@Easter51 I’m interested in this too. No first hand knowledge but I’m local and know a lot of teachers who are in the Enfield schools loop, and parents with children currently at Wren. As you say, there are lots of mixed opinions and rumours circulating about the school and it’s hard to know which, if any, are true.
Re the recent inspection, the official school line is that Ofsted wasn’t keen on the single sex teaching in core subjects, despite having praised this aspect of the school when they inspected Wren’s sister school in Finchley. At the same time, there have been lots of whisperings among my teacher friends about poor pastoral care and lack of provision for SEND. I’m not sure anyone outside of Wren’s inner circle knows what the true reasons were.
DD is 7 and Wren is our nearest school so we’re trying to work out our feelings about potentially sending her there. FWIW several of our friends visited the school for Open Day last week and weren’t overly impressed; they found the buildings soulless and corporate/officey (no displays on walls etc), thought the site felt quite bleak and hemmed in and weren’t on board with lot of the very specific rules around uniform, equipment, no running in the playground etc. Felt as a school it would probably ‘do the job’ in terms of academics but without much joy in the process.
I’ve heard from many friends (including some who teach there) that Highlands is very different but I think it’s important to visit and get the ‘vibe’ of the place for yourself. We’ll probably start visiting schools quite soon as it’s possible that if neither Wren or Highlands fits with what we want for DD we may decide to move.