Oxford State Secondaries

[nilerising]

We're moving to Oxford. DS1 is 10 and DS 2 is 7. We'd like to find a good primary feeder school that lead to good state secondaries but don't know where to start. We can afford to live in decent catchment areas. Thanks for any recommendations and advice!

Are you planning to live in the city itself or one of the surrounding towns?

For the city itself bear in mind that the schools are very full and for primary it may mean having to accept anywhere that has a place.

For secondaries Cherwell has always been the desirable one but that comes with a catch in terms of property prices. You can't rely on just being in catchment either - every year a lot of kids living in catchment are turned away. Of the other schools, people I know with kids at Spires speak well of it but historically it takes a lot of disadvantaged kids so headline results not so good. Cheney is very up and down and I would say it was a bit chancy.

Personally if I was to live in the city I'd go for a property in Botley and make sure I was in catchment for Matthew Arnold - always had a very good reputation - you can also live in Kennington and Cumnor to get in here (although the bus service from Kennington always seems to be under threat so bear that in mind.). Bartholomew School in Eynsham is also accessible from Botley.

Again the secondaries are very full so if you buy a house for your intended secondary and it the doesn't seem right for your kid you probably won't be able to get in anywhere else.

If you're happy to live a few miles outside the city Eynsham is a good choice - the secondary there has a decent reputation but you've also got the choice of two good schools in Witney which are easily accessible - frequent buses. It's one of the few places in Oxfordshire where you may actually get a choice!

If you don't mind living anywhere in Oxfordshire - Thame is a good choice - a very good comprehensive and you can also try for the Bucks grammars if grammars are your thing. You can't really go wrong with a lot of the one school owns - Wallingford, Henley, Woodstock are all safe choices.

Unfortunately can't give you my own DD's experience as she goes to Didcot Girls - fab state school but not much use to you!

Hope that's useful - PM if you want more details!

Best wishes.

Also recommended Chipping Norton & Burford Schools all excellent.

Thank you for these helpful replies! We would like to live in the town ideally but we would live further out to access good schools. I'll take a look at Matthew Arnold and around Botley, Chipping Norton and Burford. Huge thanks!

Well if money is no problem, look at Summertown so that you would get into Cherwell secondary. You could look into Wolvercote Primary, or Phil and Jims (Proper name is SS Philip and James ). Wolvercote residents used to get priority into Cherwell, but check that is still the case.
If you can afford Summertown house prices, you could think about living somewhere cheaper, and paying for private school (Magdalen, Abingdon, D'Overbroecks). This might be an option if you can't find a primary school place.
Beware trying to drive through Oxford at rush hours. New bus gates are being planned to make it even harder to do this, and push even more traffic onto the already overused ring road. Walking or cycling is the best way to get to school in the city.

I have DC at Matthew Arnold. They are all doing well there and I rate the school, but it has its fair share of issues like all large city comprehensive schools do, overcrowded classes being one of them. It did have the best GCSE results in Oxfordshire last summer though. Good primaries to look at which are in catchment for MA are Cumnor and Appleton. As other posters have said, Bartholomew in Eynsham and Lord Williams in Thame are also worth looking at.