York schools - primary and secondary

[luyt]

Would be so grateful for views!

In process of trying to move from Bishy Road area to either Fulford or Heworth. My question is around schools - looks like primary for Fulford would be St Oswalds and then Fulford secondary. For Heworth would be in Hemplands catchment and then Archbishop Holgate's. Any views?

Insight on the areas very much appreciated as well, know Fulford much better than Heworth but struggling to find pretty houses in Fulford and seems to be much more in Heworth.

Thanks in advance

Hemplands Primary has a good reputation, but I’ve heard it’s oversubscribed. Parts of Heworth (East Parade etc) are in the catchment for Tang Hall Primary.

Depending where you buy in Fulford, you may be in the catchment for Fishergate Primary instead of St Oswald's. The maps showing catchments are all on the council website.

Heworth is a nice area, but does border with Tang Hall, which is not that great. The nicest area is around Stockton Lane, but as you head south past Fifth Avenue and around Melrosegate, it gets a bit rough.

@EllieQ this is so useful thank you! What does it mean that it's oversubscribed I wonder? That they might not take all the kids in the catchment?

Oversubscribed means more people applied for places there than there were places available. It doesn't tell you whether that's because there were more kids in the catchment than places, or because the next school over doesn't have a good reputation and so lots of people in that area applied for this one.
If you hunt on the council website, you may well be able to find the details of who they admitted in the last round of applications. Each school has a set of admissions criteria, and then usually distance from school as a tiebreaker. So you might find that they took everyone who had a sibling in the school already, and then everyone else up to a distance of 1.1 miles, or that they took everyone in the catchment and then some from outside the catchment but within 2.3 miles, or something like that.

It could be there’s more more children than places in the catchment, or that because it has a good reputation (which Hemplands does), people from outside the catchment also apply (though they have a lower priority than children living in the catchment area). If you look at the guide for parents document, it tells you how many children got places at each school:

www.york.gov.uk/GuideForParents

@EllieQ - the school is called Hempland, not Hemplands.

Stockton Lane can be a black hole area particularly for secondary - falls into Arches catchment but if oversubscribed you’ll be too far from Huntington.