Teddington School vs Coombe Girls

[24Winter]

Hi. We are currently weighing up Teddington School vs Coombe Girls for our daughter next year. Having been fairly set on Coombe Girls, we looked around Teddington and were impressed. We would be really grateful for some feedback from any of you with children at Teddington. We got the impression that it is on the up and liked the headteacher. One question we have is over sets . We were concerned that Coombe doesn’t seem to set except for maths whereas Teddington does. Any feedback would be most welcome. Thank you.

Would you get into both? Look at the last offered distance from the last 3 years.

Yes we would based on past three years.

Have you visited Teddington School when the pupils were there? Or during the open day for parents only?
There are 1307 pupils in that school. It is absolutely packed with people. Crowded.

It is OK school apart from the minor incident when they came up with the idea that 1307 kids can use the toilet only twice a day for 15 min. Apparently, it was for their safety. After the flood of complaints from the parents they reverted to the old ways.

OP Teddington is no bigger than the other state secondary schools in the area. Greycourt 1300 students, TKA has about 1200 - so for a secondary school it's not that big or crowded. But might feel like that if your DC has come from a particularly small primary etc.

Definitely go an visit if you haven't already. No school is perfect and on MN you will get negatives and positives of both schools - so you need to see for yourself.

OP Teddington is no bigger than the other state secondary schools in the area. Greycourt 1300 students, TKA has about 1200 - so for a secondary school it's not that big or crowded

on this side of the river where Teddington school is are smaller schools: Turing 841, Richard Reynolds around 1000 and the same Hampton High.

@RedFluffyPanda yes I appreciate they are smaller schools - lots go to Teddington from the Kingston side of the river. To lots of people, Teddington is not that large at all etc. If they are in the catchment for Coombe and Teddington I'm guessing they are Kingston side. Although I could be wrong. As catchment for Coombe girls last year was less than 2kms.

You may be right. I know only my side of the river in detail :))

@RedFluffyPanda same here. Not familiar with Richard Reynolds etc. but hear good things about those you mention.

OP Teddington is definitely on the up, I know people with children there, it has a way to go but a lot to prove(it was in my top three, when looking a few years ago). Which in my opinion is often a good thing. Hope someone with actual experience of the schools can come and comment but good luck. Thankfully I don’t have to go through this again as have sibling link so fairly confident where my year 6 child is going in September. (Hope I’ve not cursed it!! 😂)

Yes we are on the Kingston side of the river. We did the secondary school open evening/day rounds in the autumn term, but we thought it would also be interesting to get up to date views of parents with experience of Teddington (or Coombe Girls).

I heard that the best on the Kingston side of the river are catholic schools: Holly Cross and R Challoner, as well as Grey court and Kingston Academy. The schools to avoid are Toolworth Girls, Hollyfield and in particular Chessington

Interesting. My experience has been the Catholic schools are difficult to get into as you need to live very close and be catholic. I personally avoided these schools because they are religious, no matter how good the school is I didn’t want my DCs attending a religious school.

The most popular in my experience are Greycourt, TKA and Teddington not necessarily in that order..although again very tight catchment area you really need to live North Kingston to be in the catchment for all three and likely to be too far out of the others mentioned. OP if you’re in the catchment for Coombe girls you’re likely to be a bit far out for Greycourt and possibly TKA as the catchments are increasingly smaller.

@12345change Teddington had a huge catchment last year of a few miles ans with waiting list over 10 miles. Kingston Academy had a very very small catchment and Greycourt is really only a part of Richmond, Ham and Strawberry Hill on this side of the river.

@RedFluffyPanda I know these schools well. My dd goes to one of them and I live very close to the Ham/ Kingston boarder. Teddington has such a wide catchment partly because of the rocky passed decade, which I am sure you will be aware of etc. and because it seems to be people's second or third choice secondary school. It is on the way up, but people would prefer their DC to go to either Greycourt or TKA if they live in North Kingston - most of the children that go to my sons primary school in Kingston will either go to Greycourt or TKA in September- even though Greycourt is in Ham (i.e. Richmond) it has many children who live in North Kingston. A small number every year do go to Teddington, but not as many as 15 years ago when the school had a much better reputation.

OP hope you can decide.

For us Teddington was 6th choice on the list. We will know soon which schools we are accepted to. I live on the other side of the river and therefore we are not in the catchment for TKA

@RedFluffyPanda good luck hope you get your first choice. As I mentioned earlier, I'm fairly confident we will get our first choice due to the sibling link but you do hear stories of siblings going to different schools etc. so I will be much happier once the 1st of March has been and we know for sure!

Our first choice was Orlean Park but we are outside of last year catchment. Second choice was Turing, third St Paul's Sunbury, Fourth Sr Richard Reynolds.

We are in catchment/parish for third and fourth and we sent certificates from the priest. With Turing we were in last year catchment but as they had last year best GCSE results in the entire borough, we may not get it but who knows. All of those schools are 👍😃

Hi OP. Teddington only set for just maths also. I think later down the line languages also. And PE.

Having visited both Coombe Girls and Teddington many years ago, I would go with Coombe Girls. Especially given I have 2 girls lol. We were in fact, considering a move to New Malden which would have meant my girls may have got a place there. But we decided we preferred to stay on Richmond Borough. Teddington was popular with the families in my area last year.

I have two girls at Teddington, one very academic and introverted, the other very much not academic and a party animal. I think the school has been pretty good for both of them. I don't know anything about Coombe Girls in comparison.

@24Winter Teddington was 2nd choice school for us but we are really happy with it. He’s made some great friends and seems really happy which is the main thing. We are really pleased with how things are going on the whole. We were in catchment for TKA but preferred Teddington.

I know you mentioned sets. If you have an academic child, they run an addition programme from year 8 called the high flyer programme to make sure they are stretched. Info on the website.

teddington is rubbish. save your children the trouble and send them to coombe girls. thank me later.

there are no sets for PE unless you’re doing btec sport or gcse PE in years 10 and 11.

there are sets for languages from year 7 to year 11 (consisting of 4 sets from 7 to 9, and 2 in gcse years).

there are 5 sets for maths from year 7.

pm me if u want someone with a first hand experience of teddington school to tell u about it fairly

Please tell us more. Elaborate.

I would love to know your experience as we are in the Teddington and Turing House catchments and will need to decide which next academic year. We have friends with kids in year 7 at both schools who seem happy so far - are there problems further up the school years at Teddington? Thanks.