Amazing state secondary schools... Anywhere in the UK!

[RaRaRamen]

Hi all,

Our kids are still in very early primary school but we're thinking ahead to our next house move in a couple years time and would like to move somewhere close to good secondaries. Our local options are pretty dire. We'd be looking for jobs around good school areas so we're pretty flexible and can go anywhere in the country. Which is exciting but so open! Our budget for housing is around the 400k-mark so nowhere super expensive 😬 We can't afford private school.

I haven't seen a recent post like this so hopefully this will be useful for other people with a similar conundrum.

So please tell me, does anyone really rate their kids secondary school? Or know of counties with a high proportion of good schools? Most important thing to us is a nurturing environment rather than academics. I know schools can go downhill but a good starting point would be ideal!

Also please, no posts about how terrible all state schools are. I'm not interested and there are plenty of other threads to choose from for those. Thank you!

I would look for schools that have attained some sort of LBGT diversity prize/charter/ranking - and avoid them like the plague.

Cotswolds.Chipping Campden and the Cotswold school both outstanding Ofsted at present.

Newfield school in Sheffield used to be awful. It isn’t now but schools in Sheffield are not all great. Look at King Edward VII school - inadequate. Several of these schools are yo-yo schools. They are not consistently good over decades. Some schools elsewhere actually are!

This would get my vote but it isn't that cheap.

This is probably the top end of what you will get in terms of space in York, in a good school catchment and within your budget.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/133942889#/?channel=RES_BUY

Costwolds isn't cheap either!

South Lakes - Dallam or QES

No that’s not true.

Tapton
High Storrs
Silverdale

are all excellent and don’t change. They are all in the top schools list every year. I used to teach at one of them and know how they perform.

And King Edwards got inadequate because if one safeguarding issue. The parents were furious about it and protested.

It was a political thing to turn King Edwards which was the only non academy secondary school in Sheffield into an academy.

I second @Tingalingle . My dc went to Comberton Village College, near Cambridge, and the school was amazing. One of my dc needed a lot of pastoral care and got it. I've got three friends who all pulled their dc from the private system and placed them in Comberton.

To be honest, most of the schools near Cambridge are great, and you also get loads of "added value" from the proximity to Cambridge City. My dc went to (free) events and lectures in Cambridge colleges, attended talks from Nobel Prize winners. Stephen Hawking was the guest of honour at DS's Y11 prom....

You could check out Comberton, Cambourne, Sawston, Melbourn, Linton and Impington Village Colleges. All are good. The only issue is that £400k won't get you very much house.

You have to go to nearly 200 to find any schools near me on that list. Then there are the two very highly selective single sex grammars and a very expensive area one with an extensive drug problem.

@RaRaRamen if you're focussed on grammar schools, there are quite a few dotted around the north. From the ones in Lancashire such as Lancaster, clitheroe, bacup and Rawtenstall, to the ones in Yorkshire such as Ripon, Ermysted's, Calderdale grammars.
Moving over to Manchester side, and there are more state grammars to look into.

With your budget, there might be a possibility of finding a house that ticks more boxes in the north.

Great house, thanks for looking! It's much bigger / nicer than our current one! I can see it's near Archbishop's - that's the school our family's kids went to and it wasn't great tbh, despite its Ofsted. This was ten years ago now though, so not sure if it's improved!

Stephen Hawking was the guest of honour at DS's Y11 prom....

Unless he made quite a habit of it, we may have had kids in the same year.

I really rate Archbishops, haven't had any issues at all and my DC both love it there. Obviously ofsted ratings aren't everything but it was judged outstanding in all areas a couple of years ago. It's definitely changed a lot in the past decade!!
If you preferred Fulford School it might be worth looking at Dunnington or a surrounding catchment village. You won't get a huge four bedroom but a decent three bedroom would be doable.

That house is on a busy main road- think I’d prefer a smaller house on a side road. Convenient for the school though.

😂😂😂😂😂👍

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow They were also furious about bullying not being addressed! So anyone looking at outcomes but not looking at Ofsted reports is going to be misled. Expensive areas of Sheffield are great but not everywhere is.

Possibly. DS is about to turn 27 so Prom would have been 2012 I think.

(Dons dark glasses and wig)

King Teds doesn’t just pull from expensive areas though. It has a massive catchment.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow Yes. So Dc in Sheffield can bully each other and be failed by safeguarding procedures. I guess as they are not leafy lane Dc it doesn’t matter.

Not dealing with bullying and safeguarding concerns can be the case in quite a few schools that look good from a casual glance. Sheffield, like loads of places, follows the money! Live in the leafy areas, schools are more than ok. If you don’t, they yo-yo and it’s difficult to ascertain if they are on a downward cycle or not. It’s a lottery. Sadly a change in slt can be problematic. Poor governors can make a difference to that downward spiral too. So the key for the op is to find good schools in the price range.

Cotswold School & Chipping Campden School are genuinely community schools. Yes, the Cotswolds are expensive, but you should be able to get a reasonable (if ugly) 1960s estate property in budget in Moreton in Marsh. Moreton gives you both schools as an option.

@TizerorFizz

You seem to appear on every thread to have a go at me.

You don’t even live in Sheffield.🙄

I live in Sheffield!

The problem with moving to Sheffield with the express intention of getting into High Storrs, Silverdale or Tapton is they are all oversubscribed schools and there's no chance of a new-to-area family getting places unless they are well within the catchment area. Even then, there are no guarantees. And family homes close to these schools are likely to cost more than 400k.

You could go out on a limb and look at Mercia, -- outstanding recent Ofsted report, aiming very high academically, but a new school so has no history of external exam results yet (they've done GCSEs there for the first time this year and the sixth form will open in Sept), and the ethos of the school is certainly not to everyone's liking. Having said that, the school is grossly oversubscribed for Sept's yr7 intake so whilst it's not everyone's cup of tea, there's an awful lot of parents who do want their children to go there!