Moving to Hampshire: advice on schools please!

[cicci]

Hello,
we are planning to move to Hampshire in summer 2011 due to husband's redeployment (new job will be in Titchfield area)and have to sort out secondary and primary schools. We are considering three areas: 1) Bishop Waltham; 2) Fair Oak or 3) Stubbington. I have looked at performance tables and ofsted reports for the secondary and primary schools there, but has anybody got first hand information of Swanmore college, Wyvern College or the Crofton School? And of the primary schools in those towns/villages? Girls are quite academic and musical, but not terribly sporty- most of all would like a friendly and welcoming atmosphere to help them settle in in new surrounding!!
Thanks!

Barton Peverill is also excellent.

We visited Crofton School for a tour and we were shocked considering we'd always heard it had a long standing good reputation (and we have visited quite a few schools now).

What they told us about their approach to pupils and what we saw just didn't match. They do appear to have a few very high achievers but it looks rather bleak for anyone who isn't, and that was an attitude I saw in the Baycroft part of the campus too.

It is very run down with low hope of attracting funding to renovate in comparison to lots of other schools who have recently completed programmes of building because they managed to secure it before the new government came in. They claim that they rarely get the whiff from the nearby sewage works but the people I know who have been there for 5 years say otherwise!

They are lovely people but more united against adversity than as a credit to the school itself. Crofton claims that more of their pupils go to Bay House sixth form than from Bay House themselves, but at least Bay House pupils tend to give their sixth form a go. Everyone I know from Crofton went straight to St Vincent because Crofton put them off the secondary school environment completely.

The people I know from the Titchfield area who went private, however, then took A-level study at either South Downs or Havant colleges.

There is a great community feel to BW and both the primary schools there are very good and really involve the children in local events. Personally I don't find traffic loads in BW too heavy except at peak times (isn't it everywhere?) but there are plans to build a large supermarket near the village centre which could alter this. At the moment these plans have yet to be approved.
Swanmore Secondary has recently appointed a new Headteacher but currently the results are comparable to Kings in Winchester. Kings is always oversubscribed and BW is not in the catchment area so a place there is not guaranteed from BW. However, most children from Swanmore Secondary go on to Peter Symonds for which BW is in catchment and that achieves amazing results at A-Level.
Good luck!

When we moved here a couple of years ago, lots of the primary schools around Fareham/Titchfield were over subscribed and even if you lived within catchment you may not get places!! My kids go to go Gomer Infant (Gosport)which is lovely. Bay House is close by.

What can I say? thank you all for this fantastic information. The links to the pages of Hampshire County Council education with the admissions numbers vs numbers on rolls and the catchment maps are very useful indeed. I have a good idea of who goes where now, I have also contacted Peter Symonds direct and they confirmed as I expected that Wyvern and Swanmore are partners schools and from further south you only get in if there are places left - which did not happen in the last two years apparently. We visited BW area over half term and really liked it, found the people very friendly and welcoming and my girls fell in love with the traditional sweet shop! Talking to the people in BW some mentioned that they prefer to send kids to Winchester secondary schools - but as I am parachuting mine into a new area I would really like to send them locally.