Hedge End Primary Schools

[taliasera]

Hi,

Please let me have opinions about specific Hedge End primary schools. We are moving into the area, with our pre-school DD, so want to live in catchment of a good state primary in Hedge End. We are completely new to the Southampton area, and haven't yet met anyone living there. The schools appear to be:

Shamblehurst
Freegrounds
Berrywood
Kings Copse
Wellstead

Berrywood has Ofsted "requires improvement", Wellstead has "outstanding", and the others have "good".

Please let us know your opinions of these schools, as the Ofsted reports do not tell the whole story. Are any of the above schools to be avoided?

Thanks kindly!

Sera

There's a very active fb group called 'Southampton NCT' where I'm sure this question comes up regularly - I'd definitely recommend you join it. I'm the other side of Southampton so no idea!

They are all great. Have child at one and friends at others, all happy and thriving. Berrywood has just got a good ofsted, only a few weeks ago.

Wellstead you would need to live in catchment for to get a place but not so much for the others (my dc is out of catchment purely because I thought school was best fit for him).

Freegrounds is split into infant and juniors but the rest are yr- y6. Kings copse is the smallest with a one form entry and is also a specialist school for children with visual impairment. Shamblehurst and Wellstead are two class entry and Berrywood and freegrounds are the largest with three classes each year.

I totally second the advice to join the Southampton nct Facebook and also the Southampton nct 'school years' Facebook group. Both are very active groups.

Thanks very much for the helpful comments. I have joined the Facebook group and have lots of useful info from people. :)

How about Botley? Excellent school