Exeter - state Secondary schools

[CrystalPalaceDinos]

Hi, can anyone offer any thoughts on West Exe, St James, ISCA Academy. Need to start thinking about choices. My daughter loves English, science, art and sport. Can't find anything about Open Days so insights into behaviour, teaching, pastoral care would be appreciated. Thanks.

Whose catchment are you in? We did this a couple of years ago and ISCA was only feasible if in catchment.

Lots of friends kids go to St James.

Where are you? Westexe for eg would be a pain to get to from anywhere near st James and vice versa. Probably also ISCA given Topsham Rd traffic

These schools are all in the Ted Wragg Trust and have a similar approach to their curriculum, behaviour management etc. I have a child at Isca and they are pretty happy there. It’s a very mixed school but there don’t see to be any major issues, kids from different backgrounds get on fine. There seems to be a good focus on student wellbeing, lots of support over lockdown and the teaching programme online was really good. I think there was a virtual open evening last year for Year 6, maybe the same for this year?

Thanks for the replies. We are near Marsh Barton so West Exe is definitely the closest.

Hello, we are planning to move to Exeter from North Devon and looking for a good school for year 10. We hoped to move to Totnes but 3 schools told us no, as year 10 is full, very disappointed. I read here that ISCA is a very good state school, what is the area like near this school? any big parks? I would love to move to an area where are no alcoholics or drug dealers. We are planning to move if she gets a place in the school, we can move wherever as long as the school is good. My daughter had issues with other kids bad behaviour during classes in Newton Abbot and now similar issue in Barnstaple.