The Clere School - is it as bad as we've heard ?

[RosemaryandThyme]

We're at a feeder primary for The Clere school - recently heard that it is struggling and is now awful.
Just wondering if anyone has heard of this and what if any alternatives there might be.
Thanks

Where is it?

I heard it had failed its ofsted and been put in special measures.

Dont have any DC there myself. Where do you live, do you want a mixed school, or not mind single sex (do you have DD or DS), state or ind?

We're on the Hampshire /Wiltshire border, The Clere is Hampshire/Berkshire (between newbury and Andover).

I have two boys and one girl so ideally would love a good mixed state school - which a few years back at the start of primary we thought would be the clere...seems that it has fallen apart recently and am now getting concerned that it wont be pulled around in the next year or so.

We tried with local independent - they were keen to have ds1 after testing him, did offer 85% (bursary and scholarship combined) but we are frightenly poor (we live a "community" shared housing / small-holding existance) and couldn't manage the remaining 15%

Andover secondaries are weak, Winchester might be possible if we could find a good but not over-subscribed one, sailsbury grammar maybe but the train fare rather than the 11+ would be our stumbling point.

hasnt the head at the clere just been sacked and they are getting a new one? it looks like it is on the up! DD has friends there who have enjoyed there time and doing very well, would you consider schools in newbury? DD goes to Park house and really enjoys it.

I used to live in the Catchment for the Clere and taught in Newbury. There were always lots of children who were stood waiting for busses in my village (K..clere) waiting to go into Newbury for school. Mostly to Park house, or St Barts. Others had lifts to the Kennet.

But then I also used to know people who lived in Andover who used to ship their children over to The Clere, because that school was always deemed so much better than Andover Schools.

Ofsted reports aside (I haven't seen it and cannot comment on that), I do think these things are often relative, and I do seem to remember that Newbury people had quite a strange obsession with schools. Even their worst schools (The Clere and Trinity) were doing so much better than schools in the next area I went to teach in (Rural Oxfordshire), but the obsession in Oxon was nowhere near as insane!

Both Park House and St Barts used to rely on children coming in from out of catchment to keep up their large intakes and it is my understanding that they still do... so I wouldn't worry yet a while. Have a look at these schools first.