Richmond schools catchment

[rachelg1974]

Hi there, I'm looking to move from
NW London to SW (around Richmond/ Twickenham/ Teddington) to hopefully get my son in to a good state school. He's in Year 5 currently and ideally I want him to finish at his current school as he absolutely adores it. Plus houses in my area are not selling easily right now. So we would have to move the summer before he starts and hope we can find somewhere close to one of the good schools and apply then.

I'm aware of how competitive all the schools are and that it's worth looking beyond just the Ofsted rating. But I'd love advice on any particular areas or roads which would potentially fall in to the catchment for more than one good school. Given that we'd be moving late, I don't know if I should risk just being close to one school, rather than having more options.

Also if there are any schools that you think tend to be overlooked but are pretty good, I'd be keen to hear. Particularly looking for schools with good pastoral care.

I also have a daughter in reception but I'm less stressed about primaries as there seem to be a lot of options. Very stressed about the whole secondary school thing - I didn't ever factor in the idea I might have to pull him out of a school he loves or risk where he gets in to in Year 7. I know it may well be worth the short term pain but feels really hard to do.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the essay : )

I’m afraid all the good/outstanding schools are oversubscribed, so I can’t imagine that you’d get a Year 7 place if you move the Summer before..?
You'd be placed in whatever school had a place, which could be out of borough.
I’d suggest planning the move this summer , so he can settle into Year 6 and then you’re well placed by the submissions deadline in October.

Orleans Park is prob the most popular but has a tiny catchment around East Twickenham.
if you lived in the Strawberry Hill part of Twickenham, you’d be in catchment for Sir Richard Reynolds (Catholic school), as well as Teddington & Turing schools.

I would think you would be much better advised to move before the start of year 6 so you can make an on-time application in October of year 6, while living in the area. Then also your son would make friends in year 6 that he might go to secondary school with.

@rachelg1974 previous posters are being overly negative. Although places are allocated in March, there is movement of waiting lists all through the summer and also at the beginning of September when some children with allocated places simply don't turn up. This is because some families in this area choose to go private, or move abroad, and don't bother to give up their allocated school place until the last minute.

My advice would be too move as soon as possible, and as close as possible to the relevant school or (for Turing House) admissions point. It is difficult to do that for more than one school, but if you are close to the Turing House admissions point you will also have a good chance of getting into Teddington School (because its a big school with a large catchment).

The local authority is obliged to find you a place within the borough, so the pp who said you might be allocated an out of borough place was incorrect. All the secondary schools are good or outstanding. Don't listen to people who tell you some have a bad reputation because those schools have improved in recent years and their long-standing reputations are out of date.

The 2025 catchment distances can be found online here:
https://5f2fe3253cd1dfa0d089-bf8b2cdb6a1dc2999fecbc372702016c.ssl.cf3.rackcdn.com/uploads/ckeditor/attachments/18403/National_Offer_Day__NOD__distance_offers_and_final_distance_offers_for_last_three_years.pdf

They show how distanced increase between July and the end of August. Numbers transferring from year 6 are going down rather than up, which will help you, but the borough does have lots of inward migration from people like you who move here for the schools.

Worth adding that there are Catholic and CofE options if you are a churchgoer.

Even if you're not a churchgoer, if your child's current school is CofE and the attached vicar does a weekly service, they may be willing to give you a letter confirming your child has had weekly worship over the relevant number of years.

Unless you move prior to application that is the latest in the summer after year 5, your child will not get to a good school but will be allocated go either Hampton High or Twickenham Academy, less likely anywhere else as schools are hugely oversubscribed and there are waiting lists

if you lived in the Strawberry Hill part of Twickenham, you’d be in catchment for Sir Richard Reynolds (Catholic school),
@EdgarAllenRaven

For this one it is not about proximity but Parishes, so she can live even south Hampton and be accepted. They do lottery among those who live in the parishes and meet the catholic criteria ( baptism and Certificate of the Catholic practice from the priest)

Hampton High and Twickenham School (which used to be called Twickenham Academy) are both now Ofsted Good schools and their popularity and reputation has improved on the back of that. Unfortunately some parents have an aversion to them because of their past reputations so they still get bad-mouthed.

