West London area advice

[rachelg1974]

Planning to move from Harlesden in next couple of years with 4 year old girl and 8 year old boy. Looking for safe, pleasant area with good state schools and large(ish) gardens.

Have been looking at Twickenham and Kingston potentially. Also Ealing - any thoughts on how safe it feels for teenagers? And how are the schools? So much to juggle!

Thanks x

For primary- many are great or good. If you are Catholic then St James in Twickenham is worth mentioning.

For secondary- and I would move because of future secondary school and not primary that are easier to find observed as good:

In Ealing, the secondary good schools are mainly CoE. Most of the schools are requiring baptism and practice proofs

In Kingston, if your child is not a genius that is likely to get to Tiffin then the next great school are single gender Holly Cross and Richard Challoner but these are Catholic schools ans you need proof of baptism and practicing( attending church).
Then is The Kingston Academy but it has a very small catchment so you have to live very much in the heart of Kingston to get in. The rest of schools there are rather average

In Twickenham all depends where you live. If you live on the North East Twickenham you will get into Orlean Park school which is great.
If you live sort of South close to Teddington, you may get to Turing House , which is also great or your daughter to Waldergrave school, which is also great. But do not assume that it doesn't matter where you move in Twickenham- it matters a lot, we have also average school here.

Of the areas you mention, Twickenham is probably the best for very good comprehensives with no faith criteria (so genuinely comprehensive). I grew up in Twickenham and live not far away now and would recommend both for schools and for general quality of life.

In the heart of Twickenham is St Richard Reynolds- faith criteria, so is Christ's school. There is Twickenham Academy which is rather rather average. Richmond Academy, and the Richmond school are also average. Slightly better than Twickenham school but also average results wise. As I said there are only two very good schools on this side of the river if you live in Twickenham ( Orlean Park and Turing House) + for gilrls Waldergrave but the catchment is very limited.

Christs is completely irrelevant here since you would not get in from Twickenham and the vast majority of the places are not faith-based anyway.

Thanks, useful intel so far. I should have added that we can't do faith schools. Would love to hear any more about Ealing. Seems to have relatively big gardens..x

@rachelg1974 do check admissions policies carefully in Twickenham because Turing House's main catchment is centred in the Fulwell area, rather than around the school itself. (Waldegrave also has a remote catchment but its main catchment is around the school).

Teddington School is also good. Don't rely too much on other people's opinions here - check out Government data online, read Ofsted reports, and make visits. (I did hear Turing House was inspected shortly before Christmas so its latest report should be out soon).

There are lots of green spaces and sports clubs in Twickenham to compensate for small gardens, if that helps.

@rachelg1974
I’m in Ealing. Obviously it’s a big borough and I can’t speak for all of it, but where I am (Northfields) there are 2 very good schools - Elthorne Park (generally great reputation and results, outstanding ofsted, seems to offer a very broad curriculum) and Ealing Fields (more mixed rep due to strictness, great results, good ofsted (but waiting to publish new inspection results so no idea if that’s improved) It’s part of the Twyford trust but it doesn’t have religious criteria to get in (although it is fairly (and increasingly) C of E) )
The ‘catchment’ for Ealing Fields is tiny and the one Elthorne is bigger.

I didn’t really look too much at other schools because my child will definitely get into our first choice.
I know people in other parts of the borough who are more panicked about what school they’ll get into though. There are definitely school black spots where being C of E would help you get into a decent school.

My 2 are in year 4 and 6 so neither teens or secondary age yet, but I’d say it’s a safe area and very friendly. And yes the gardens are generally a decent size!

Teddington School is also good. Don't rely too much on other people's opinions here - check out Government data online, read Ofsted reports, and make visits.

Yes you should check it before recommending. I live in this borough and I have a son in y7. Half of his class went to Teddington. Teddington School GCSE results are very average as compared to Orlean Park and Turing.

A boy from our y6 class who is living sort of few streets north of StRR school got into Christ school. Now in y7 there. They do get to Christ school from Twickenham.

There's no such thing as "very average" and results change from one year to the next, depending on the cohort. Teddington School's 2024 GCSE performance is "above average".

@rachelg1974 here is the list of secondary schools for Richmond borough from the Government's comparison site: https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=default&table=schools&region=318&geographic=la&for=secondary

It's a bit fiddly but you should be able to navigate to a similar list for Ealing.

I would have thought it was pretty unusual to get into Christs from Twickenham unless it was a faith or sibling place.

I don't think grades are always a particularly helpful way to assess a school tbh since they are often highly correlated with catchment and intake. Christs and Teddington seem to perform very similarly, in any case.

