Help! How does the school system work in Saffron Walden?

[Basinka]

Wonder if anyone could shed some light on a few questions I've got. My husband and children are moving from Canada to England this summer and we are looking at different places. SW has been on my radar for a long time.

1. However, I have a soon to be 5 year old who needs to start primary and not sure which is the best one to send her to in Saffron Walden. We've only got the League tables at our disposal, and the schools appear to have boycotted it this year; which is fine but makes it challenging to figure out what's what.
   2)Also, what happens when a school is oversubscribed? In Canada, priority goes to the child in the catchment area, even if the school has met their quota. They just bring in classroom portables to cope. Is this the case in SW? 3)Also does anyone know what is the latest a child can enroll and be accepted at a school if they move into the neighbourhood close to the beginning of the school term?
2. Does anyone also know if there are primaries attached to a pre-school or nursery for a 2 to 5 year old sibling to attend?
3. And finally does anyone have info on St. Thomas More Primary and, specifically, the concern that if your children attend a faith primary school, would they be shut out of a public secondary later such as SWCHS? This sometimes happens, albeit quietly, in Canada, unfortunately.

Sorry about so many questions but we haven't anyone on the ground in SW to contact so there is a lot unknown to us about schooling.
Many thanks for any info you can provide.

Giving this a bump as there are quite a few MNers around Saffron Walden. Can't really answer your questions myself, but think that the better primary schools are over subscribed, so you need to be in catchment for them. For St Thomas More, I presume there are slightly different rules as it is an RC school, but it was a popular school with good results when my DCs were young - if it still like that, it may also be over subscribed.
As far as secondary school is concerned, going to a faith school won't affect your application to SWCHS.

Thanks for the bump:) Good to know about the over subscription. Guess the challenge will be to find a place in town.
Phew: about faith primary vs secondary.
Thx for all of your info! Appreciate it a lot.

I am under the impression that all of the primaries in SW are of a fairly high standard, though I do recollect that one of the faith ones was struggling a bit, but not sure which one. I don't think that it would be a problem getting a place at one of them close to the beginning of the year or even part way through the year, but it might not be your first choice. Katherine Semar Infants has a Montessori nursery attached to it for children between 2 and 5. Have you looked at the school websites? All of the schools feed into SWCHS without discrimination regarding faith schools.

Thanks for letting me know about KS Montessori nursery! Do you know if parents have to pay for that or is the nursery a part of the national ed. syst?

Do you or do other mums know how common it is for the town primaries to have children living out of the town and in surrounding areas? I've looked at some of the school websites. RA Butler, for ex, seems to list quite a few of the smaller villages as its catchment. Is this a common scenario? We're trying to figure out how far we can look to buy a home.

The nursery would need to be paid for except that children over 3 years do get some funded provision (15 hours a week, term time only, I think) but you would need to see if you qualify for this given that you are moving here. I think that the exact date that the funding starts is complicated. See www.essex.gov.uk/Education-Schools/Early-Years-Childcare/Pages/Help-support-for-childcare.aspx.

Looking at RAB's website the only villages that are in catchment are Wendens Ambo and Sewards End (and they are very small). Beyond that the villages have their own schools or are in the catchment for a village that has its own school. So for example Radwinter has its own school as do Debden and Wimbish. I think that Great Chesterford primary school might have been oversubscribed such that some of the children have had to go to Saffron Walden. Generally children go to their local school rather than travelling into SW. If your decision to send your child to a SW primary is so that they can go to SWCHS then it is worth noting that a number of village primaries are also in the SWCHS catchment - for example Great Chesterford (I think). Also Newport Free Grammar is a very good secondary school and is not a grammar school.

Some of the village schools have been rated as outstanding by Ofsted (as have some of the SW schools).

This guide should help - look at Uttlesford.

It also might be worth phoning the schools to have a chat about admissions and your exact circumstances as I think that applications for this September have closed now, but there will be some sort of arrangements for children moving into the area.

Is there a reason that you want your children to go to school in SW particularly?

Thank you for the detailed information!
I have checked out the guide for Uttlesford and it was excellent. I will definitely ring the schools to see what we are able to do given our late move.

