Moving back to London. Where?

[justagirl13]

Hello,
Last year I moved from London to a city near Amsterdam with my 12-year-old child, dog, cat, and grandma to live with my boyfriend. However, I'm not very happy with the current situation. While I'm just 30 minutes away from Amsterdam, it feels more like the countryside with cows and sheep. Additionally, adjusting to living as a couple after many years of being single has been challenging.
My child is currently attending an international school but is willing to move back to London, as we don't feel really at home in my partner's house. He is very controlling and doesn't really accept our dog or my mom.

We used to live in Chiswick. I understand that prices in that area have skyrocketed, but my main concerns are finding a family-friendly and safe neighbourhood. I'll be single and ready to enjoy the nightlife, so I don't want to be too far from it. I'm also looking for a good neighbourhood that isn't overly expensive and has good secondary schools, with the possibility of enrolling my child for Year 9 starting in September 2024.

Does anyone have any places/schools to suggest?

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything : "many of those schools had no visitors for years so it is not very reliable"

Turing had Ofsted in recently (according to their 20th October newsletter), but no report published yet.

Orleans must be due as its been 5 years, and they've had a change of Head too. Maybe they'll give the Head the chance to settle in first.

Teddington was done 2 years ago. Has had a new Head since then though. Their old head (KP) went to Orleans Park. The new Head came from Hampton High.

St Richard Reynolds was lucky - they got their inspection just before the Ofsted framework changed in Sept 2019. It became much more difficult to get an Outstanding grade after that.

The new Head came from Hampton High.

Wasn't he managing the entire Bourne Trust rather than only HH?
It was around 2-3 years ago when HH improved... until most recent GCSE results

He was a deputy at Hampton High, but also parachuted into some other roles across the trust too. I heard he was well liked at HH: https://teddingtonschool.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/document/Headteacher-Announcement-September-2022.pdf?t=1687388518.

One year's GCSE results at HH may be a blip, so it's one to watch. Maybe they just had a hardcore of students who went awol.

Why not go back to Chiswick? It would be good for your child.

You only left last year and prices won't have changed that much.

last year the Progress 8 was -0.11 and only 53% had a strong pass 5+
this year the Progress 8 was - 0.58 and only 40% had a strong pass 5+

As compared to other schools in the borough it was already at the bottom end last year. So no, not a blip

-0.11 is average. Anything between -0.5 and +0.5 is considered average.

I know some local schools score well above average, but -0.11 isn't bad.

@Westfacing My first option but not sure what school he would get from there. West london free was the closest one but he was 20 in the waiting list. The school he was accepted was 20min away

@drumbin Please note that I wrote: as compared to other schools in the borough.

And no, only 0 is average. Everything below 0 is not average but is below
Greater than 0.5 = well above average
0-0.5= above average
-0.5= below average
Lower than -0.5= well below average

I strongly suggest to look at the Progress 8 of various schools to understand the grading. It is clearly stated on gov website- example

HH was below average in 2022 and in 2023 is well below average. This is ofsted terminology

@JustWingItLifeEyelinerEverything I fully understand how progress 8 works. Very few schools have a score of exactly zero. If you look you'll find that schools with a score of -0.11 are described as average. For example, the Richmond upon Thames school has a score of -0.22 and is still in the average range, as shown. Its upper confidence value is above zero.

@drumbin, because confidence interval also matters ( see the pic)

And again as you may have missed that second time,I was talking about the borough and not the UK wide scores. For the borough it is lower end.

No, I didn't miss that. I was simply correcting your error. And yes, the confidence interval matters. I'm glad you're catching on.

Yeah, claiming that minus values are average when I stated " in the borough" 🙈. No copy

Move back to where you were. It sounds as if your child has already had enough upset in their short life.