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Best schools in Central London - King Solomon Academy?

4 replies

Cristinac · 06/01/2014 16:54

My 3 year old son will start school next September. I am in the process of relocating to London and I am looking for an area that can offer access to a great school. I am looking at Fitzrovia, Marylebone, Regents Park and Marble Arch. Does anyone have a recommendation on schools I could look at? I have read King Solomon Academy got an "Outstanding" rating last year. Has anyone have any feedback on it? Looking at their website, it looks like there is a majority of special education kids... What is this exactly? I am not from UK and I am a bit lost here with all the education terminology and options. Any help/ advice you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Thanks

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
roslet · 06/01/2014 18:02

Children who turn 4 before 1st Sept this year have to apply for their school place online by 15th Jan I think. If he is still 3 on that date, then you still need to apply for a nursery place pretty soon for some of the schools. Look at Westminster LEA admissions criteria online before getting too keen on one particular school.
King Solomon might have a higher proportion of children with identified Special Educational Needs due to it being situated in quite a deprived part of Westminster, although it may just be that staff there are good at identifying SEN and accessing the additional funding each diagnosis brings.

nicename · 06/01/2014 18:10

Check out the council websites.

Each have their own and their is a tri-council application (Westminster, Ken & Chelsea and Lambeth? - I think). You could call the schools directly and ask about admissions and place. Hamden Gurney and St George's (either side of Marble Arch) are both good. Each school will have its own side and contact details will be on there. Admissions Officers are generally good-sorts and will probably advise you if you ask!

It may be longer term than you would like to imagine, but maybe think of secondary, then work backwards. Are you going to stay in the UK/London?

Google the school and the Head/governors etc - you can learn a hell of a lot by this. When you find a few you like the look of, come back on here and post to get feedback from parents with kids at the school. It may look all lovely and shiny from the outside but be bloody awful from the inside (bitter experience!).

afussyphase · 06/01/2014 20:50

There is a pan-London admissions process so that if you are on the border of a borough, it doesn't advantage or disadvantage you for schools in either borough. Each council can tell you the max distance for the admission on the distance criterion last year (and in past years) - most have brochures you can download with this information. My impression of areas as central as those you have listed is that state school provision is very minimal; it's almost all either faith-based or private, and of course your religion and ability to document it, and finances will determine whether you should consider these.

I'd suggest that if you don't want to pay for schooling and are not going to go for the church route, you might want to consider Islington, Camden, Chiswick etc - just slightly less central. Get the Ofsteds of all the schools near where your decent commuting routes will be, and then get the brochures from the council with distances. But also note that while Ofsted reports are the easiest way to get a snapshot at a distance, they are only a snapshot and are far from the whole story about a school! On top of that, of course they could never capture whether your child will like their teacher, whether your child will like the activities, whether the after-school provision is suitable for you and all that. I was interested in KS too -- it looks like a fairly traditional school, longer hours, emphasis on academics, between the lines more likely to have spelling tests and rows of desks than creative dance ... just guessing though as I have no experience of the school. Also don't bank on one school. If you can choose a neighbourhood with a range of "good" schools in addition to the "outstanding" ones you may be hoping for, this will be a great fallback (as it has been for us).

We did all this, also from afar, a couple of years ago and it was a massive effort; we only partially succeeded (didn't get the ofsted outstanding school we wanted after all that, but got a 'good' one that seems to be working pretty well so far). We had some financial constraints too, and commute constraints.. and it all added up to not really thinking about secondaries at all beyond the vague notion that there are some good secondaries vaguely around here and colleagues in the area with older DC are not terribly worried about it. Our DC are young, and schools can change a lot in 5 years, and what with all the other constraints, it just wasn't possible. Good luck with it! It's hard.

Cristinac · 09/01/2014 13:14

Thank you for your feedback and insights! After some research, I am going to look into the Matylebone area and I I will try to get a spot on St. Vincent's RC school. Wish me luck! Wink

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