Schools in Essex/Epping forest and Redbridge

[Confusemumqq]

Could someone please advise on secondary schools in this area please? We are about to move to the IG7 area and looking for secondary schools. Private not an option. What are the local schools like? We have a year 5 DD who will stay in current school but we are out of catchment for the secondary schools her friends will be going to so need to research some schools. DS is only 2 so not a worry for him yet.

Both DS and DD are mixed race so that’s my concern with the schools we’ve seen so far such as Roding Valley which is our catchment school I’m worried they might get picked on.

will we be in catchment for schools in Redbridge or will we have to only look at schools in Essex? There’s also west hatch but results don’t seem good. Any advice please?

You’d be best off in a different topic for this like education - report the port and see if HQ will shift it

I think you would be in catchment for Westhatch which has a decent reputation. If you are Catholic you could go to Trinity. If you are Anglican you can go to Davanent. Trinity and Davanent are more sought after.

@Sibilantseamstress thank you! I would love to send her to it looks so lovely and welcoming but we’re out of catchment. West hatch and riding are our only options. I’m not too keen on west hatch for some reason! I’m not sure why. I didn’t like roding valley either. I liked a couple of Redbridge schools but can we get in as we’re Epping forest council? I phoned Redbridge schools up but got no straight answer at least davenabt were clear and said no way would we get in

@EmeraldPebble thank you. I’ll report it now.

You will need evidence of church attendance for Trinity/Davenant. West Hatch/Roding are your most likely options otherwise. Woodbridge is great but unlikely you would get in from IG7.

@SweetBaklava thank you. What about Beal school? What Redbridge schools could I likely get her into?

I’m so sorry if I sound thick but I’m lost with the league tables! Everyone keeps telling me to look at the results but I can’t make sense of them! From what I can make out is that west hatch seems to have only something like 55% of grades A-D, I might be looking at old data and haven’t looked recently. It wasn’t grades it was levels I think

The Y7 open evenings are coming up soon for lots of schools - visit as many as you can to get a feel for them and meet the staff. Open evenings are usually well advertised on insta/FB etc

If you are moving to an address in the Essex County Council administrative area, you can look on the LA's 'Find a school' web page for your priority area (catchment) school, if you have one. This doesn't guarantee a place at that school, but shows you which school would rank you under that oversubscription criterion in its admissions policy. In the Essex secondary schools directory, you can see under which criterion the last offer was made for this September. Davenant - faith school with no defined catchment area - only offered as far as criterion C (applicants ranked by church attendance over the past 5 years) and to get as far as offering to someone purely on distance, would have to have offered through both Siblings of pupils in years 7 - 12 and applicants attending a CofE / RC / Jewish faith primary first.

West Hatch, - not a faith school, but with a defined catchment area - offered down as far as all other applicants, ranked on distance.

Patterns of application vary from year to year, and just because e.g. a neighbour's DC got into a desirable but distant school three years ago on distance, doesn't mean that an applicant for 2027 would from the same address. You can name any school you like (in Essex or in a different LA) on your Essex CAF, but if none of them is one which will rank your application high enough to offer a place, Essex CC will allocate you a place at the nearest school with places remaining, which tends to be 'whichever school is currently out of favour' and coukd be miles away., so you do need to be realistic in your preferences.

On the https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/ site, you can look at results by pupil characteristics such as prior attainment.