Orleans Park, Grey Court , Richard Reynolds Secondary school

[CPF]

We are planning to move to the area this year before Sep , currently living in Chiswick. We need to apply for secondary school Sep 2024. Are any parents here that can share your experiences with Orleans Park, RR and Grey court? All these schools have very similar results. We visited the schools last year and like all of them. Just looking for any personal experience . Thanks!!

Families migrating from relatively wealthy countries, such as Hong Kong, more often have the means to move into expensive catchments than families who are migrating from less wealthy countries.

If you read the School Place Planning doc linked up thread, it mentions that Richmond Borough is attracting many Hong Kong migrants. I expect Kingston is similar.

I still believe these are very small groups. In 2021 census was showing following profile for Richmond Borough

You're forgetting this ...https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hong-kong-bno-visa-uk-government-to-honour-historic-commitment

of course I remember :) but it doesn't mean that all of them travelled in particular to Kingston borough. The same with Ukrainians. There is a handful of Ukraininan kids at my son's Richmond primary that arrived early 2022 but I don't recall any child from Hong Kong joining. And the program is since 2020

From the school place planning doc I referenced:

And another quote from the same doc:

I cannot possibly imagine why 44 kids would be a large number. Among all schools in the particular borough, it would be easily absorbed. And as I said, more Ukrainians joined my son's school than kids from Hong Kong - if any. Surely we would have at least one in one of the classes if that was the case?

44 in one borough in one year - a total of 420 in Richmond Borough primaries since Sep 2020. The report is a year old. It's an inwards flow that will continue while the policy is in place, and depending on how the political situation develops in HK.

Maybe they moved to North Kingston in particular with the thought of "Inner Catchment" of Tiffin. If you look at the ethnicity of kids in Tiffin, the vast proportion comes from South of Asia
But I don't see that many here in Richmond on the West side of the river. Unless... they established their domain in Ham part of Richmond, again... because of Inner Catchment of Tiffin. But I thought that Inner Area is only in Kingston and originated from Kingston residents complaining that the school serves the purpose of very wide catchment

Ukranian families are often dependent on where their hosts live. HK families more often have the means to move within catchment of the most popular schools. For example, there are many in central Twickenham, living in the Orleans Park catchment.

44 in one borough in one year - a total of 420 in Richmond Borough primaries since Sep 2020.

compare it with 10k kids UK wide from Ukraine only in 2022...

Why the comparison? Not sure what point you're trying to make.

This thread is about schools in Richmond Borough and North Kingston, which are two of the four London boroughs that the bulk of HK families are locating to. National numbers aren't relevant to the discussion.

I’m struggling to recall the last time I read a thread on Richmond borough secondary schools and it didn’t get massively derailed by a debate about the minutiae of admissions statistics or results…

Why the comparison? Not sure what point you're trying to make.

Because so far more people ( and kids) arrived from Ukraine than Hong Kong . Yes it may change in the future ..
either way. From my observation: There are no families from Hong Kong on my street. But a lovely Ukrainian family lives few houses away. There are 1, sometimes 2 Ukrainian kids in each class in our primary. I have not noticed any kids from Hong Kong in similar number. Maybe an odd one. Yes, this is Richmond street and school experience. Unless they buy those houses in one specific area

If you were wealthy, mobile and wanted your child to go to a grammar school, but also have the backup of an outstanding community school, would you live in your street?

The wealthiest migrants to Richmond Borough are renting/buying in the catchment of Orleans Park, Grey Court and Waldegrave. There are equivalent areas in Kingston, Sutton and Barnet (which were the other three boroughs listed in the report as having high concentrations of HK migrants). All 4 areas are within grammar school catchments.

In contrast, most Ukrainian migrants have settled in areas where there have been sponsors to host them, so the fact that there are more of them is irrelevant to this thread. Their economic profile is different to HK migrants.

If I was very wealthy I wouldn't certainly live in London at all but in Home Counties and send my son to e.g. Bradford College. :)))

As a matter of fact I do actually live in the distance/catchment of Waldergrave and Turing that has had top results in borough for GCSE exams for the last two years. A vast proportion of the kids from our school joins in y7 those two schools.

Well clearly wealthy is a relative term. I think you did say up thread that you got your second choice of school, not your first (and presumably for a boy, as Waldegrave wasn't mentioned) 🙂

Yes. I live in Hampton Hill. I wasn't sure which one to make as our first preference as they both are great schools witg similar results. St Paul's have a bit better progress 8. The way I did it will give us still some time to think about it and see who is going to which school ( friends or frenemies). Both schools have pros and cons in our eyes.

