Advice on Schooling Options in NW2 Mapesbury Area

[Danter]

Hi everyone,

I’m new to the forum (which is brilliant, by the way!) and hoping to get some advice. I’m an atheist father of a 2-year-old, and I’m trying to understand the best way to navigate the local school situation in the Mapesbury area (NW2) of London.
We’re thinking about nursery now, but I’m wondering if:

• does having a spot in nursery help retain a spot for Reception/Year 1 at all? Or is it completely non-relevant?
• How is the distance from school calculated? In walking distance (effective walk) or aerial distance (point A from point B, with point B being the centre of the school of course)?
• There are two good schools nearby, but both seem to have been massively oversubscribed in the past. One is about 1.6 miles away (last year further spot was offered 0.8 miles away), and the other is 0.9 miles away (last year further spot was offered 0.9 miles away).
• There’s also a Catholic school, which has a great reputation but is consistently oversubscribed too. However, we’re not comfortable pursuing that option solely for our son’s schooling, as we’re not religious (it’s about 0.5 miles from us). The other schools around here don’t seem to have the same reputation.
• Has anyone else been in a similar situation in our neighbourhood?
• Does it even make sense to apply to those first two schools despite the distance? Should we list these three as our preferences and hope for the best, or is there a better strategy? How do things usually play out in terms of getting a spot?

Thanks in advance for any insights and sorry for the (many) novice questions!

Distance is measured aerial. It’s definitely worth applying to the one 1.6 miles away as there is a lot of movement and you might get in off the waiting list.

Unfortunately joining nursery won’t guarantee a place at a state school.

The 'last distance offered' is only from the first round, it's often further on the 2nd/3rd round so always worth applying to your top school first even if it's the furthest one. It won't disadvantage you from the other ones but allows you to stay on the waiting list as there's lots of movement in London. Posting the names of the schools might get you some advice if others live in the area or know of the schools.

Best way to get a sense is to visit schools and ask around for honest opinions from other parents on how and why they made the choices they did.

Also in london best to list six schools, and one that you know you will get into - eg you could list your nearest school 6th and if all other schools are over subscribed you'd get the 6th, but stay on the waiting list for all other five. If you list nearest school first (but it's not truly your first preference) you wouldnt stay on the waiting list for any of the others. Hope that makes sense

Thank you for the advices!
The schools (nursery and primary) we’d be looking for are the Ark Franklin Primary Academy and the Kingsgate Primary School.
St Agnes Catholic primary school would be the third option, but as said we are not Catholic (although my wife is “on paper”, she never practiced).
All three are always over subscribed. Is there any chance to be accepted in Catholic Schools or much likely to be considered you must have your child baptized?

I think Kingsgate Primary School is undersubscribed? ie everyone that applied was offed a space in the past 5 years. Where are you getting the distance allocation from? On the Camden website it shows there was no max distance as all applications got an offer.

It's a really great school - we are not far away and looked at this one. It's a very large school with large grounds (for NW6) so you have a really great chance of getting in.

In my experience Ark Franklin is not genuinely oversubscribed, in that they have space in reception by the time you get to September. Also look at Mallorees and Salusbury, both really great nurturing primary schools. Salusbury in particular

If your child is not baptised they will be near the bottom of the criteria for catholic school entry. However, it is worth applying because all London schools are seeing fewer applications as more families move out of London. St Agnes is a very good school btw.

Amazing, thank you everyone for all the feedback! I took all the comments and started using a bit more all the resources online and decided to start preparing the attached table. Open to any suggestion to improve it and (if anyone wants) to share it. I took most of the data from Ofsted and https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/

I would also add:

• admissions criteria & likelihood of getting in based on past years
• Breakfast club & after school club & is this onsite or off site (our primary school after school club is run offsite & kids get taken by bus to Fortune Green which is a bugger to collect from whereas Ark Franklin & Kingsgate have onsite clubs at the school)

If you can look at historic results that might sway you - you'll want a school that consistently performs well year on year. St Lukes used to be very poor performing.

Great feedback, thank you. May I ask what school/why did you pick that one, as it seems we might be in the same catchment areas?
Also, what is the easiest way to check the performance of past years?

You can check historic results on the gov website. Kingsgate consistently performs over the years and I think Ark Franklin is a new high performer, they were performing below average a few years ago. I ruled out Kingsgate as it was just a little too far to commute to as we live half way between Ark Franklin and Kingsgate and I wanted somewhere within 20 minute walk.

Our primary school requires church attendance and is hugely oversubscribed.

Locrating. It is quite cheap to just do a month subscription, and shows how over subscribed each school is on last admissions data - and how many picked it as 1st place etc, i think like another poster said, 'oversubscribed' schools are sometimes not as over subscribed when you see that the total applicants includes everyone who listed it in all positions, whereas maybe not as many listed it as 1st.

I would also note that the SATS results are the first published in several years due to covid. The % 'exceeds' expected is more revealing than who achieved expected - as it shows how many are performing above average - some schools aim for hitting that average more than exceeding - but it can depend on the cohort. I would also check how nurturing the environment is, access to extra curricular, PTA involvement (as schools are under funded so extra funds can be a huge help). All important too for well rounded emotional development. You can get a good vibe from visits.

I live in the area and would recommend you consult with some local mums or Facebook groups - I have heard there are pastoral care issues at kingsgate but not had personal experiences (pretty sure kingsgate is not oversubscribed)

Seconded re looking at more than SATS results. We are local and that post covid cohort is definitely not a good marker, the schools’ demographics are also changing rapidly. Go and visit them and check out the pastoral offerings. With smaller schools in particular the SATS percentages can vary a lot from year to year.

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. I’ve taken it all on board and added more columns to the Excel sheet, including Historic Results, Onsite/Offsite Clubs, Oversubscription status, and more. The color coding is just a simple way to give us a more visual way to interpret the data. Of course, we plan to meet and speak with parents and schools directly, but we needed a starting point, and for now, we’re just trying to get a grasp of the many different options our area offers through the available data online.
The attached file is still a work in progress, but I’m aiming to finish it in the next few days. I do have one question, though: why do some public schools show £6-7-8,000 in expenses on certain websites? What do these costs refer to?

OP any chance you can upload that into a shared google sheet (as view only so nobody can edit) as i'm sure other local people would love to see this data.

Sending you a private message. What I'd be happy to share is a blank template at the moment.