Best areas for secondary aged DC London

[GailSnail]

Inspired by reading a thread about teenagers growing up in London. Which area of London do people think is the best to live in, if you want state schools (not private schools or religious schools)?

Any experiences on here of happy London families with teenagers?

(Disclaimer - I currently live in Greenwich which is great for primary but secondary schools aren't the best.)

This is a ridiculous question, sorry. There's endless answers. There's so many variables to this.

Um, thanks 🤷‍♀️ but I don't think it's a ridiculous to ask actually @Meadowbreeze .

I'm asking which areas have a number of very good state secondaries you can choose from as well as being nice places to live.

Do you need to commute to work/s?
Do you have a budget?
Boys / girls / both?

I think it can be a piece of string question without clear parameters, unfortunately.

Barnet, North West London. Lots of good schools and stiff competition to get in. Comprehensives, grammars and faith schools.

We don't want faith schools or grammars though, just a good choice of secondaries (state comprehensive / academies).

Our commute is flexible as is our budget. Just wondering where has the best concentration of mainstream secondaries as well as being a nice area to live in.

I’m also in the Greenwich Borough (not Greenwich) the schools here are awful I want to move. Don’t want my kids going to any of them very bad reputation for most of them.

I think you're expecting a lot and possibly being naive, OP, thinking you'll have a selection of good secondary 'options' in the state sector anywhere in London.

Sutton is one of the best boroughs for good secondary schools (and at one point certainly in the top five performing areas for GCSE results in England). BUT it is home to four super-selectives, although most of the comprehensives are also high-performing/highly regarded (a lot the grammar pupils come from other areas so it's not as simple as losing the brightest young people to them). However, you'll find demand for places is high, with some pupils getting in from nearby boroughs on various aptitude tests.

I probably phrased my previous comment quite clumsily. Really, you'll find that in very few boroughs will you really have a choice between really good comprehensives. The best ones tend to be very over-subscribed (and many also have sibling policies), with small catchment areas. And there are some 'black hole' areas too (Worcester Park is one which is why a significant % of the Glenthorne places are ring-fenced for youngsters from that area, even though it's quite a distance from the school).

Thanks @LouisCatorze but I m not sure what your conclusion is? That we can't earmark an area to move to for secondary?

Just wondering where has the best concentration of mainstream secondaries as well as being a nice area to live in.

Most areas don't have a concentration of mainstream secondaries - one or two per (large) area is the norm, ime. I live in the next borough over from you and am happy with the (two!) choices available for my daughters, for example. Lots of happy teens, good academic achievement etc. I'm sure if I wanted to search for a needle in a haystack I could find a school that was better on paper, but I'm happy enough, trust the schools, know enough current parents, work with a few of the teens that study there and can imagine my own kids there etc...

If I were you I'd put some parameters in place (like budget and commutes) and go from there. Otherwise you'll just drive yourself mad. There are plenty of decent schools.

If an alien landed in London and asked for this advice I suspect I'd say look for an area of very expensive housing but prohibitively far from two or more private secondary schools.

I also don't know of any areas where there is a choice of schools and nice to live and even vaguely affordable or we would have moved there! Here in bits of south london - Dulwich/Herne Hill/Streatham Hill/Balham people pay to be very close to one particular school or go private, or go to a normal very non spectacular school.

I think others are right. There are some reasonably good secondary schools in my area and some less good ones, but on you take grammars and faith schools out, secondary catchments in London tend to be very small and wherever I chose to live round here, I would only be in catchment for a couple of them, at best. You don't really get much "choice" in that respect.

You'd possibly be better to do it the other way round, choose a school and then buy a house as close as you humanly could.

Many families move out to Bromley from Greenwich - access to Bexley/Kent/Super Selective grammars as well as some excellent comprehensives (if you ensure you live in the right catchment area) - Bullers Wood Girls and Bullers Wood Boys, Ravensbourne etc

@GailSnail yes I'd say that is my conclusion. Unless your DC have reason to be prioritised in terms of entry (for example if they're adopted), it's highly unlikely you'll get much if any real choice in the way you seem to think you will.

Somewhere like Graveney (Wandsworth on Tooting/Streatham border) is a very popular and high achieving comprehensive (but its good results are in part due to having the equivalent of a grammar stream which takes pupils from outside the very small catchment area) but you'd have to live virtually on its doorstep to get a general place.

I've been very happy with schools in Camden ( that's the borough rather than Camden town).

I would also have been happy living in Hackney and Stokey and Muswell Hill.

I wouldn't live in Bromley or somewhere far out - I'd rather move to a different city I think.

The problem is that you can live in an area with great secondaries and yet not be within catchment for any of them. It might be easier to pick a few places you'd like to live, then research the schools there, then look into how close you'd need to be to one you like the look of and whether that is affordable. There are good schools all over London.

Anyway how about Muswell Hill, Fortismere? I know lots of children there who are very happy and doing well and it's a lovely area of London.

Barnet has good secondaries. It’s a big borough, though, and catchment areas are small. Probably the same in a lot of London areas.

Ealing has good state non-selective secondary schools, there are also a few faith schools, but catchments are small, so in reality you don’t have a lot of choice

Living in the catchment for Twyford in Ealing
Or Orleans in Twickenham. Both high performing comprehensive schools in very safe areas.
Graveney is also a great school but I wouldn't feel so comfortable bringing up children in the area.

no budget limit? Richmond?

Twickenham better for seconday school though.

Barnet

It depends to some extent what you class as good. I'm looking for DD2 at the moment and we're in catchment for 1 outstanding (girls only) and 2 good Ofsted rated schools, also on the edge of a third good. But the "good" Ofsted rated ones have results around the national average and definitely feel like what they are, diverse city comps with their own challenges.

But they are good enough that people don't move as much for secondary any more, which used to be the case a few years ago - I'm in Walthamstow.

Thanks @LouisCatorze

I think we are quite flexible on budget and area so we would potentially be able to move onto a schools doorstep assuming a property arises.

Therefore it's still a case of choosing a school (and consequentially an area) for us.