Secondary School in York

[mrstemp]

We live in the South East at present and need to move to York because of a family situation. We have a 12 year old son and wonder if anyone can give advice on any good schools in and around York (within 5 miles). Our son is interested and does well in Maths, science and IT. We can check offstead reports but would appreciate any personal recommendations.

Bump.

Usually York mums are good at giving the low down on state & private options. I'm not quite close enough to help.

My older dds go to Huntington and we've been happy with that so far (dd1 is yr10). Fulford gets the best results but you will have to live in the catchment area and tbh a friend of mine who has had two dc go through there hasn't been crazy about the school's approach. Good results but not very rounded approach/pastoral care. Joseph Rowntree has a lovely new building and a fairly decent reputation. Millthorpe's improved a lot, I have a couple of friends with dds there who are happy with it. I would suggest avoiding York High and Canon Lee but tbh there's no such thing as a truly bad school in York. The one with the worst results is being closed (became very unpopular) but even that school had decent facilities, noticeably dedicated staff and the best value added school in the city.

My DDs are very happy at Manor, which also has a new building with great dance/drama facilities, although it sounds as if those might not be your DS's top priority. It has an overtly Christian ethos - don't know if that appeals to you or not but is probably worth pointing out either way :)

I have the impression that York schools are quite full. It's probably worth calling the council to see where there are places.

All the private schools are excellent. Bootham is Quaker and St Peter's is very traditional. If you'd rather state I'd go for Manor, Fulford or Huntington. We're going to move in a few years to hopefully get DD into Manor.

Does Manor have a sixth form now though? I suspect Huntington will have Year 7/8 places as I don't think they filled up completely last year.

No, no sixth form at Manor yet.

thanks very much for your feedback and sorry I haven't replied sooner...where does the time go - we have spoken to council who just direct you to a list so we want to do a bit of digging ourselves.
NorthernLurker - thanks for the suggestions we got caught out with a junior school that we picked in Surrey having a great rep but then under special measures so you cant always tell just from results
janeyjampot - thanks for your comments about Manor at least it gives us a better picture. I have already spoken to the council but they said we have to pick and apply from Surrey and I dont know if it's because he will be going into Year 8 but we can only apply 20 days before start of term??
AntoinetteCosway - we are really just looking at state schools

Many thanks to you all

Hi, the Manor Academy York does not address poor behaviour and accepts low social standards and very unkind interactions between pupils. We had meetings and nothing changed. They don't pay proper attention to your child's needs, talents or limitations. We took it for a year and pulled our child out and are relieved. The teachers don't know how to deal with challenging behaviours from the new catchment areas and for example say, well its teenagers. One head of house cheerfully admitted the teachers don't "get to know" the yr 7 kids until year 8. What??
Your child won't have the time to sit and eat food as the lunch queues are ridiculous and cafe tiny. As for academic standards- think low. If your child has dyslexia- forget it. We were promised by the head so much with excellence in teaching learning difficulties and they delivered nothing.