Secondary schools in Plymouth (transfer from abroad)

[cuppateamilknosugar]

We are considering a move from abroad. What are the best state secondaries in or around Plymouth? Several seem to have the Ofsted rating "good" but they can't all be the same! I'd love to hear from anyone with kids at any Plymouth secondary now. My kids would be year 7 and 9 next year. Thanks for your help!

Plymouth has a few grammar schools so they require entrance exams and are extremely popular. They are state schools. You would have to contact them to find out if your children would even be able to apply as they are already secondary age.

I think they are called Devonport High for Boys, Devonport High for Girls and Plymouth High.

Then there will be a lot of other schools as its a city, whose statistics of course are impacted by a lot of the highest ability children going to the grammars.

I don’t know the schools in Plymouth, but the fact that several have a rating of Good is not unlikely. There are only a few possible ratings and all of them having Good does not mean they are all the same – there are lots of other factors people consider – such as closeness to home, subjects offered (different MFLs, different tech options, triple vs double science at GCSE, music options) and extra curricular clubs. Also size of school may be a factor.

Tbf tho you may well have little choice as an in-year application – you could contact the LA to find out which schools have space in the relevant years. Your DC might have to go to different schools but that wouldn’t be an issue as secondary DC usually are expected to get themselves to school.

Thank you both! I have been looking at the grammar schools and will probably put the kids forward for the test if that's even possible. I need to find out about the comps as a plan B and it's so hard to differentiate when Ofsted says more or less the same thing about most of them! :)