Advice for a good schools

[Parents86]

Hi everyone, We’re planning to move to Twickenham this summer and I have a couple of questions. My daughter is in Year 2 and my son is in Year 6. Currently, they’re both in private school, but we need to switch them to state schools that are rated Outstanding. I’m feeling a bit anxious about how they’ll adapt to new schools. Could anyone recommend good schools in the area? Also, I’d appreciate any advice on how to apply for a secondary school for my son. Do you think it will be difficult for him to get accepted? Thanks in advance for your help.

Orleans park school brilliant
folks also recommend grey court school
i think they’re the two decent state schools in the area

primary schools, plenty of good ones. St. James is spoken of highly. Many of the state primary schools in Twickenham have placed. Not many are at capacity

Why do you need this?

As opposed to want this?

Ofsted outstanding is not the only measure to use; often a school with a different rating may be more suitable for your DC (many factors - distance, size, quality of teaching, subject offer, atmosphere, pastoral care).

wrt your year 6 child, state school applications went in last October. I would contact the LA to see if you can submit a late application, but if you don’t live nearby yet you will be at the bottom of any waiting list. But contact the LA to see what the process is at this stage of the year.

Do you mean that your son will start secondary (year 7) this September? Applications had to be in by October last year for regular entry, so I imagine it will be a case of looking for any school with spaces.

If your DS is currently in Year 6, if you haven't already submitted a Common Application Form (CAF), you can submit a late application now. It must be done through your current home LA, but you can name state schools anywhere on it (e.g. if you live in Hertfordshire now, you use the Herts Form, but nane schools in the Twickenham area as highest preferences).

At this stage, the application will not be considered until after national offer day (3rd March this year, as the 1st is a Saturday). As your home address won't have changed by then, your home LA will initially allocate a place at its nearest school to your home address which still has spaces after all on-time applications have been accommodated.

You might be lucky, however, and find that one of the new area schools you have applied for didn't fill all its places with on-time applicants and late applicants ranked higher against the school's oversubscription criteria than your DS; in this case, a place at that school will be offered.

In any case, your DS will be / you can ask for him to be (check specific rules) placed on the waiting list for each school you prefer to the one allocated.

As for your younger DC, unless you are applying for a year 3 place at a stand-alone junior school (where year 3 is the normal poinyof entry), you will be making an in-year application. If you do that now, for year 2, if there is a place, your DC will be expected to start 'now' (the place won't be held over for a September start); are you in a position to do that? If not, you will have to wait until much nearer to the time of entry to apply.

If you are applying for a September start at a Junior (not primary) school, then you have also missed the deadline for an on-time application. You need to look at both your current LA's and the relevant new LA's requirements for applications for a place for thos DC.

Thank you for all the information I now have a good understanding of the topic. However, the sales process is still incomplete. I currently have a memorandum of sales, but I'm unsure if it will be applicable for the schools at this time.

All the schools in Twickenham Richmond tend to be good.

There's loads of privatet schools as well. It's quite a high demand area so you may not get your first choice school.

You really have to check what is required by each authority.

An application can't be considered until it is formally submitted (which is why the frequent Mumsnet advice to ring round schools and see where there are places almost never being followed by 'and then whack in your application on the spot' drives me nuts). For the year 7 place required, you can and should get a CAF submitted via your current LA ASAP, wherever they schools are that you are applying for.

Memorandum of sale is too early, you have simply had an offer accepted. Check with LA for evidence required off new address but usually confirmation of exchange or rental agreement at least. If there are vacancies you can be accepted out if area but for year 7 entry that will be too early as Allocations Day is in March. Is moving school sooner than a house move possible?

@Parents86 , which part of Twickenham are you moving to? If you've already chosen a house then that its location will influence where you get a place, especially as your son is a late applicant.

Orleans Park catchment tends to cover East Twickenham, St Margarets, Twickenham Riverside.