Tell us your rough budget and other things you’re looking for and we can suggest areas that might suit. The schools effect on house prices in Richmond is high and you’ll need to accept that and pay a premium for the schools everyone is aiming for. It’s a lovely borough to live in though.

The best is Orleans - fab academics and outstanding pastoral care, but you won’t get a place there unless you are living almost on the doorstep at normal application time. (I live in the area and have taught in all the Richmond schools. In the summer before year 7 the best you can hope for is to rent next door (having proof of having sold your own house) and hope a place becomes available but parents are very unlikely to move to private - even more so now under this government - if they can get into Orleans.
Otherwise the best of the rest are StRichsrd Reynolds and Grey Court in Ham.
Teddington and Christs have improved but have a way to go.

But you risk being allocated Twickenhsm Academy or Richmond Park Academy which despite all the attempts to talk them up are really not what you are looking for.

@unannounced how is that relevant to what I said?

I don't think those two schools ever had performance below the national average. There are no terrible schools in our borough and never have been. But I assume that the OP moves hoping for the best choices and not just to random assigned by the council.

They did previously have poor performance, well below national average. They used to be run by a very bad academy trust, but they've had two trust changes since then and are now 'Good' and certainly better than schools in many of the areas that people are moving away from. Also, as the other borough schools are so oversubscribed, the demographic of children going to those two schools is becoming more reflective of the borough's relatively affluent population (which some people have always seen as a necessary step to improving them). They are no longer under-subscribed and are generally ranked above some nearby schools in neighboring boroughs.

I don't talk them up, but I do defend them when people unfairly talk them down.

I work in a borough school (not one of the above) and know that all the schools' leadership teams work together collaboratively and don't talk each other down. It's in nobody's interests to do so.

Remember that every mover-in who goes to a first choice school displaces another family who then get a lower preference.

Remember that every mover-in who goes to a first choice school displaces another family who then get a lower preference.

Not at all relevant to her enquiry. And very disquieting ‘outsiders not welcome here’ message - rather resonant of a distasteful current political message..😔
OP - Richmond people are mostly more welcoming than this! A very international and vibrant borough.

I'm very welcoming to the op (see the first of my previous posts). I like it when people move in and help to bolster our local school population, especially as the local birth rate is tumbling. I just don't like the snobbery and ignorance of some parents when they talk down the schools that other local families rely on for their children's' education. Not everyone can afford to move into pole position. We are fortunate that all our schools are good or outstanding. That is not the case for most other London Boroughs that people are moving from.

@unannounced There is no such thing as simply “Good” anymore when it comes to Ofsted. A school may be Good in one criterion and Outstanding in another, as reports now assess several different criteria.

Academic results are now around the average. They are the lowest in the borough, but still not bad at all when compared with national results. It is not the top choice in the borough if somebody specifically wants top performing school. And not all do. For many people other factors are important. All depends on a particular child.

They are no longer under-subscribed

Hampton High has never been undersubscribed, at least as far as I can remember. It is a very popular choice in Hanworth.
Unlike most other schools, these two accepted all children who applied (as shown in the table above). Many pupils who initially went there were on waiting lists for other schools and moved during the year, and those places are then offered to children who have moved into the borough. This happens particularly with Twickenham, as it is a large school.

I don't talk them up, but I do defend them when people unfairly talk them down.

Please explain why you are addressing me There seems to be an issue of defending the school versus “talking it down,” and I do not understand why this is being directed at me. I am objective:
She is likely to receive a space in those schools due to waiting list movement.
Do you want to "good mouth the schools" as the top choice in the borough when somebody is after academic results or what? 😀

All the borough's schools Ofsted ratings were given under their 2019 framework (which was tougher than the previous 2015 framework). There is another new framework for 2025 and all the schools will eventually be reassessed under it, but it will take a while.

You don't know the op's financial circumstances. She may not be able to move to pole position. You introduced the concept of "risk" in relation to those two schools without giving any context. I added the context for the benefit of the OP.

Fwiw, Hampton High was very undersubscribed when it was under the stewardship of the Learning Schools Trust, but recovered more quickly from that debacle than Twickenham School did because it didn't sink to 'Inadequate'.

You don't know the op's financial circumstances. She may not be able to move to pole position. You introduced the concept of "risk" in relation to those two schools without giving any context. I added the context for the benefit of the OP.

