Please help a septic who needs to figure out the UK system asap! just a few questions..

[jesska]

Apologies in advance if some of my questions are very basic indeed. Please bear with me!

Dh is a brit, I am american, we used to live in Bethnal Green in London where we own a house (now let out). We currently live abroad and have 2 dbs, the oldest of which is nearly 2 years old. We will be returning to London when he is 3.5 and I have just realised that this means I should sign him up now (ie once he turns 2) for a spot in a nursery or EYU attached to any good primary schools in our area to increase his changes of then getting into said primary....The tower hamlets council told me that I need to discuss nursery admission with the schools directly, not them. So far, so good.

My questions are:

1. Should I just come out and say that we are not currently residing in our house because we are in fact in Japan, or should I fudge it? I do not want to lie, and we WILL at the time he goes to nursery be in the house, but I am afraid they won't even take his name down for nursery if we don't officially reside in the house right now. (I suppose this might have to come up, however, since we are not exactly available for a school tour or interview!)

2. I have looked at exam results and ofsted reports for local schools, but Dh says more important is where kids feed into after the primary. Fair enough, but how do I find that out? Ask the school? Googling this sort of thing - on mumsnet or elsewhere - hasn't really worked unless the school itself has advertised where pupils have then gone on to.

3. Have we missed the boat entirely on private primary schools because I did not sign db up anywhere at birth? I suppose I could get on it pronto for #2, who is 4mo...

thanks for any and all advice, and your patience! If there is a "UK Schools for Dummies" guide out there please let me know also.

Very briefly - being in an attached nursery doesn't have any bearing on the chances of getting into a primary school. State primary schools have very defined entry criteria - usually a sibling at the school, any special educational need that would be best served at that particular school and proximity. So don't worry about the nursery thing.

Ofsted and so on are important - but the best way of choosing IMHO is to actually go to the schools and look round - different schools suit different children. (sorry if that's obvious!) You can ask the schools where most of their children go on to, but remember that circumstances and schools change. In our area there is a Secondary that 4 years ago people were fighting to keep their children out of - a new Head and 4 years later it's in the top of the "most improved" schools in the country and will probably be oversubscribed nest year.

I don't know about specific schools in Bethnal Green or about private schools 9being a die hard supporter of the State system!) but others will be along with more information. Hope this helps.

I don't know about the dummies bit, but getting your child into the nursery attached to the school does not mean they have any privileges when it comes to primary school applications. Also if you are returning to your previous home, then you will only be able to apply to the nearby schools (well you might be able to apply to schools that are further away, but it is unlikely you will get a place, unless they are under-subscribed). You should find a guide to primary school applications on the Tower Hamlets council web-site: www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgsl/1-50/13_schools_-places-_primary.aspx as well as a list of all the schools.

For nurseries, yes they all have direct applications. I don't know about school based nurseries, but private ones shouldn't mind where you live. They may want a deposit though. If you contact the Children's Information Services they should give you a list (not sure if they will e-mail though, and they might be funny about sending it to the States) www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/lgnl/education_and_learning/pre-schools1.aspx

For secondary schools, it is again geographic, I think that you can put your post-code into the Ofsted website it will tell you which ones are local to your house (you can do this for primary, and possibly nurseries too). In my experience the better the school the smaller the catchment area. You will find that most children go from their closest primary to their closest secondary, but there is nothing to stop parents from applying to several secondaries and for children to go to somewhere different to their classmates, especially if you choose a school with some selection criteria (I have no idea if there are any in Tower Hamlets though).

Re private schools they all have different application methods, but I don't think that many have a apply at birth policy. Usually there is some cut off date. Sometimes it is easier to get your child into a school out of the normal time period because when families move, there are gaps, and less competition. There seem to be six private schools, but apart from GateHouse I think they are all for Muslim children (judging from the names only)
www.schoolsnet.com/uk-schools/best-independent-private-school/top-tower-hamlets-schools/16180339/0/- 3/5/187.html

I have to say that I wouldn't expect there to be lots of good secondary schools in Tower Hamlets, given that it is a deprived area, but there could be schools slightly further afield that are possible. I wouldn't be worrying about that for a two year old though - who knows where you might live by the time you need to make a decision about that. Primary schools tend to not have quite the same issues as secondary schools (I sometimes wonder what happens when you have good primaries and then a secondary with a really bad reputation - what happens to those nice kids all of a sudden )

Try posting a thread with Tower Hamlets and Primary Schools/Nurseries in the title (at a UK friendly sort of time), and I'm sure someone with local experience will give you some ideas.

Good luck! I did the opposite move, London to the US (and then on to Canada) navigating your own country's systems is bad enough - trying to understand how it works elsewhere is really tricky.

bump

Thanks for your very helpful posts seeker and nooka. I realise that I am panicking a bit too early for this, but it's hard since I can't really pop in to see schools (we live in Japan now and don't get back to London often - too much of a pain with 2 under 2). And I just realised that it's half term, too, so calling schools will have to wait until next week.

I must have read somewhere about nursery helping you get into the primary, but in any case, there are some decent schools near our house like the Columbia Primary School (this is super close), St. Elizabeth's Catholic and William Davis.

We figure our most ideal scenario is to get db into a good state primary and then later into a private (Tower Hamlets does not seem to have good secondary schools).

But I am slowly wrapping my head around things. thanks again

Call Tower Hamlets Council and ask them to send you an information pack. I'm not sure what they have there, but Hackney has a Learning Trust and they're incredibly helpful, so I'm guessing TH has something similar.
Primary school places will be dependent on criteria clearly set out. Other posters are correct in that being in the school nursery makes no difference whatsoever (unless it's a religious school, and then I've heard it can...!) With normal state primaries though, if you have no special needs, it's about sibling preference and proximity to the school. In London that's often really close to the most popular schools - as little as 100m. As your son is only two you've got lots of time before the application has to be in for state primaries, as they do that about nine months in advance of the academic year he's due to start. In other words, you can wait until you get back to the UK to look. If you want to get him into a preschool nursery though, you should definitely put his name down asap, as that's on a first come first served basis and you have to live in the school catchment area. I'm sure if you know you'll be back in the country they'd still accept an application.
Same if you want to put him into a private nursery. The good ones are hugely over subscribed and you can wait for over a year for a place in some.

Don't worry about putting names down for secondary private in London - a lot of the 'good' ones have entrance exams that will need to be done nearer the time so you can cross that off the worry list. You can't help where you live so in terms of catchment you don't need to worry (unless you anticipate moving!) and the only thing that might possibly help you now is if the local state primary you're keen on is religious, in which case it's never too early to start some form of religious observance - and before anyone flames me for saying that, if you're ideologically opposed to religious observance then you're probably not suited to a religious school!