I suppose one of the main reasons we want the children to attend an SW primary is that we felt that SW itself ticked all boxes and allowed hubby to get to work in Cambridge. We also wanted them to go to a secondary like SWCHS because we're also used to comprehensive forms of secondary education in Canada, so the grammar 11+ concept is a little unfamiliar to us. Besides its academic excellence, that is another reason why we liked SWCHS.
We did check a few small villages nearer to Cambridge with excellent OFSTED reports, but found the housing market so lean that our opportunity to live there lessened.
If there are villages that are affordable, pretty, aren't too small, near Cambridge and have primaries that feed into SWCHS, then we are more than happy to check them out, too.
We are going to look at Newport since yourself and others we've talked to have said it is another excellent secondary.
When we arrive we will be renting, so we intend to do a thorough investigation to get a sense of everything in the area. I have relatives in other parts of England but this part is virtually an unknown for us; which is why your input is so valuable!
Thank you so much, again.

Just in case you haven't noticed, SWCHS is a massive school (about 2000 pupils). I think this is a bit big and the average student might get lost, but has resulted in an excellent sixth form. There aren't any grammar schools within reach of Cambridge as far as I know, so all of the secondaries you will be looking at are comprehensive. In South Cambridgeshire they are all 11-16 with separate sixth form colleges, except for Netherhall in Cambridge, whereas in Essex they do have sixth forms (at least SWCHS and Newport). Do you want to be near a railway station? It is a bit of a pain in SW to get out to Wendens Ambo to the station, but some villages (Newport, Great Chesterford etc) have a station. SW is lovely. We have just moved away from the SW area and I don't think many towns are as pretty with such a good range of facilities.

I don't know where in Cambridge your husband will be working but it is worth noting that getting to North Cambridge (e.g. the Science Park) is not a great commute from SW and the traffic into Cambridge centre in the mornings can be terrible (up to an extra 30 minutes in winter).

Actually, I hadn't realized how large SWCHS(!) is but, interestingly, the bit we also liked is the absence of a separate sixth form college.

This is a division of education that, frankly, looks like more steps than I would want my North American self to put my children through. Perhaps, I'll feel differently when they are older and I've got a better sense of 6th form colleges. In Canada, children attend high school from ages 14-18 which means there is no having to re-apply after 16 years of age.
Hopefully, they'd be alright but what if they struggle and never get into a 6th form? I'm sure, like everything else, there are "excellent" sixth forms and "lesser" ones, for whatever reason. Perhaps, I am wrong. Again, unfamiliar territory.

Husband mostly will work from home with visits into Science Park; so, not sure how long that would take on a regular day.
Where we live now, getting to work is about 1 hour by transit and in the winter you can add on 45 min to 1 hour. Our winters are long, freezing cold and just brutal:( I'm going to miss lots of things, but the winter isn't one of them:)
Thx again for all of your insights.

I think all students get a place at 6th form. In Cambridge there are 3 (+ Netherhall school 6th form). They are Hills Road - extremely selective and academic, Long Road which also does A Levels and is less selective and Cambridge Regional College which I think is mostly vocational courses and would not be somewhere that I would particularly like a child to go to. So you are definitely right in your assessment. I have mixed feelings about the split 6th forms in Cambridgeshire as the 6th forms are good but I think it is beneficial to a school to have a 6th form. There is also a lot of travel into Cambridge for 6th form students. We have moved to Cambridgeshire and I am less happy with the secondary provision here than I was in North Essex. The journey from SW to the Science Park is about 45min and doesn't get effected by winter as much, so I think it will probably suit you well. I would definitely choose to live south of Cambridge rather than north as I like the landscape more. SW is a great choice and sounds very suited to what you want. Good luck with your move.

Very good to know about the selectivity of the 6th forms. Food for thought down the road.

The journey sounds just find to Cambridge. I agree with the landscape. SW does fit the bill it seems and, while we are currently overwhelmed by the move itself, we are also really excited.

Again, you're wealth of information here is so appreciated. Many thanks and hope it goes well for you in your re-location to Cambridgeshire. You have been a fantastic help!

I went to Hills Road [wink}

Cool! Did you like the experience of going to a 6th form instead of a comprehensive with a 6th form? As I said earlier, I have no sense of how those compare except for a few observations made by some cousins, but they attended comprehensives with a 6th in it.

Well I went to a very small school in a village where I was 'top dog' as it were - ther was no sixth form so I wnet to Hills Road. I have to say I wasn't happy there at all - even then (1980-82) it was seriously academic and I was no match for some of the city children. Having said that, I did ok-ish academically, although very badly compared to some of them (!) and it always looks good on a cv

In addition to the academic rigour that you mention, I suppose children have to get top GCSE's to be in the "best" academic school?
I think I really like the 11-18 system. Younger kids can look up to young adults to see some opportunity to excel.
It's also pretty close to a Canadian high school, and that's my comfort level at this point:)
Thx.