WILLOW BROOK PRIMARY SCHOOL

[CHERISHEDMUM]

Please can any mum with kids in this school, kindly let me know what they think of the the school. Please all positive and negative opinions welcomed.
Thank you

Hi! I don't have any children at the school but it will be the local catchment school for our baby in a few years. I can't tell you anything about their teaching but I know from having visited there that it seems like they've got fantastic resources and the school buildings seem to be lovely and airy/large/light - seems like it would be quite a nice school for a child to go to, from that point of view.
We've visited because it's one of our local surestart locations and the toy library element is based there. We also did baby massage there. The classrooms next door are all really well equipped and the displays and decorations are really bright and colourful.
Now for my snobbish pout of view - the school is situated just off of Goring Road, one of the worst places to live in Colchester. This means that although the school gets loads more money chucked at it for development to support the fact that it's based in an area of deprivation, (huge sweeping generalisation alert - happy to be proved wrong) generally the students at the school are mostly from that same area of deprivation too, and have the associated behavioural issues, lack of discipline/support at home, bad language, interesting perception of right/wrong etc...
As I said, that may be a terrible generalisation but as I live about a 10 minute walk away we see a lot of neighbourhood kids about, and whilst some are lovely, some are (let's face it), chavs.
But - definitely have a look around - if the teaching staff are good it may not matter what the kids are like at home, and it certainly seems like a nice school.
Hope that's useful!?!!

I used to live up there (I'll ignore SGJ's comments ), DS spent a couple of terms in the nursery before we moved. They were great and he loved it there, I have no complaints what so ever. I only moved him because we moved out of catchment area so I wanted to get him settled at the nursery where he would go on to reception. We put it down as our second choice.

If I moved back that way I wouldn't hesitate to put him back in there. My little BILs went there too and did very well :)

Well its right in the middle of whitecity which is one of the roughest places in Colchester.

School was in special measures but got a great new head and a ton of money and did all the buildings up. I know someone with a DS there and they are happy but I wouldn't send my children there because they just wouldn't fit in. Roach vale or parsons heath are both just up the road and much nicer schools.

i wouldnt go there tbh, purely because of the area

It isnt in the best area... That is true!

However it has a fantastic reputation education wise since it had an overhall few years ago and taken over by the new head teacher. Although id probably say St James or St George's are better options.... For pure snobbery reasons...!