She mentioned to SW (around Richmond/ Twickenham/ Teddington). Surely she knows the housing prices and we can conclude that this is still of her interest
She also talks about competitive schools.
We can clearly infer from the first post what she is after, can't we?

There are no bad schools in the borough. However, some have results way above the national average and some just around average Parents should look at what the child needs rather than always push for the school that has top results at GCSE. My son's pal is thriving at HH. They have that stage there and he is very gifted at drama and drawing. Definitely a good choice. Totally opposite than my son who wants to go to Mars 🙈😅🤦and is great at science and maths- for him different school was a better choice n

Do your target schools give priority to feeder schools as well as proximity? If not, why not move as soon as you can, possibly move your DD, but let your DS commute back to his present school for the remainder of his school career? Unless you currently live in Beckenham, or Hoxton, or somewhere similarly distant from Richmond, of course? As long as you fulfil the residence requirements for the CAF submission (provable local address, fully given up your old home etc), then his school not also being local shouldn't matter.

None of the Richmond secondaries have feeder primaries. (There used to be a feeder system but it was removed years ago).

In a sense St Richard Reynolds does. They run primary and the kids from that group have guaranteed acceptance in secondary part of the school

https://strichardreynolds.org.uk/primary-school/welcome-to-the-primary-school/

Actually, it is quite common with Catholic schools

Yes, that's true, though I think the OP would have said if she was Catholic.

The SRCC primary does have 10 open places, so I guess that entry route is a possibility for non-Catholics.

Thanks everyone. Really helpful. Not religious so that rules out Richard Reynolds.

I have considered moving this summer - it's not totally out of the question but heartbreaking for my son who is desperate to finish up at his primary. But also not convinced I can sell my house in time as houses are not shifting at round here (I'm in Harlesden). Commuting back and forth - have to think about that, not an easy commute depending on where we move to.

No easy options! Didn't really think that when you move somewhere with a very small child, you need to have an eye on the very very long term. I also know kids are resilient and one way or another, they'll be fine.

I'm very open to the schools - they don't have to be supremely academic. As many people have pointed out, all the schools in the borough are pretty good. My son is a bright boy but it's most important to me that he ends up at a nurturing school, where he's likely to have a cohort of good kids to hang out with, that's good at dealing with a lot of the emotional stuff that teenagers go through, outside space.

But I'm also very aware that all these things are hard to predict!

One question: if I do move next summer and am lucky enough to be close to a school, do you move up the list according to how close you are to the school?

Budget wise, looking at between £1.5 and £1.8 for a 4/5 bed house. My husband is desperate for a big garden, which is the very difficult thing to achieve. He's open to leaving London (potentially Harpenden) but I'm a born and bred Londoner, parents still here so am less keen to move!

@rachelg1974 "if I do move next summer and am lucky enough to be close to a school, do you move up the list according to how close you are to the school?"

You move up the waiting list according to the admissions criteria, which are mostly based on distance, yes. Apart from the faith schools, the only one that is significantly different is Turing House which has its main (80%) admissions point remote from the school in the Fulwell area. The other 20% is based on proximity to the school but is tiny. See the catchment maps on their website for details.

We did a similar move from North London , but when DC was in Year 5. One thing I would say, is leaving it until that summer could also be risky if the chain falls through - this happens to us after 4 months, on the day of Exchange we had to start from scratch and find new buyers! Total nightmare.

(Personally I wouldn’t place so much emphasis on “finishing Primary” - kids are very adaptable, and he can still visit his old friends at weekends… Secondary would be a priority for me)

If the academic aspect is not that crucial then it should not be a problem as there are no bad schools in the Borough and your child will ultimately receive a space in one of them. But if you don't apply by October you may need to wait when you move.

I know about somebody who moved in November and contacted council about it , they still allowed her to change her selection of preferred schools.

There is no guarantee on nice kids anywhere. All depends on luck. Bullies are born everywhere - they can be rich or poor.

I think that even if the academic aspect is important, all you're really 'buying' by getting a place at a school higher in the league tables is a bigger cohort of other academic children for your child to hopefully make friends with. It doesn't automatically follow that your individual child will do any better ... you just hope that they will surround themselves with the 'right' sort of peer pressure. I get it, but I know there are bright young people who do very, very well in their GCSEs at TS and HH. They also get priority admission to Esher College at 16+.