Turing House is also rated outstanding, so if you're in West Twickenham, Hampton Hill, or North Teddington then that might be an option. Check out the catchment maps on its website, and check its admissions policy carefully because it's unusual.

St Richard Reynolds is outstanding, but mainly for Catholics.

Waldegrave is outstanding, but for girls only.

Grey Court is outstanding but on the other side of the river from Twickenham. Some Teddington children get places there if they live near the bridge at Teddington Lock.

The most significant difference between a school that is outstanding and a school that is good is the increased cost of the houses in its catchment area, due to parents (like yourselves) moving into it.

I'm near High Street Twickenham and Turing House seems like a great choice for applying. Orleans is also on the catchment list. Thanks for sharing your thoughts

Twickenham's "high street" isn't called "High Street", it's called Heath Road, King Street, York Street, London Rd.or Cross Deep, depending which bit you mean. They all have a TW1 postcode.

There is a "High Street" in Whitton - is that the one you meant? It has a TW2 postcode. If so, your most likely local options are Twickenham School or the Richmond upon Thames School (both rated good by Ofsted).

🙈 I'm in TW1 Thanks for the correction my brain is still figuring out the postcode puzzle!

No worries, in that case you'd probably have had a decent chance of Orleans Park if you'd applied on time, but a late application will need to take its chances. The sooner you exchange contracts the better.

Good primary options nearby are Archdeacon Cambridge's and St Mary's (both C of E), or Twickenham Primary Academy. But actually, all the primaries are decent, so you can't go wrong.

Thank you so much ☺️

Think extremely carefully about St M if your DC is neurodivergent…

@Parents86 Where did you choose? I’m looking now and there are a lot of options.

Outstanding is not necessarily the be all and end all. Ofsted may not be judging the things that matter most to you as parents so check the reports. Also, as there had been what might be described as 'grade inflation' in terms of Ofsted rankings, many previously outstanding schools have been 'downgraded' to good over recent years so also check how recent the report is for any given school. Good schools are often working hard to do better ... don't write them off!

If you get your application in as soon as possible you will probably be successful getting a y7 place for your older child during the current allocation process. Although the deadline has passed and your application will be at the bottom of the pile due to being late, there will still be some places available and if a school has an unallocated place it has to allocate it to any applicant who asks for it even if their current address is 200 miles away. Hopefully this will make it easy for you so long as you are happy with one of the schools that isn't oversubscribed. There are a lot more spare places in the leafy suburbs of greater london these days as so many families have relocated away from london. A decade ago you would have had no chance.

If you aren't happy with what you get on Offer Day - don't despair, this is only the start of a months-long process. In each round places are accepted or rejected and the spare places are reallocated. Almost every family who are actually sending their child to private school will have also put in an application for a state school place as a backup which they then eventually reject once they pay their acceptance deposit for their private school place, so hundreds of state school places get released and reallocated. Your application has to be processed using your actual current address for the purpose of calculating distance until you have exchanged actual contracts. A memorandum of sale does not count as it is not legally binding. While you are still using the out-of-area address (do not be tempted to use the new address until it is legally valid that would be fraud) you will be a low priority for these reallocation rounds, but you will massively improve your priority once contracts are exhanged. If you can proceed to exchanging contracts asap, once you are at that stage you can change the address on the application and that may have a significant effect taking you to the top of the waiting list for the next reallocation round. These reallocations happen approximately every 6 weeks or so between Offer Day and mid-september after Term starts (because some families never formally reject their place and the school only find out they have a spare space when no child turns up at the start of term)

Compared to all this, getting a place for you younger child will be easy but you cannot do it too far in advance. When you apply a place will be allocated but the child will then be expected to start attending within a couple of weeks. It's only done in advance for the major transition years betwen different Key Stages of education where a change of school is inevitable for everyone.

This is a very old thread!

Nonetheless, I stand by my comment on one of the local primary schools for the benefit of any newcomers to the thread.