Can anyone with children at Goodrich school and Heber primary school tell me how they find it?

[Sophiescarlett89]

Hi all, thinking about what would be the best school to send my daughter to (she is two and a half) and we live in the catchment area for both Heber Primary school and Goodrich Primary school, im yet to look at their ofsted reports but would be grateful to hear peoples personal experiences with the schools and how you rate them as schools?

Many thanks in advance.

[bonaome]

Heber is lovely. Great community atmosphere. A very friendly school. The kids all seem to be very happy there. It's been improving steadily over the last couple of years and the teaching now seems to match the pastoral care which I've found to be excellent. You can have a look at the website http://www.heberprimaryschool.com/ but of course you're much better going to see it for yourself.

It has become quite popular in recent years. And I think Goodrich remains popular too. Probably best to put them 1 and 2 on your form if they're your nearest community schools.

There's no catchment areas. Places are allocated to kids in care, special ed needs, siblings, closest distance to the school gate (as the crow flies). As Heber is only 2 forms of entry (60 kids) it's pretty eary to find there's only afew non-sibling places up for grabs, with the net effect that you have to live within a couple of hundred meters of the school to get in.

You might find this useful http://www.findaschool.info/LA_map.php#!Southwark

[Sophiescarlett89]

Thank you for your feedback, much appreciated, will do a bit more research :-)

[LondonMix]

Do a search on the forum using the school's names. Part of the reason for few responses is a very similar thread was started on Goodrich last week. There are many recent parent views on both schools that you can look up.

[redjam]

Heber is a lovely school - friendly atmosphere, lots of energy and loads of things going on all the time. My kids are very happy there and we're very pleased with the quality of the teaching. Music and art departments are notably good, though I do think it suffers from not having much outside space for PE (very common in London schools, unfortunately!).

If you ring the office you can arrange for someone to give you a tour of the school at any time, plus they do occasional open days. Or come along to the Fun Run in Dulwich Park in May or the Summer Fair to get a feel for the school.

I gather Goodrich is also a very good school, especially since the new head came, so if you are close to both these schools you are lucky (though as bonaome points out, there are no 'catchment areas' as such - they differ every year depending on siblings etc). Good luck!

[Carbonara]

"Probably best to put them 1 and 2 on your form if they're your nearest community schools."

Put the schools in the genuine order in which you prefer them. If you are hoping for a place in a school further away or maybe a faith schoo, as your top choice, put it top. The schools offer places according to how each application matches their criteria. If you live extremely close to Heber and / or Goodrich then you will get that place based on distance and be offered it if you miss out on your 'long shot' top choice. But if you do have the choice of Heber or Goodrich, you are probably spoilt for choice :)

[canela]

both are lovely schools so i'd choose more based on your convenience, i.e. which is nearer. mine are at heber and it's great. friends are at goodrich and also really rate it.