Where are the best primary schools?

[MumcomingbacktoUK]

After many years living abroad I will be moving back to the UK next year with my husband and two young sons who are 4 and almost 3. I used to live in the Norwood Green area but we're thinking of either the commuter belt (like St Albans) or near Bristol where we have family. If anyone has any recommendations for really good primary schools (non denominational) in either location I'd really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

This will depend when your son was 4. For children who should be starting Reception in September 2015 and were born between September 2010 and August 2011, you normally would apply to your LA or preferred school in January 2015. If you do not have an address in the UK at that point, you cannot apply. The reason for saying this to you is that, irrespective of where the good schools are, there is a high chance you will not get into one if you are not resident by the cut off date. Both these cities have some great schools but you may need to assess the quality of schools that will have spaces. I would be inclined to judge each city on a much wider criteria than schools because the best ones will be over subscribed and impossible to get into. Other posters may have individual information about great schools which have spaces mid year.

If your son had his 4th birthday before 1st Sept 2014, then he'd be in the current reception year i.e. his future classmates are already in school. I think that would mean an "in-year" application i.e. you would be looking for places out of the normal admission process as you would if you were moving school later.

You can apply and get a place from abroad (we did) but you don't get your first choice school, or anything that anyone else wants. After children in care, special needs and siblings, places are allocated according to distance... and you are/ we were the furthest away by a factor of 500!

This was a nightmare for us when moving back. Eventually we got a school that seemed ok, but wasn't when we got to know it. So, we had to move again a couple of years later... and this time we only got in to a better school by the skin of our teeth.

Its all much worse for the first three years of primary school (viz. Reception, Yr1 & yr2) because there is a cap of 30 on the number of children who can be in a class. From year 3 onwards, they can vary it by adding 2, 3 or even 4 more children at the school's discretion.

I'd look at finding a school, pref with a backup option and finding a place to put down as your UK address. Could you theoretically move back early with your children, say, to your parent's address, leaving your husband to follow? Then you have the address, and if its too late for your 4year old, its not too late for the 3 year old. So they could get a place at your preferred school and your 4 year old would joining the waiting list for his year, either at or near the top because of the sibling policy. then you just have to wait for someone to leave...

I shouldn't worry about missing the first year though... we did and it made no difference at all (in fact it may even have helped Ds1 who is summer-born).

Just re-reading your OP, and I realise that your question is where are the best schools? The answer is they are all much of a muchness in that they all follow the national curriculum.

Every place has a small handful of good schools, a few awful schools and a lot that are in the middle. Some are better than others with engaging extremely able children, whilst others have very good special needs arrangements, some do lots of trips and others hardly any. Some offer lots of competitive sports, whereas others avoid them like the plague.

What you think of the school mostly depends on what you believe education should be and how well your child's needs are met. Even then your child could been in year 6 now and have had a completely different experience passing through the school than if s/he had been born a year earlier just because a good teacher left, the replacement was inexperienced and a couple of teachers got switched around because they were bored of teaching a particular year every year.

Thinking about the parents at my DCs school, the only thing we have in common is that we all want our children to be safe and happy. When I hear the moans its about the bad temper of one of the teachers or the lack of preparation for sports or the parent of an autistic child is unhappy or the parent of the child who got punched by the autistic child is unhappy. My moan is that the school doesn't provide enough challenging work for DS and that he has twice been told that teaching will be suspended for a year whilst the others catch up. However our OFSTED is good with some outstanding features and the waiting lists are long.