I'm hoping to move to LOndon; can you reassure me re state schools please?

[toptramp]

Hi there, I am going to start to look for jobs in London as I miss city life. I am hoping to teach. DD is 4 and will have done 1 year of recption by the time we move.
I have no idea what are of London we will be living in so not very helpful there. I cannot afford private so can anyone recommend any good state primary schools in the capital and also is it difficult to get enroled in them? Thank you.

My choice of home will be influenced by schools btw.

I think you are going to have to have an address before you will be able to apply, and until you do apply you will not be able to be sure of a place in any given school. The local authority will be able to tell you where there are places available once you have an address to live at. Even if they tell you now where there are places this situation may well have changed by the time you move or have proof of the address so you can not guarantee where your child will get a place. Some areas of London are very oversubscribed so there may not be a huge amount of choice.

As I'm sure you know, pretty much all London borough schools are oversubscribed.
I'm SE and whilst there Are around 10 schools in our area, places do not come up, and wait lists are long.
Inner city is more likely to have greater movement.

I could name 5 great schools around here and in the next Borough. But they are all full, you need to move on their doorstep and then wait for someone to leave.

I personally would find that a big strain.

Tbh all the decent schools will be full unless you are prepared to live outside London and commute in. If you are certain that a) you want to live in London itself and b) don't want a really poor school then it might be better to wait till your dd is in year 3 and you won't have class size prejudice.

Surely children must leave though and there would be places? They can't all be full always!

Very few people leave after Reception or year 1. People move BEFORE Reception to ensure they get a reception place at a good school. If people leave after Reception, it is usually for very good reason, and not a school I would send my child to....

That isn't my experience (also in London). DD goes to a very popular and oversubscribed school but there is still a lot of mobility, usually because of parents' employment. In the last year, 3 of her classmates have moved abroad - nothing to do with the quality of the school.

You would of course be given a place, but you no control over that, which I would find hard.
A friend has just left our areas most popular school.
1 child in reception of 60, place goes straight away on wait list.
But my school, and 3 others in town (friends children go to) have had no children leave this year. that is intakes of 45, 60,60, and 30.

I live in W London and there are quite a few good primaries around here but the schools are all oversubscribed. people move into the catchment area for the good schools. The one that my children are at is expanding along with several others in the borough due to there previously not being enough places. I know children who were in the catchment area for this school who did not get their children in before the expansion as they were near the edge of the catchment, so even living in catchment area is no guarantee of getting a place in your chosen school.

My experience has been, in fact, that there is a fair amount of movement after Reception. I live in a borough with a fair number of perfectly good state primaries, which have served my lovely Inferiorettes remarkably well.

mother do you mind saying which borough that is?

Am also possibly moving back to London next year.

Quite interested in Wandsworth as it seems they are opening more bilingual school classes (DH is French)

Lewisham.

Well, I think they're perfectly good, mind, other people might disagree .

Yes - most popular school near me has had two dcs moving this summer (year 4) and prob one or two places coming up a year til now. Obviously these spaces go to the dcs living nearest and at top of waiting list.

Several friends have recently moved within the borough and have successfully moved dcs inluding year 1 twins. To an ofsted good/outstanding features infants school.

It helps that quite a few of the local schools are 3/4 form entry thoug the first I mentioned is 2 form entry.

Bromley.

Op: I can reassure you about state schools - there are thousands of v good state primaries within London. There is nothing about having a London address that disadvantages you wrt getting an excellent state education for your primary aged children.

So now you need to research the area you want to move to and you could always ask Mumsnet's advice about that .

It is a difficult one. I think I would recommend looking for an area where there is more than just one school, because that school will inevitably have a waiting list of ready and willings. In my area (Teddington, LB Richmond) ALL the state primaries are excellent. They are also oversubscribed, but you could be on the waiting list for four good schools and therefore presumably have a better chance of getting into one, though of course you'll want to live really close to one to up your chances, which would also depress your chances of getting into another [reaches for the paracetomol].

My dd has just finished Y1. She has had three children leave her class so far. I expect a fair few will go at whenever it is they all head off to prep schools (7? 8?) because this is an affluent area with high rates of private schooling.

I've found a surprising amount of movement in good/outstanding schools

I find people do tend to panic a bit in some areas of London and move out whilst their dcs are in primary, scared stiff at the thought of local secondaries. Of course people move for stacks of other reasons as well

we HEd for a bit while waiting for suitable (primary) school places. If this is a possibility for you, you're laughing-it makes things much easier

There is loads of movement in Central London. If you move very close to the school of your dreams (not a religious school though) then people will move out and you will get a place eventually. You may need to HE or live with a school you dislike for a year though.

I moved out of Zone 1 a couple of years ago. T'other day I was reading an article about one of the primaries I had considered for my dd there. One of the reasons I didn't want her to go there (and one of the reasons for moving) was that there was a 30% churn rate across the school as a whole. Anyway, in this article they were saying that the new housing benefit cap meant that they thought perhaps half the school would not be turning up in September. That's probably a bit dramatic, but it does suggest that if you move to a central area where private rents are expensive, you might cross paths with a lot of poor families having to leave the area, and so take their dc out of school places

I've been thinking that too Devora - if the worst comes to the worst it could have a big impact on (eg) Westminster: the Parisification of London.

Yup. I lived on Kensington High Street. It's astonishing that there were any poor people living round there at all; can't see how you could get any after HB cap. Low income people will only see Kensington when they travel in to clean its toilets or nanny its kids

Depending where exactly you move to, you may have very little choice. In this (east London) borough, you cannot apply directly to your chosen primary school, you have to apply via the LA and they will allocate you a place at the nearest school that has a place available. You could be luck and get a place at a school nearby, but you could also have to travel quite a way as well, depending on exactly which road you live in.

On a teacher's salary I wouldn't have thought toptramp would have been able to afford Zone 1 rents unless she is able to get a key worker flat.

It's a long time now since my children were at primary school but I agree with motherinferior that Lewisham primary schools are fine on the whole,and rents in Lewisham are not too bad, compared to other areas.

I live in Southwark on the border with Lambeth. There is a lot of movement because people in this area do tend to be quite mobile. That said, you will have to look closely at the catchment area. Our closest school, for example, is a one form entry. This year families living on the SAME street as the school missed out - and it was the lowest number of siblings that they've had for some years too. Next year it will be even tighter as a new affordable housing estate has just been finished opposite the school, and people are now moving in there. The next closest school has expanded from two to four classes, and yet it has also had its catchment area shrunk. This is the school my son goes to - we applied when it was a two form entry. This year with the two extra classes our street is out of the catchment area! The next closest school is considered the worst in the area but it has opened up a second class just to meet the demand. It is madness really.

Is it worth moving to London people? I live in rural Somerest and I just want my dd to have more opportuniyties than I did when growing up. The rural idyll can be quite claustrophobic and dull and plus I want to experience life in the big city before I get too old. I need a change.

As someone who's always lived in London, I'd naturally say yes.

Did I see up thread that you're a teacher? The churn in London schools means that there are always jobs for experienced teachers. The issues around getting school places for your child are all about timing and location. It may be easier said than done, and it gets a bit chicken snd egg, but ideally you want to have a confirmed address ASAP (and as close to your preferred school as possible) so that you can get yourself to the top of any waiting list.