Teddington school is above average as compared to the rest of the country but as compared to the Borough of Richmond is average. Huge school in germs of number of pupils. I understand that the whole point of discussion is moving is to go to the best schools in the area. And for Twickenham these are Orlean Park, Turing school as per GCSE results. Not Twickenham Academy, nor Teddington School, Hampton High and few others in the north of Richmond. The other school with great results is Grey Court. SRRC school is a bit lower in results but not bad.

The results are not changing that dramatically from year to year. Yes I remember the times when Teddington school had really poor performance. For that matter Grey Court years ago was not good either. But now.Teddington is good but not a top performer in the borough a d Grey Court is really really amazing when it comes to GCSE results

Yes, it is worth looking at the GCSE results for each school to understand what I am talking about.

Faith. Orthodox boy. SRRC school has refused him despite he just lives near the school. They have so many Catholic applications that they do lottery if it is more than they can accept. From the same trust, St Paul's Sunbury accepted 25 kids above PAN

I would never move anywhere for schools like Christ School or Teddington. There are many schools with such results in Greater London.
I think grades say a lot about the school 's cohort. And since Teddington school is situated in a great location why they don't have results like tge Kingston Academy or Orlean Park, Waldergrave or Turing?!

I understand that the whole point of discussion is moving is to go to the best schools in the area.

It is interesting how different people interpret things! The OP actually said "Looking for safe, pleasant area with good state schools and large(ish) gardens."

Teddington and Christs are both good schools. In some other areas they would be extremely highly sought after! We are very fortunate in London.

Well... There are many areas with large gardens larger than Twickenham that are at the same level of safety and still within London and schools are like Teddington or Christ...

Ealing is great for teens, easy access to Westfield and into London on the Elizabeth line. Secondary’s look at Drayton Manor in Hanwell or Elthorne Park as mentioned above. Distances are small for entrance though, so you need to be careful you won’t really get a ‘choice’ as it depends on which is closest

"I think grades say a lot about the school 's cohort. And since Teddington school is situated in a great location why they don't have results like tge Kingston Academy or Orlean Park, Waldergrave or Turing?!"

It's no mystery. These things go around and come around in cycles. Around 15 years ago, Teddington School was very oversubscribed and people were moving house to live closer to it. Then a head teacher retired, a new head came in, all was fine for a while until the council asked him to also be exec head for two other schools they were trying to turn around He was overstretched and took his eye off the ball at Teddington. Parents became unhappy, the finances went into the red, and they had an RI Ofsted. That head resigned, they got a new Head who brought it back to Good within a couple of years, so all is fine again, but the cohort sitting GCSEs around now were the ones that joined when it was temporarily undersubscribed.

There are some really good schools in Ealing. There are four run by the Twyford Trust - only one of them (Twyford CE Secondary) requires a faith place, unless you are a music genius and then you can get a music scholarship. The other three are Ada Lovelace, Ealing Fields and William Perkin. Ada Lovelace has a particularly good reputation; William Perkin is least well spoken of between the three but still pretty good.

Elthorne Park as a PP said is meant to be really good. Drayton Manor is said to be excellent too. If you have girls then Ellen Wilkinson has a good reputation.

Places within catchment for any of those schools will be safe for teenagers (as much as anywhere is).

People have less good things to say about Brentside, Alec Reed and Greenford High. Some of this may be due to location and snobbery, Greenford High students get held responsible for every teenage mugging according to certain Facebook groups.

Anywhere is going to feel safer and more pleasant than Harlesden TBH.

If the cohort is with a good potential then a change of head should not impact the results that much. Yes it is good but not outstanding when it comes to GCSE results as it is with Turing House, Grey Court and Orlean Park ...even not TKA result wise. And the location is splendind with full potential.

New leadership can absolutely turn a school around, especially if it has only dipped its toe into "Requires Improvement" due to a few difficult years, and has otherwise got a successful history. In Teddington's case it was turned around quicky by a combo of a new head and the financial support of a new academy trust: https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/how-school-posh-london-town-22907091

It was only RI between Jan 2018 and Nov 21, but the rating meant some local families avoided it in those years. Its catchment grew and it was undersubscribed for a while. When schools are undersubscribed they end up taking a lot of children who are unsettled at, or excluded from, other schools. That instability will impact their overall results, but it doesn't mean that any individual child will do worse there compared to another school.

The 2024 GCSE cohort joined Y7 in 2019, so that cohort would have been one of the impacted cohorts.

The Op's children are only 4 and 8 so anything could happen between now and when they sit their GCSEs. Moving to a safe borough with lots of Good+ schools is rightly her priority. Trying to second-guess which of those secondaries might have a marginally "better cohort" than others in several years time would be overthinking it.

You should absolutely share some suggestions. Because if OP hasn't thought of these places she might like to know.

There are large gardens to be had in most areas, including Twickenham, if your budget is big enough. What is your budget @rachelg1974 ?

Hi OP, what did you decide to do about moving? We’re also based in Harlesden and have a similar dilemma