Moving to Worplesdon...help needed with Secondary School

[Tee22]

Hi there! We are relocating back to the UK from Luxembourg. We secured a rental yesterday in Worplesdon and so I can now commence the school search for my 11 year old son. He will be going into Year 8 in Sept.

So my question is, which schools do you recommend? I've narrowed it down to 5, of which I already know some are oversubscribed. I'd love some information on transport to your favourite school and how good/bad the traffic is.
Thank you in advance. Your thoughts positive or negative are much appreciated. I don't know the area at all.

Hoe Valley
St John the Baptist (yes we're Catholic)
Guildford County
The Winston Churchill
Christ College

I think St John the Baptist
Worplesdon is lovely
Do you plan on driving

Ideally I'd like him to get a bus, but I have no idea what's available. So if I end up driving him, I don't want to spend most of my day in the car.

Worpleston station to guildford, then a short walk up the hill to county. My two are at Guildford county and it's excellent. Trouble is, getting in! Heard good things about St John's

St John the Baptist and St Peters in Guildford are the high flying Catholic schools. They are both usually massively oversubscribed but you might be lucky looking for a year 8 place.
Hoe Valley is still being built AFAIK! I don't know much about it or Christs College... Winston Churchill tends to be popular with those who don't get into SJB.
County and George Abbot in Guildford are both well though of, again numbers might be the problem.

Good luck with the move Worplesdon is lovely.

Sorry I didn't answer your questions about transport. Trains to Guildford and Woking are straightforward from Worplesdon. County is probably the easiest to get to by train as a PP said. There might be school buses for some of the others, probably worth ringing and asking direct. Traffic in Surrey is always an issue!

Thank you avidbookworm, great info. Been researching the local pubs today! Took a break from school hunting. Looking forward to the move.

St John the Baptist is an excellent school especially if your child is academically inclined, they get very good results. Winston Churchill is very good for sports etc. Christ College is a large church of England school which is very good, it is a very big school though.

Hoe Valley is new, currently only has KS3, meets in Woking Park in pre fab buildings but the new site should be open for September 2018. It's a free school so secular teaching (if a faith school is important to you) but several teachers are from our church. It's initial ofsted reports are very good, and it does a lot of teaching in the style of cirrculem days, so taking a topic and looking at the different areas in relation to that topic.

Certainly in Woking all the schools are rates good or outstanding at ofsted so it's more a case of what you can get into and what schools works for your child.

St John the Baptist is a great school for children of all abilities. They get fantastic results from the academically inclined for sure but they also really care about the kids who will struggle to get their 5 A*-C at GCSE. It is also the only school in Woking with its own 6th form, otherwise everyone moves to Woking College or elsewhere for 6th form. As everyone said, it is oversubscribed but I'm sure some people will leave end of year 7 so you may be lucky in getting a spot.