a starting point, at least.

If we were staying in the uk, i was planning to send mine to the Southbank International School in Kensington. I really loved the school when I visited and they have a wonderful language and music program.

Sofia, where are you going? Is Southbank the US system or am I confusing it with somewhere else?

JJ, thanks for the info on Grabbitas. I'll e-mail you tomorrow from work.