What I am trying to say is that wealthy people send their kids to great selective private schools and not to state schools. We are lucky to have good schools around but they are all very limited with the budget. An affluent person would consider a great school with a swimming pool, polo and god only knows what else and not Grey Court, Orleans, SRR, Turing or Waldergrave where there is a minimum of 30 kids per classroom and few of those schools don't have even proper grounds for kids to enjoy

@YouDeserveSomeCake I mean this kindly, but I think you're just so determined to have the last word that you haven't noticed your line of argument has gone down a rabbit hole. 🙃

naah I am just chatty:) My line of argument was that if there was a significant influx of kids from Hong Kong, they had to accommodate some specific areas and not spread evenly across the boroughs. I would have noticed them at school.

Well, they may not be living in Hampton Hill, but next time you're in Twickenham have a look around. There are now many families from Hong Kong living there.

My friend lives just by Trafalgar school. I will ask her ;)

We spent many many hours researching and visiting most of the schools in the area (Orleans Park, Waldegrave, Grey Court, Turing House, Christ’s, RPA, Tiffin, RTS, St Catherine’s, Ibstock, Radnor House, LEH) and decided to go with Orleans Park for a number of reasons. It might not be the right school for everyone, so I’d definitely recommend going to as many open days as possible to get a better feel for each school. Our criteria were:

1. Academics
2. Orleans Park has the best state, non-selective results in the borough / area (79% English and Maths grade 5, average EBacc score of 6.04, average A Level score of 41.22) and either beats or in on a par with many of the private schools (St Catherine’s, Ibstock, Harrodian, Radnor House), plus 50% of leavers go on to Russell Group universities and there’s a history of Oxbridge success.
3. School ethos and environment
4. We really wanted to find a school with strong values where the kids are well behaved, happy and excel. That came across strongly during the open day. We liked the feel of Orleans Park, both the school buildings and the surrounding grounds (immediately adjacent to the Thames). Most of the other schools were also largely impressive buildings (in how they operate rather than how new they are), but not quite as impressive as Orleans, in our view. Plus the headteacher is excellent and has only recently joined, so we expect that she'll be around for as long as our kids are at the school.
5. Sports
6. Our children do a lot of sports clubs outside school (another reason for selecting St Margarets as a place to live) but we also wanted them to do plenty of pre-, during- and post-school sports clubs. Our daughter has so far done running, netball, football, hockey, French clubs, is playing for the school netball, hockey and cross country teams and will shortly be doing duathlon, athletics, volleyball, tennis, cricket and rounders clubs. The standard is also very high, both for boys and girls.
7. Mixed sex
8. We have 3 kids (boy and girls) and were keen to send all 3 to the same school. Plus, day-to-day life involves mixing with males and females, so we felt that it’s important to develop normal friendships with both sexes prior to departing for Uni. We had also heard reports of increased levels of bullying at certain single sex schools in the area. Again, some parents may feel that their child’s personality is more suited to a single sex school, but we’re confident that our kids will thrive in a mixed environment.
9. Ofsted Report
10. Our daughter joined the school when Orleans had previously been awarded ‘outstanding’ pursuant to an Ofsted report in 2017. Thankfully, in January 2024 it retained its ‘outstanding’ rating. I suppose we were less concerned by this Ofsted validation as we now know that it’s an excellent school, but at least it provides reassurance to prospective parents that it is excellent in all respects.
11. Surrounding area (housing, demographic, activities)
12. We definitely wanted to live close to the secondary school so we wanted the surrounding area to be full of nice, period housing and close to all amenities. Being close to the Thames, plenty of sports clubs, Kew, Richmond Park, Bushy Park, Richmond and Twickenham town centres is an absolute joy. House prices and rents are clearly not cheap, but we preferred to spend income on a nice house near an excellent state school (and go on nice holidays) rather than a smaller house and send the kids to private school. Neither route is right or wrong, but that was our choice.
13. Tight Catchment:
14. We were keen on a school with a tight catchment area for several reasons: 1) a short walk to school for the kids to save time / driving and for that saved time to be spent on homework / music rather than on a school bus / car 2) for the kids’ friends to be nearby at weekends and evenings, again to minimise travelling (parent taxi service!) and for safety reasons. Plenty of our friends went the private / Tiffin route, but the thought of our kids wasting hours of time on a school bus every day and then us having to drive them long distances to see their dispersed friends at weekends did not excite us.

Hope that brief summary helps. Just one subjective view, so definitely do as much of your own research as you have time for!

@StMargslawyer

When it comes to results it varies year to year. E.g. in 2022 Turing had higher score of 82 perc.
I really liked Orlean Park but I must admit I didn't find the building that impressive. I found it overcrowded and part of the buildings have door to the room directly from the outside. It is cold there in the winter and kids seat in jackets.

The access to the sport fields situated below is forbidden with the exception to the PE lessons or clubs. There is a very limited space to spend time outdoors and it is really on the benches. No much space for walks.

Turing, Teddington have far more space outside and inside.