Moving to Twickenham / St Margaret's / Hampton / Teddington - where to start?!

[PassthePercyPigs]

Hi there,

My DH, 3-yr-old DD, soon to be born baby and I are looking to move from Battersea to the Richmond area in the summer. As we'll need to put our DD's name down for a primary school we need to start our search with schools first and don't really know where to begin.

We're familiar with the area but have no idea about what the good schools are / catchments etc. we'll be renting so are hoping that we can move fairly painlessly, it's just where in the area we should concentrate our search.

Does anyone have any advice about good local primary schools and also preschools?

Thanks,

PtPP

Just a quickie as on my phone but the primary schools are by and large very good. That said, the catchment areas are small and there were some areas this year (eg parts of central twickenham and strawberry hill) where children found themselves without a school place, at least initially, or offered something several miles away. Many of dd1's friends got their 2nd choice or lower, although this seems to have worked out well for them in most cases.

A lot of the schools are faith schools although the proportion of places they reserve for churchgoers varies considerably. You may already have come across this site, which gives an idea of how the non-faith schools allocated places this year. I'm not aware of an equivalent for church schools. Take estate agent blurb about catchment areas for local schools with a pinch of salt!

If you scroll back through this (local) forum you will come across a few posts from last spring that will give you an idea of the problems people in twick/teddington were facing when places were being allocated.

Ps there are very few state nurseries in twickenham - Orleans in st Margarets has one (highly subscribed) and there is one at chase bridge I believe. Dd1 was at Windsor kindergarten in twickenham, which we found very good.

Pps there is talk of a new free school ('Richmond bridge') being opened in East twickenham, which should ease pressure on places round there. Think it is only in the v early stages of planning tho but you might want to google it.

Will you be commuting into London? That would feature on my requirements list e.g would go for twix or Richmond over st margs or strawb for a quick journey into town.

If you need nursery places for sub 2yrs there are only two very close to twix station.

Thank you so much for your replies, really helpful. Pleasantly surprised by the place allocation map, the catchments are certainly larger than what we have in Battersea! I'll take look through the older posts though.

I will be commuting to Clapham Junction and my husband to Victoria so a fairly quick run for both of us.

Thanks again

Ah great so that isn't a nasty commute .we moved here (twix)from Central London we looked at all the locations you are and we preferred twickenham it felt closer to London living with all the benefits of Richmond , bushy park and Kingston on the door step.

For us we felt too young for teddington and hampton but we were late 20s and it was pre kids maybe we wouldn't make the same call now? But I still love Twickenham and I can't see us moving anytime soon.

Hi
Do you have any religios affiliation. If not try and get close to your chosen school. orleans primary and vineyard are very popular. all the schools seem to be very oversubscribed except Buckingham in hampton and heathfield in Whitton. which I think is a good school looking at their stats but in a more deprived area. If you have any religious affiliation start going to church asap especially if catholic.
Windham is a state nursery school. archdeacon also has a nursery cof e.
You cant go far wrong in the area but do try and get close to a school you like and dont hope for the catholic school unless you go to chuch alot!

Would you be considering private schools.... some very good ones in Twick/Tedd... Newland, Twickenham Prep, The Mall etc.
Collis in Teddington supposed to be brilliant. Big school though.

Teddington is blessed with a number of good state primaries. My kids are at Collis, which is massive (over 700) but they are very good at creating a cosy safe atmosphere especially in infants. And there is a nursery class. There is also two great community schools: Hampton Wick and Stanley. And two great faith schools: St Mary and St Peters, and the Catholic school (Sacred Heart?). Teddington School is a good state secondary. Waldegrave is a very high achieving girls state secondary, but you need to live further over towards Fulwell/Twickenham to get in there.

The rail link into town is slow (30-40 minutes to Waterloo) but frequent and you nearly always get a seat from here. There is a great high street with lots of independents, and quick bus journeys to Kingston, Richmond, Twickenham etc. (There's also buses to Heathrow and to Hammersmith, though I've not tried them.) Low crime, the river, lovely community atmosphere...

so there's my pitch for Teddington. If I had to leave the area, I'd be looking at Twickenham, probably, because though I really like Strawberry Hill and Hampton it's important to me to have a good high street.

[Laughing at Cordial's comment here: I often ask my dp, in wondering tones, why on earth anybody would move to Teddington if they didn't have children. If you like urban grit and nightlife, don't come here! Ditto if you want social diversity: my family pretty much IS Teddington's social diversity...]

We moved to Hampton Hill from Wandsworth Town 2.5 years ago and we couldn't believe the difference such a short move made. We have twin boys, now just turned 3 and the area is just perfect for families and a real sense of community here in Hampton Hill. We're 5 mins walk from gorgeous Bushy Park and there are literally tons of playgroups etc for toddlers in the area. Teddington is just a 15-20 min walk away (or a short bus ride), train stations (Waterloo) at Fulwell or Teddington and a great bus network too (and I would second Devora's praise of Teddington).
I can't say much about primary schools as I haven't yet investigated these yet (our boys have Dec birthday, so still some time to go before we have to decide), but I understand most are very good, but, as mentioned above, there have been problems with lack of places and catchment areas. Our boys have been at Greenacres 3 days/week for past 2 years, first in the nursery and now in the Pre-school on the high street (Hampton Hill) and we're very pleased with it. They're open 8am - 6pm too throughout the year, which helps if you are working.
Good luck with your decision!

The nightlife in Teddington has picked up quite a lot - have been dancing in the Teddington Arms a few times at weekends lately! Agree that most of the state schools are good but getting more difficult to get into unless you choose your location carefully to ensure that you are in the catchment area (there are quite a few black spots). You need to pick a school and move very close to it and don't expect to be able to choose from a range of schools unless you have extra choices because you are Catholic.

This is all so good to know, thank you so much! Sounds like the search needs to start with schools and we'll go from there. In the meantime I'm looking forward to lots if recce days in the area! Really excited about making the move.