Questions on the school start age, good areas to live in in London etc.

[Fazerina]

Hi all,

And sorry in advance if this is somewhat vague and long, but hopefully someone will be able to advise...

I'm originally from Scandinavia and haved lived in the UK now for several years. I realise this is not really relevant for our family yet, as DS (our first DC so far) in only 16 months, but I'm the type that likes to be prepared.. I'm a bit confused as to the official start age for primary school. I know legally children must start school at the age of 5, but must they start Year 1 when they are 5 or can they still start at Reception? I know that children, who are born between September and December (?) can choose whether to start at Reception or Y1, but what about children like my DS, whose birthday is in May?

I realise it's a cultural issue, but coming from Scandinavia, where children generally start school at the age of 7, it just feels to me that DS would be terribly young to go to "real" school when he's "only" 5... I should also make clear that I'm fully aware of the fact that he will be a completely different child by then and that I probably don't have the right perspective looking at my 16-month-old now, but still...

Also, we currently don't live in a very nice area in London and having read some of the Ofsted reports of the nearby primaries it's becoming quite clear that we will have to move somewhere when DS is a bit older. I realise it's probably a difficult one to answer for various reasons, but any suggestions as to areas in London with good scools? I've heard that the real deciding factor should be to live in the catchment area of a good secondary school. Is this true..?

As far as I know, your son can start reception in either Sept or January of the year he turns 5 (depending on the school, some only do Sept starts). You could delay until the following year when he's already 5, but he'd go straight into Year 1, not reception.

As for areas of London, we moved out because all the local schools were dire, except two where you had to pay a minimum of £500k to live right next door. But friends of mine are in Catford and very happy with their dds' primary and the secondary where their eldest dd has just started.

I would choose somewhere near a good primary first off - no point living near a 'good' secondary if your ds has a bad experience of primary (and schools change, what's a good secondary now may not be a decade hence - good heads leave schools go downhill, just as 'bad' schools can turn into great schools).

Btw, be careful about catchments - often the boundary changes year-by-year depending on how many children apply and where they live.

A lot of London doesn't have designated catchment areas (ie priority admission areas); it's simply distance from the school and for popular schools that can be a very narrow footprint. Simply living within the catchment (for those areas which have them) does not in itself guarantee a place, and London has a lot of children so admission footprints can be expected to shrink not grow.

Children in UK must be receiving education by the term after their fifth birthday (which may fall in reception or year 1). But in practice, school places are allocated for reception, and you might find that all schools near your home are full and be unable to secure a year 1 place. Then the LA has to find you a place, but it may not be in a school if your choosing or even one you can reach easily. If you apply for a reception year place, then you can defer entry until later in the reception year, but you cannot hold the place over to year 1.

In England, you cannot choose which school year your DC go into: they have to be in their age cohort, which is based on age on 1 September.

Hi both and many thanks for taking the time to reply!

edam, that's a good point about the catchment area, I hadn't come to realise that they change year to year... Also, living costs in London are already almost unmanageable for us, so I'm not sure if we could afford to pay the premium that would come living close to a toprated school:(...

meditrina, yes someone at my local children's centre mentioned the shortage of school places in London and that many children start at reception at age 5 now, as the LA couldn't find them a place the previous year.. I guess for me personally, I would prefer for the DS to start school as late as possible, but not in a badly performing school of course!

We had also thought of doing home ed for the first two years. If we did decide to go ahead with this, could DS go to "normal" school when he was, say 7 years old? I know this might turn out even more unsettling for DS, to have to go to a class of 30 other children after having been home schooled... but I'm not sure I would be willing to put my own career on hold for several years and I'm also not sure if I would be able to offer DS the best possible education or indeed enough social experiences with peers etc. at home school after the first few years...

Actually, in London it might not be a bad idea to HEd and then seek a school place at year3. There is always a lot of churn in London schools (probably more than elsewhere in the country), so the chances of an occasional place are quite good. And the children will be more used to classmates arriving and leaving.

Also, from year3 and upwards, class size is no longer limited by law, so the chances of getting a school place you find acceptable go up a bit. And if you HEd you can be more flexible about waiting it out on waiting lists for an acceptable school (rather than having to go with an allocated place).

My friends in Catford didn't pay extra to live next door to a top rated school, it's just a good school near to their house. Not everywhere in London is a nightmare! Some local authorities have websites where you can look up how far from a particular school the last child to be admitted lived last year. Someone posted one here, but it was for Herts, not London.

London schools are also on the up - there's an idea that they are all ghastly but results are going up and are quite favourable compared to the rest of the country.

Lots of people do move out to commuterland so they stand more chance of getting their children into good schools, though. Maybe you could consider this? I know where I live, the school that people try to avoid would look great if it was in a more inner-city area.

There is a huge shortage of school places in London which is probably just going to get worse. So don't base any move now on current 'catchment' data as by the time your son goes to school, things will have changed.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1510388-Shortage-of-primary-school-places-in-London-will-it-get-worse-before-it-gets-better

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/a1509623-Catchment-areas-post-shakedown

How close to London do you need to be?

Would something like this Montessori Free School school suit you?

Hello again and thanks so much for all your replies, really really useful info! It's all made me realise how blatantly ignorant I've been on the true scale of things in London ! The thread you had started earlier in the summer lambinapram was a real eye opener:(.

At the moment, the home ed option is actually not looking bad at all and thanks very much meditrina, you made some good points about it perhaps being easier to get a place in a good school a bit later down the line. As this was an option we had considered anyway for other reasons (mainly my worry that DS would not be ready to start school at such a young age..), it's now looking like a viable option also in terms of trying to get DS into a decent school later on. I guess we would need to approach a few schools in advance to ask about the spesifics like how the curriculum I would teach at home could be tailored to prepare DS to join a regular school later on etc. But I suppose this is not something that's never been done before so surely there would be some examples to give me an idea.

Thanks edam for the tip re: the councils posting up the distance you would have to live from a particular school in order to get in. I'll have to look that up when we've narrowed down the areas we'd want to move to.

Thanks also for the link EBDTeacher. I think moving a bit further out of London is definitely an option, but I'm not sure if Harpenden isn't too far... Although the idea of the school (combining the Montessori philosophy with the requirements of the National Curriculum) sounds really interesting and definitely something I would seriously consider!