st clement danes

[kchop]

Hi all, please can someone advise on St Clement Danes school in Hertfordshire. We are thinking of moving to either chorleywood or Rickmansworth but were not sure about the catchment area. Also Chalfont looks like a really nice town, has anyone from chalfont made it into the above mentioned school? Thank you all in advance for your responses.

They appear to have admission tests. DC have to be registered to take them. Have you looked at their web site? Chalfont area is served by Bucks grammar schools and The Chalfonts school which is a secondary modern. If you want St CD, I would live in Chorleywood to make life easier! However, why not ask the school where DC live who attend the school? Normally schools that test take DC from a wider area so Little Chalfont, for example is very close and that might well be fine. However you do have Challoners High and Grammar for DC who live in that area. They are outstandingly good schools.

I’m not sure if you are looking at St CD for a place which isn’t y7. Are DC older? Again I would contact the school for admission at a later point. Are there spaces?

If you want a primary school first, there will be pressure on places in primary schools in these areas.

If you're looking for year 7, St CD is part selective. If you look on their website, you'll see that they take some on music, some on academic, siblings and then catchment. The selection is via the SW Herts Consortium Test.

The website also has details of the furthest distance to the school - this has shrunk considerably in recent years, despite extra classes.

If you like it, and are moving, you'd be best in Chorleywood. Ricky won't guarantee you a distance place - it didn't even reach Valley Road this year.

Good school, but we are in catchment and both of my DC's chose to go to other local schools which they preferred.

I live in Chorleywood (though my kids don't go to school there). Chorleywood is quite unusual as it is very close to the boundary of Herts and Bucks.
Taking your questions in turn, you can go to SCD if you live in Bucks, provided you live reasonably near. I have a friend in Chenies (located between CW and Little Chalfont, but in Bucks) and her children go to SCD. There's a phrase called the Cedars Estate lottery to describe getting into SCD from Ricky. The catchment area cuts off at some point between CW and Ricky. My friend lived halfway down Valley Road and just missed being in the catchment area in her son's year. All of the above comments are for general admission, it is different if you apply under music or academic criteria.
In terms of Bucks schools, not sure whether you have boys or girls. I went to Challoners girls which is a good school. They occasionally take out of catchment (i.e. non Bucks), in which case you have a good shot in Chorleywood as it's one of the nearest non-Bucks towns. I have a friend (again in Valley Road!) whose daughter was accepted one year. Challoners boys is a different kettle of fish. I think they've not taken out of catchment in quite a few years, other than one year in which they changed the rules on second homes and it caught a few people out. You can find this information on the Bucks County Council website.
Chorleywood is a nice place to live but the traffic is dreadful (as is Ricky) and likely to get worse with the proposed housing developments. I don't know why but as soon as I drive towards Little Chalfont and Amersham, the traffic seems to be much better.
Hopefully that answers some of your questions.

Forgot to add that Chesham Grammar is a mixed grammar school that was less popular (in terms of admissions) than Challoners so historically took quite a way out of catchment (I think as far as Harrow one year). I haven't looked in a few years so that may have changed. A friend lives in CW and her son has just joined (you can catch the train from CW or Ricky).

I used to live in Chorleywood, so know lots of SCD kids. I'd have been happy for my dcs to go there if we hadn't moved. It's a very popular school and has a good reputation. I know a couple of kids who have got into to SCD living in Little Chalfont, but most of my dcs friends are in Chorleywood, so I don't know if the catchment normally stretches to Little Chalfont - you could ring the school and ask? Apart from the academic places I think admission is based on straight line distance, so it wouldn't make any difference if you were in Bucks or Herts, just how far away & Little Chalfont is slightly closer than Ricky.

I liked living in Chorleywood - it's a nice little town with good facilities and a tube station. I think Little Chalfont has a similar feel. Ricky is bigger and busier, but still a nice town. As JMG1234 says, Chesham Grammar has a big catchment, so you'd have that option as well from any of these towns if your dcs are academic.

Sorry, I'm wrong! I just looked on the SCD website & it says they give priority to residents in the WD3 postcode, so that includes RIckmansworth, Croxley Green, Sarratt as well as Chorleywood, so Little Chalfont would be well down the list. You could check with the school though - they would be able to tell you how many non-academic places have been allocated to students outside WD3 over the last few years.

I used to live in one of the Chalfonts - they are all large villages rather than towns. In our village I personally didn’t know of any children who went to SCD; everyone went on to Challoners, Chesham Grammar, CCC or Amersham. If you are seriously considering SCD then I think it would be a risky strategy to live in Bucks. From what I know of SCD, it has a brilliant reputation and would - for my family at least - probably have been a better fit than the very fast academic pace of the grammars or the less consistently good reputations of the upper schools.