Best London area for great primary and secondary school

[user1490024866]

Hi all! we are a young family and we will soon have our first son! We are planning to buy a 3/4 rooms house, but we are finding very hard to find homes within the catchment area of a great primary and secondary school.
We are looking into an area with good commute to Bank and Canary Wharf.
We have checked:
Greenwich - no good state schools
Balham - no good secondary state schools
Clapham - same problem as Balham
East Dulwich - commute to CW and the city is not great but perhaps is the best option in the school front which is our priority.

Does anyone else had the same conundrum?? we are not too fussy on the Ofsted classification rather we are keen on hearing opinions of all of you.
Our budget for the home is £1 to 1.2 million

Many thanks in advance!

I would have thought most of London has the same conundrum without the £1m to spend on a house
East Dulwich has good primary schools with teeny tiny catchment areas. Don't underestimate how small they are! The new secondary will be on the site of the old ED hospital - it only has Y7 at the moment but seems to get good reports from parents.
Doesnt Peckham/Nunhead have a link to CW?

Chestnut Grove in Balham was outstanding at its last OFSTED and is oversubscribed but I doubt you'd find a house nearby for your budget anyway. Harris Academy in Battersea is transformed - it used to be the school no-one wanted in its former guise but its latest progress 8 and attainment stats make it second in Wandsworth only behind Graveney which is partially selective and massively oversubscribed.

Your budget would get you a house in the catchment of Graveney - you'd have to get a bus or cycle to the tube but then you're on the right bit of the northern line for Bank and it's a commute lots of people do, decent primary schools too.

Battersea - if you go for the area between the Commons then there are excellent primaries and the newish Bolingbroke Academy (where lots of pupils from those primaries go). It has a feeder school system for entries, so check which primaries are on it - Wix isn't so popular so easier to get in to. Fallbacks from there would be Chestnut Grove or Ashcroft. Worth a punt at Graveney via the Wandsworth test.

I'd wait to see if the changes at Harris Battersea have really taken root. Like Chesterton (the primary next to it) it attracts some very good teachers, and the new progress scores do show up how much progress the pupils make. Their start point, given the demographics of the surrounding area, means that in old-speak it's added value is high, but the actual grades at exit quite variable. It is however one to consider if your DC are interestested in vocational qualifications - performing arts are strong there.

Barnet. Great primaries and secondaries.

Kingston and Richmond primary schools consistently do well - Richmond is slightly better than Kingston. I would look in the Barnes area.
Secondary schools are trickier.

Bromley! And you should get some change. Longer commute but should get yourself in the catchment of outstanding primaries and secondaries.

Muswell Hill

Avoid East Dulwich if you want to be able to get to work,dreadful transport links Southern

Have a look at Leytonstone. 15 minutes to Bank on the central line, great schools and right on the edge of Epping forest. Bushwood or Upper Leytonstone are the best areas - or Wanstead, one stop further up is really villagey

Another vote for Bromley, and Beckenham.

Harris Beckenham has just got Outstanding. The new primary school (Just YR and Y1 so far) has a fabulous reputation and everyone I know is very very happy with it. While the secondary is getting good results, it's still washing out some of the old guard behaviours but they are an increasingly small minority and the school is definitely on the up.

E21C are also building Eden Park High which will be a brand new school, and if their successes at other schools are anything to go by, it's going to be a good thing.

These days, depending on the kind of house you want (garden, off-street parking etc), you mightn't get too much change out of your budget but it's a very doable amount.

Commuting is very good. Even with the current messing at London Bridge, the City and CW are eminently doable - and we're nearly at the end of the messing.

East Finchley/Muswell Hill? I think your biggest issue is going to be catchments the size of a gnat's arse.

FWIW we chose Brockley/Telegraph Hill for schools (among other things) - also worth a look imo, it's a great area.

Alexandra park, Muswell Hill and Bounds Green

All got fantastic schools