Schools in Lancaster

[Ixia]

We're thinking of moving to Lancaster, any advice on schools in Lancaster or the surrounding areas. DD would be going into yr3.

Hi, I live in Lancaster and although DS isnt school age yet (17 months) Iwork with kids (youth worker) so know schools quite well.

Do you know what area of Lancaster you're looking at yet?

And what you want from a school?

Can PM too if you want, I'll answer anything I can

Hi, thanks for the reply.

No idea what area yet, we would probably choose the school first. We're used to living in villages, but don't want catholic or a heavily religious CofE.

What do we want in a school? DD already goes to an awesome primary, we are gutted to be leaving. Important things to DD are outdoor stuff - gardens, play equipment (although nothing is going to meet the play equipment standard of her current school), computers - she loves using the Ipads when she's finished her work and the school has 3 apple laptops in every class, friendly people, lots of creative stuff.
Important things to me - school has a good social side, at her current school, the mums all stay and chat after school whilst the kids play on the play equipment and field. Classes not too big, her current class has 2 y2 classes with 18 pupils in each. Not too results driven, I want her to have a childhood, am not happy at the idea of sats. She's working at level 3a, so doing OK academically.

Well you did ask........... :)

I'm lying awake worrying about schools for her :( Also she loves gymnastics and I can't seem to find a fully equipped gym in the area.

Caton community primary looks nice and seems to have places, but I'm not sure about such a small school.

I live and teach in Lancaster so more than happy to help!

I would strongly recommend my DS school, but as it's a Catholic school, I don't think you'd be interested! (We were more interested in the teaching and educational philosophy than the religious aspect tbh!)

Anyway, there are many very good schools in the area. In fact, I'm finding it hard to give you a list as I could mention most of them! Great Wood Primary has just popped into my head...quite a large school though (2 classes per year group, approx 30 in each class). Generally the smaller schools are outside of the central Lancaster area...and the only ones that are coming to mind are religious schools.

Don't know if you would be interested in being as far out as Carnforth, but Christ Church CofE and North Road Primary are also nice, friendly schools.

PM me too if you want more help/advice.

Just to let you know my DS is moving up to high school in Sept and attended 2 primary schools in the area. The first one (which shall remain nameless publicly!) was shocking! But it's unlikely that you would consider that school with or without anyone else's input!

Oh, was meant to say that (typically) Caton Primary is one of the few schools that I have no knowledge of! Sorry

Thanks uberly. Great Woods doesn't look hopeful as it is overcapacity , but worth a look, though I'm worried about schools rated satisfactory by Ofsted, because of Cameron's plan to remove the satisfactory category.

If I can work out pming, then I will pm you to name and shame your first school - just in case - lol.

Carnforth is too far out, DH will be working in Blackburn, Lancaster is really as far as we can go.

I went to school in Morecambe, three different ones. Sandylands, Poulton-le-Sands, and Westgate.

Obviously this was 20 years ago so things may be very different now, but Westgate was by far the best then, both in terms of teaching and facilities (it was newly-built).

Torrisholme, sorry, not Sandylands!

Hi, a school that sounds very similar to the one you describe is Quernmore Primary. It's in a little village about 10 minutes outside Lancaster and is really committed to outdoor learning. It's very creative, a forest school and has macs! I don't know whether they are full or not or what their admissions policy is tho. As a teacher we visited there from another school and I thought it looked fabulous, an idyllic school from another time, I'd have love my kids to go there!

Also, my girls haven't gone for a few years, but the gymnastics at Salt Ayre that ran on a Saturday was very well equipped, covered floor work, beam, parallel bars, ribbons etc and if they have the same teacher (Gill) she was fantastic. I know there's another class at St Martin's College. Anything else I can help with just ask!

Hi, Ixia, if you're still about.

I'm not an expert on Lancaster (yet) although I do seem to have visited most of the schools lately lol. Just thought I'd pop in to say I'm moving up there too with a dd the same age AND we'll be going to gymnastics club at the University of Cumbria (St Martin's College) although I don't know which evening yet.

I have no idea how to pm and don't want to give too much info away on here so I suppose I might bump into you sometime! When do you go and have you found a house and school up there yet? We're so excited!

I do wish I knew which school Uberly is so concerned about though :-/

We recently moved to Lancs, and I was diplomatically advised to avoid a couple of schools beginning with R.
I believe Scotforth has a good reputation?

Hi packingboxes, I'm still here, a little more sorted, but no less stressed.
I've sent you a pm, log on and your inbox is at the top of this page.

Oh and thanks for the gym info, that's really helpful. I need to get phoning round, but i've been dragging my feet on the hope that we might not have to move :(

Moorside is very good. Bowerham is good too. I'd be looking at houses in the bowerham area for your best choices of school.