St Paul catholic school in Milton K. opinions?

[Mark79]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here.

We moved from London to Milton Keynes in 2021 and we have DD in year 5 so this October we have to apply for a secondary school place for her.

She is currently going to St Mary Magdalene catholic primary school and the experience is very positive but the corresponding secondary school is St Paul catholic school and here is where we need a bit of advice. Can anyone give us information about this school? Does anyone recommend it?

Reading the Ofsted reports, a few years ago was outstanding, after needed improvements and now is good but I don't know if there is a real cause behind this.

As we are currently letting a house, we are thinking about the possibility to move within the Denbigh school catchment area and apply for this school in the first instance and after St Paul. Do you think is a logical movement? Another option is to move close to Shenley Brook End school, we want to be in the MK western area.

We are living now in a very nice neighbourhood but this is within the Stantombury school catchment area and we are scared that if for any reason there are not enough places, the offered place for our daughter could be in this school and we do not want that, so another extra point to relocate us in another neighbourhood.

Any thoughts?

I've heard nothing but positive things about St Paul's, although I don't have any personal current information (my children have friends there who have now left the school).

In terms of your plan ... I'm assuming you are Catholic, so as you're also attending a feeder school you should be pretty much guaranteed a place. If you're not Catholic, attending the feeder school will still give you a good chance of getting in, but is a bit less certain.

Moving into Denbigh catchment sounds like a sensible plan - both in terms of proximity to St Paul's (for ease of traveling if DC ends up going there) and in terms of giving you a viable plan B (you could put Denbigh and St Paul's in either order once you've found out more about them/been to Open days etc). Check out the admissions from last year online (and this year's will appear online after national offers day as well) but I think Denbigh is one of the schools where attending a feeder school (which you don't) is needed to guarantee getting in and they don't offer to all others in catchment. The closer you live to the school, the more you increase your chance as you don't attend a feeder school :)

My ds is in y7 and we are happy with the school so far. In September and October they have open mornings on a Friday where you can go and tour the school whilst lessons are taking place and talk to students. I recommend these as I think you get a good feel for the school. Check out the admissions criteria on the website. If your child goes to a local Catholic primary then they will have a lot of contact with St Paul's over the next couple of years, which helps to make it familiar and eases the transition to secondary school. However, as I recall, for admissions the primary school itself isn't a prioritising factor. It's being a baptised Catholic. What we were told last year was that application numbers were generally such that pretty much anyone who put st paul's as their first choice was offered a place, regardless of faith background.

Thanks for the reply. We are catholic so getting a place in St Paul should not be a problem, is more to know if is a good secondary school so to get a place either if we select it as a plan A or plan B should not worry us, or if we should try desperately to get a place in a better school.
I don't know either Denbigh but has been highly recommended in different talks. The only negative thing here is that last year only children living within 0.5 miles of Denbigh school got a place and I have been looking on different webs for letting close to the school, about 300 yard max to increase the chance, and is very rare to find something decent available. Everything around is small and expensive. I suppose I am not the only one looking for this.
I know we cannot have everything, but just to try to be in a better position :)

Well, as I say it early days for us but we are happy so far. We were impressed by the atmosphere of the school when we toured it. Nothing we have seen so far has contradicted our initial impression. There is good communication with the school and the class tutor has responded swiftly to us when we had concerns.

I get the impression that the headmistress is ambitious for the school to continue to improve.

We are not in catchment for Denbigh so I haven't considered St Paul's next to Denbigh.

@cwanne Thanks a lot, is good to have an opinion from within.