Which Twickenham (St Magarets) primary school to go for?

[wallywally]

We moved into St Magarets area few months ago. DD is reaching 5 later this year and we struggled to make a decision on which school to go for. After multiple school tours, we narrowed down to two options,

1. St Stephen's School
2. Deer Park Primary

SSS setting is nice and warm. Kids on open day appeared to be confident and bright. Staff are very welcoming and I feel like home there. They get really good KS2 results too. Ofsted is contradicting with only good rating though;

DPP has a new campus and hardwares are nice and neat. Head teacher knows what he is doing and teaching topics well communicated with parents. Academic result unknown though as its comparatively new.

DD can be shy at first in a new setting, but excel once she knows the place well with peers around. We are new immigrants and don't know the system very well. We worry if we made the wrong decision. Any suggestion or advice?

Many thanks xxx

Neither is a bad school so you can't go wrong. SSS results are a bit of a one off, historically not quite so good. Deer Park attainment numbers are pretty good too.

The big difference between them is that SSS is a religious school, do you see that as a factor at all?

If you like both schools equally are there practical factors that work better for you (location, wrap around care options) or any extra curricular options you like better?)

Have you considered Orleans and St Mary's too?

Thank you for your input, @RNBrie. Without much connection in the area, we only relied on the numbers available in public and thought SSS is the one really standing out.

Religious or not isn't quite a concern for us. Like you said, we are shifting our focus to the practical side. Things to consider like traffic on Richmond Rd and nearby greens for DD to play after school.

DD is attending nursery of Orleans now. We are neutral to it so far, but I heard comments from other parents that Orleans is not as good as it's reputation anymore with recent staff changes (head teacher left etc.)

For St Mary, we couldnt work out the time to attend it's open days. What would you say about the school? We only know it has a comparatively long history and with multiple school sites.

Once again, thanks for taking time to reply. Much relieved while hearing "I can't go wrong"

Love xxx

I forgot to mention, inclusion of French in the syllabus is a big + for us. Would love our DD to pick up one more langauge in early years.

St Mary’s tweeted the other day that they are happy to arrange individual tours if you give them a call. It has lots going for it in many respects; a few frustrations but no school is perfect.

The three site thing is a pain for the school run if you have siblings on different sites but otherwise means each individual site isn’t too overwhelming yet they have the resources of a large school. They do learn French but I wouldn’t say it’s a huge focus. I don’t know anything about Deer Park but get the impression St Stephen’s is a lovely school from what little I’ve heard. I wouldn’t set too much store by Ofsted ratings - ‘good’ is perfectly fine and many currently ‘outstanding’ schools (assessed many years ago) are at risk of being downgraded anyway as there are new standards in place these days and apparently ‘outstanding’ is harder to come by.

I've heard the same that Orleans isn't as good as it's reputation but it is still very popular.

I agree with @kta7 that St Mary's being split over three sites gives it a small school feel but with the benefits of a big school and there is a walking bus which takes siblings between sites in the mornings. The other benefit is that the junior site is at the same location as Orleans Park secondary which can help with the transition to secondary.

If you can find time to visit St Mary's before the deadline then I think it's definitely worth it. If I had to rank those 4 schools I'd probably have St Mary's at the top of the list with SSS second.

@wallywally Just spotted this thread. Which school did you decide on in the end and why? Applying next year so interested to hear your views.

@Zctpv58 we ended up putting SSS as our number 1 choice. Simply put, warm and lovely school closest by.