If you live in Hackney and your child goes to private secondary, where do they go?

[Hackneythinkinghh]

Ds (age 8) has never been particularly happy at school, so looking at alternatives for him for secondary.

There don’t seem to be many around! Northbridge house in Canonbury, which people don’t seem to like much on review sites, and then Forest in Snaresbrook which seems quite hard to get a place at.

Would love to know: if your Hackney kids are at private secondaries, which ones?

Forest have a fair few school bus services and there are a lot of Hackney kids go there. The bus routes are published so you can check which ones go near you. The advantage of Forest is that you have great access to sports fields and Epping forest etc

city of london or St Paul’s would be the obvious ones going in, both fairly academic obviously, so you might want to move him to a prep beforehand - city prep, Darlington or Lyceum beforehand, or there is Garehouse in Victoria park.

Or if you are on a good train line to Hampstead, quite a few there - university college school, king Alfred’s and others

Or go out rather than in, there are quite a few in Essex.

There is a dearth of independent secondaries for boys in north and central London. City, UCS and Highgate are very academic and places are extremely competitive. Forest (which you’ve mentioned) and Wetherby Senior in Marylebone are two others that are popular and maybe not quite as academic, though both good schools I think

Mine goes to City Girls - we are near Hoxton Station and she can walk there.
Friends nearby go to Highgate and Alleyn's.

Hackney is easy reach to City, Highgate or Forest.

St Paul's? 90 mins by any means of transportation.

You could look at the leavers destinations on the websites for prep schools like Lyceum, Dallington and the Gower School to see where other local kids go

Both city schools take loads from Hackney