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Secondary education

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Waldegrave Priority Areas - on a map

7 replies

micasatucasa · 23/06/2017 23:20

Under oversubscription criterion 5 of the Waldegrave admissions policy, places are allocated to girls living within two halves (priority area A and priority area B) of a "rectangular catchment area".

Quoting from the Oversubscription Criteria Notes: "The shape of the priority areas for Waldegrave was originally determined by the link primary school furthest away in each direction in 1998 (i.e. North – John Betts, Hammersmith; South – St John’s School, Kingston; East – St Faith’s School; Wandsworth and West – Forge Lane, Hounslow). These points were used "as a basis" for the boundary of the priority areas."

Until today I've never quite understood this. There's no map on the school website, and the maps in the borough admissions brochure are about as clear as mud. It's generally known that places allocated to "Area B" are within spitting distance of Richmond Bridge (very nice addresses!), so I guess the rest of the rectangle isn't really relevant to most people, but I don't like not understanding things, so with a bit of help from a friend we made our own map.

We got confused at first because we used the 4 schools named in the policy as the corners of the "rectangle" but as that didn't make a true rectangle, we couldn't work out where the A/B boundary was. Then we realised the primaries just marked the north, south, east and west positions of the rectangle and it all fell into place. Once we had a rectangle, the boundary was easy to map in the middle.

So, now it's done I thought I'd share it, in case it's useful for others too: www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1yAHk1HEQtqt4qyqTnpPUkYOa3qA&ll=51.44414630279813%2C-0.30960049999998773&z=12

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micasatucasa · 24/06/2017 11:49

I've added approximate 2016 cut-off areas for offers.

Anyone know for sure if Teddington Lock bridge is included in LBRuT's database of safe access routes? I'm pretty sure kids cross over that way to Grey Court, but I haven't heard of any coming over the other way to Waldegrave or Teddington.

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micasatucasa · 26/06/2017 11:38

I'm answering my own question here - but yes, I've verified that Teddington Lock Bridge is considered a safe access route, so is included in LBRuT's Geographic Information System for calculating home-school distance.

Perhaps families in Ham aren't aware of that though, which is why Waldegrave don't seem to get successful applicants from there (according to allocation maps on council website). Or from Kingston for that matter.

It's also interesting that in 2016, the Area B cut-off distance increased from 5.172km on National Offer Day 2016 to a massive 6.077km by September 1st 2016. Presumably not many families in Area B hang around on the waiting list, and so someone got lucky!

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nocampinghere · 27/06/2017 14:12

afaik the cut off for waldegrave is around Clive Road on Strawberry Vale (and in some years well before it) which is about a kilometre away from Teddington Lock... are you saying that families who live the other side of Teddington Lock can get in ?!? I honestly don't think that is correct.

micasatucasa · 27/06/2017 14:57

You're talking about the Area A cut off. I'm talking about the Area B cut-off. See the map linked in the original post.

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marius123 · 03/08/2017 10:16

Hello micasaestucasa, thanks for the map. Def looking into this with interest as we are considering moving into Richmond and would need a secondary and a primary school for my daughters.
Do you have any other insight in Waldergrave? The circles in the rectangles in your map are reflecting the allocations or the cathment area set by the school? It is weird to see that nobody from Ham / Kingston get allocated even though they are within the rectangle. Or nobody from Barnes or Putney even though they are in rectangle B.
Thanks!!!

micasatucasa · 03/08/2017 10:58

The circles in the rectangles in your map are reflecting the allocations or the catchment area set by the school?

There are notes/disclaimers attached to them in the index to explain, so it's worth reading those carefully - however they're calculated using the cut-off distances published by the Local Authority.

The Local Authority also publishes allocation maps, but only for National Offer Day, not for September, so just remember the areas shown will always increase a bit due to waiting list movement.

What is not clear to me at the moment is why the A/B line used by the Local Authority (published in their Admissions Brochure but nowhere else, not even on the school website) doesn't have any obvious relationship with the rectangle described in the Waldegrave Admissions policy. That's a bit odd.

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micasatucasa · 16/08/2017 18:56

Mystery solved, sort of - we checked with the council and now have the coordinates of the rectangle they actually use for the Priority Admissions Area, so the map has been updated.

The rectangle doesn't line up with the 4 primaries after all, which is why the policy says they are used only "as a basis" for the rectangle.

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