Barnet and Enfield selective HBS DAO Latymer

[Modup]

Where would you live to be in catchment ideally for all 3 of the following schools
Henrietta Barnet
Dame Alice Owens
Latymer

budget around £1.3m
need min 4 double beds and good connections to central London

Not many area fulfill this really, it is a super wide area, I can only think of N12? 1.3M should be able to get a 4 bed house.

Given your budget to consider private will give you much wider range of choice for area, schools as well as house, and safer in case DC didn't pass the test? HBS is hard, Latymer and DAO is slightly easier.

There is no catchment for HBS, but applications living within 3 miles of the school are prioritised. I believe for DAO, applications are accepted from the Barnet N12 postcode, which may also cover HBS priority area. N12 is also classed as a Latymer inner area postcode.

Thanks. We are already in private selective prep but for various reasons thinking of moving into state for secondary.

If we were to drop requirement for HBS priority area, would you still recommend N12 for Latymer and DAO?

In that case you could also look at N20, as well as N12. Woodside Park, Whetstone, West and North Finchley etc.

If so you can also do Islington N1, and part of N4 N5 N6 N7 N8 N16 N19 if it belongs to Islington brough.

You probably need to think commute time too.

@Modup My Mother in Law’s house is for sale in the inner catchment area for Dame Alice Owen’s. It’s considerably below your budget and would be a renovation project to achieve what you’d want but it’s on a great, large corner plot so you’d have no trouble expanding to whatever size you needed. Let me know if you want more details! Daisy

(By inner catchment I mean guaranteed place - no admission test required. Her house is the only one for sale within DAO inner catchment area at the moment.)

Thank you Daisy. I’m not 100% we will move for schools but if you don’t mind posting a link to the house that would be great (had a look on Rightmove and can’t obviously tell which one it is).

Do consider your back up plan too (state comp? private?) as there are plenty of children who will apply all of those schools but don't get offered a place at any. They are all extremely competitive.

Also, it sounds obvious, but remember to actually consider the practicalities of actually getting to each school. You move to a particular location because it allows you to apply for all three, but with luck that will soon be forgotten and your child will be actually travelling to one of them for 5-7 years. If it's a long and complicated journey with multiple changes or a lot of walking, it's a going to be a drag for a long time.

When people say extremely competitive, they really mean it. One child out of 120 in my kids outstanding primary with a huge middle class cohort (by which I mean, they will have been tutored too) got through to the second round of HBS entrance tests. They haven’t actually had a kid get that far for a couple of years.

This is the house: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136917635. A planning consultant was convinced you’d get permission for a full detached annexe on the plot, possibly even a separate dwelling, if you wanted, so very sizeable extensions definitely wouldn’t be a problem (and the attic is already converted, just not up to code). Let me know if you want me to put you in touch/you want to chat to her. Her sons (one of whom is my husband) went to DAO through the inner catchment places and it was incredible for them.

Bear in mind DAO is technically a comp with a selective intake for some academic and music places from wider Barnet postcodes. If you live in the (small) catchment you will get in. If you are a sibling you will get in - also looked after children/social and medical need etc etc. They also have to take 20 kids from Islington each year - so those Islington kids have much, much better odds than those applying from the closer, outside of catchment, places.

It is all this which makes the school hard to get into if certain criteria don’t apply to your child. But it’s not ‘competitive’ in remotely the same way as HBS or Latymer - which are straightforward grammar schools that are looking at academic ability only.

Pa - and when I say ‘catchment’, I mean inner catchment!

Thanks for all the thoughts.

If there is anyone with children at the school then how do you find the wide “catchment” impacts friendships?

Do your children have normal teenage friendships and hang out with their friends or is it all -long commute- extracurricular- homework- tutor?