Right, areas in and around London with a cluster of good secondary schools (which admit boys)

[Wormwood]

Message deleted

Bromley has good secondary schools. We're in Hayes, which is in zone 5 or 6 of the travelcard zones.

Er there are lots of otehr schools other than Tiffin in Kingston, Teddington, grey Court, HollyField, Coombe, Richard Challenor etc etc, Tutoring is not compulsory to get a decent secondary education here

Message deleted

Can you clarify what you meant in the comment about St Albans so we can get a feel for what sort of area you are after? Eg did you mean it wasn't multi-cultural enough or that it didn't have enough going on locally in terms of art, music, theatre, etc. Because tbh if you are hankering after a vibrant multi-cultural area in the city centre, that usually correlates with a dearth of good state schools.

Personally I think that moving to a large town within an easy commute of the centre of London is preferable to living in one of the outlying London suburbs (which often have poorer transport links with the centre). But then I am allergic to suburbia!

Teddington is not far at all from Kingston- lots of children go there from the Norbiton area.
Think you need to do a bit more research instead of sweeping statements.

Message deleted

Message deleted

Message deleted

don't move to Woking. St Albans is far nicer.

I also think St Albans is far nicer than Woking. Is Woking in Surrey? I am not keen on most of Surrey tbh apart from Guildford.

I think if you pick your area and school carefully you can find more multicultural areas even within towns/cities that seem like bastions of the white, middle-class. We live in such a town but at my dc's school I would say that up to 50% of the children have at least one parent not born in the UK. Is there a particular culture you would prefer to have more of around you iyswim?

I would stay well clear of Richmond borough if I were you. This year 40% of pupils did not get their first choice secondary school.

This year and last the local primary schools to me in Twickenham have lost their links to the excellent secondarys (mixed ed) on distance (which is getting smaller and smaller every year and has never been a problem in the past). Our school for example only had 16 pupils get into the link school this year out of 60. The rest have been offered a school up the road which at the moment has LOTS of problems and a terrible OFSTED. I can only see this problem getting worse over time.

Message deleted

Message deleted

they are on the verge of going ahead building a new secondary school in north kingston which will relieve the pressure on grey court/teddington enormously (as they end up taking children from the K-U-T borough)

it's all about where you live (i.e. the street you are on) if you choose a london borough but I suspect you know this already

btw, we have several friends in Woking whose children go to excellent state secondary schools. Just beware that the minute you move out of a London borough, even one in zone 6, the drop in public transport is extraordinary. Both friends don't live within walking distance to the station and have to drive as there are no bus routes that go their way. It's definitely a lot more suburban too, a substantial degree more.

Ruislip/ pinner in NW London have plenty of good schools and lovely area on end of central and picadilly lines

Message deleted

yes it is nice (KUT), don't write it off. I don't know how old your children are, but if you have time, I'd wait and see what happens with this new school (if it does happen).

we moved from zone 2 to 6 and even that took some adjusting. I don't think we will ever move further out - in fact any subsequent moves will probably take us further back in.

The Tiffin thing is a red herring - don't forget Kingston also has Sutton fairly near with its grammar schools - those schools don't only attract children from the local area.

In RUT, a lot of the secondary applications are still done by link schools - as gegs said - so you may need to get your child into the last year of primary school at a linked primary if you want to be sure of a place. This has become more important over the last couple of years as certain primaries have started sending larger proportions to the linked schools.

new school consultation for north kingston

other thing I should point out is that the state schools in RUT don't have sixth forms, which is a gripe of mine tbh. I think having a levels at school attracts different teachers tbh.

I see that new school is planned to have a sixth form.

Merton is just putting sixth forms back into its secondary schools, which makes it much more attractive; the boys' schools are also improving. From Merton you can easily get into, and travel to, the grammar schools in Kingston and Sutton, and the selective comprehensives in Wandsworth, so you have a huge choice. Wimbledon is the most expensive part of Merton, but there are plenty of less expensive areas in the borough.

Message deleted

Yes, Cheam is in Sutton. Mock Tudor-land is not so expensive as KUT & RUT. But you can get big family houses with really big gardens for reasonable prices. The thing is with Merton that you can go either way to Sutton or Kingston; or further in to Wandsworth; or for girls, people go in to Fulham or Westminster (even within the state sector). Have a look at Sutton though. There are nice leafy areas which are salubrious, even quite close to downbeat towns like Morden and Wallington - both of which have great transport links.

So are there no decent secondary schools at all actually, you know, in London rather than the suburbs?

I didn't mean to kill the thread

It was a genuine question!

Perhaps there are none?

Forest Hill (south london - se23) has a boys' school with v good results.
Quintin Kynaston is v multicultural and gets v good results and outstanding ofsted reports (am biased though cos I used to work there ).