Primary Schools ED/Peckham Rye - Difference between SJSC & The Belham

[cmo147]

Hello there,

I'm in the process of trying to think about schools for my son who should be attending primary school in 2024. From what I can see there are plenty of really great schools locally, namely The Belham School and St Johns and St Clements. However, I'm not quite clear about the difference between the two (except that one is denominational and the other isn't). Are there differences in terms of school ethos? teaching approach/pedagogy? feeder schools? It would be great to get thoughts and advice from others. From what I can see children who live close to both St J&C or the Belham sometimes travel a bit longer to go to either one. So just trying to get a sense of the what the difference may be. Grateful for any thoughts!

[alex_b]

We live between the two, looked at both and chose the Belham. Both are good schools but we didn’t want a denominational school.

SJSC seems to be fairly observant compared to the C of E primary school I attended a million years ago.

[scarlettbanks]

Ours go to the Belham and love it. I’ve heard good things about SJSC too. Best thing to do is to visit both, and see if there’s one you prefer. We preferred non-denominational, and were also attracted to the atmosphere and ethos at the Belham (very caring, good focus on arts/music, but also academically ambitious). I don’t think either of them are ‘feeder schools’ (I don’t think this really exists in the area, as application to secondary schools is an independent process).