primary school visits/tours for prospective parents

[oimissus]

we will be looking round loads of primary schools next term for Miss Oi who is due to start Sept 2014. Does the council website have a list of when you can visit, or do you contact each school individually?

thanks

[number 2]

i'm pretty sure you have to contact them all individually. some will have dates posted on their website.

[Renata Hamvas]

Hi Oimissus,

there is no list for primary school open days as unlike secondary schools, not all primaries have them and they are often organised by primary schools at relatively short notice.

IT's worth checking on here, particularly in late Autumn (typical time for open days is November, but some eg Goose Green have regular ones) as I post any I become aware of on here as do parents/ptas etc.

Renata

[alieh]

I would contact the schools individually within the first couple of weeks of the school offices opening again in September. Some of them posted tour dates on their website and others didn't. I tried to book tours starting around October last year and they were all already full! A number of schools only had tour spaces available in late Jan/Feb after the deadline for applications.

[Lacey]

At Bessemer they are the last Tuesday of every month at 9.30 - no need to book, just turn up. The school website says they will be more frequent in the Autumn term so, if you are interested in going on a tour, I would call the school when they re-open (after 5 Sept) and I'll try to remember to update here when the additional dates are available.

[Lacey]

Just to update on this - school tours at Bessemer Grange are every Tuesday morning at 9.30am for the rest of the Autumn term.

[number 2]

Dog kennel hill is next Thursday I think. Should be on the website

[tomskip]

Which are the best streets to live in for primary catchments in ED these days - does anyone get a choice of more than 2? I imagine there is a point in or around the DKH Estate where you are in catchment for St John's & St Clements, DKH and Goose Green. But do any other streets overlap any more?

[lorraineliyanage]

The top of Barry Road near the Bread of Life cafe is in the catchment for Heber, Goodrich and St Anthony's school.

[oimissus]

thanks for the info everyone, oddly enough I was checking this out today, got a few in the diary.

[Indiana]

Hmm Heber catchment has shrunk so much in recent years that top of Barry road would no longer be in it....

[lorraineliyanage]

We're under 200m to Heber, last place for 2013 says 263 metres so that should just about reach the top end of Barry. I was surprised as I didn't think Heber was an option.

I'm nearer the Goodrich Road intersection of Barry Rd than the Lordship Lane end. Can't remember our distance from Goodrich but I think that's within the catchment too.

[Indiana]

But top end of Barry Road is about 400 metres to Heber so probably not an option....walkjogrun.net is a good website to look at crow fly distances...

[Norfolkvillas]

Sorry if this has been asked before but does anyone know if schools / councils publish the last place offered on distance for the last round of offers rather than just the first round? Especially for schools such as Heber with such tiny catchments, it would be useful to know if you really do need to live within the 250m radius, or if actually, by the time term starts, the catchment has expanded?

And by way of an apology for a slightly off-topic question, I can share that the Goodrich tours are at 9.30am every second Monday and the next one is Monday 30th September and you need to contact the office to book a place.

[oimissus]

Southwark have a brochure called something like Starting Primary School in 2014, and within it is the furthest distance offered for all the schools - Lewisham have this too.

[Norfolkvillas]

Thanks Oimissus but I think the figures in these brochures are based only on the first round of offers and don't take into account any waiting list places offered between first round offers and start of term.

[alieh]

The only anecdotal evidence I have is from our tour at Fairlawn where she said that the catchment often increases up to 100 m between offers and the start of term, but that this amount keeps getting smaller and smaller too. I wouldn't want to count on this though as people keep moving throughout the summer and often choose houses super close to schools when it is that late in the process!

[oimissus]

well, if that's the case that is fabulously unhelpful.

Renata/James - are you able to confirm this?

[sillywoman]

Glengarry Rd & surrounding streets: Catchment for Bessemer, GooseGreen & the DV schools.

[Renata Hamvas]

To confirm, yes the distances are those on offer day. It couldn't be done any other way as waiting lists are completely fluid. There is still movement up until Christmas. Sometimes late applicants living closer to the last place offered distance won't get a place. The reason why there was a significant increase in the last place offered distance for Fairlawn this year is that they had a late bulge during the summer. This could result in a contraction in the last place distance offered over the next 2-3 years due to an increase in the number of siblings.

Renata

[alieh]

Agree it is unhelpful, but also agree with Renata that there's not a lot they can do. The distances are only a guide anyway as they can change hugely from one year to the next. For e.g., I wrote down the distances for Goodrich over the last few years and I think it was 683 m (09/10), 440 m (10/11), 674 (12/13) and then this year barely 400m I think. The bulge classes hugely skew things not just for the bulge school but also for surrounding schools (as more places are freed up).

[Susan]

Yes the figures are crazy, I nearly fainted when I got this summary from Goose Green (about 2 weeks ago)

2010 - 1,927 meters

2011 - 3,329 meters

2012 - 1,644 meters

2013 - 459.27m

is it possible that this is correct?

[alieh]

I wouldn't be surprised Susan if that is correct! Having just gone through this crazy process this year my assessment is that the good news is that there are loads of great schools in the broader area but the bad news may be that you need to live within 200-400 m of ONE of them to be fairly sure of a spot walking distance to your house (because of lots of black hole areas too far from any of the local schools)!

[mrs.lotte]

There are a lot of factors that can affect the catchment; the Goose Green figures are a good example;

2010 - coming out of special measures

2011 - took a bulge class (as did St John's and Bessemer) so very wide catchment

The leap from 2012 to 2013 reflects the increasing popularity of the school I would have thought but at the same time that end of ED is still good bet for 4 popular schools; GG, DKH, Bessemer and St John's with a sniff at DVI and Lyndhurst.

[goosegreenpta]

Next GG school tour is Tuesday 1st October at 9.15am.