St Anthony's Catholic Primary School - (traffic congestion caused by a stupid parent)

[Fuschia]

James Barber Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hi agathoise,

> I'd be surprised if they do base admissions around

> distance from the school. This would be contrary

> to its formally stated admissions:

>

> http://www.stanthonys.southwark.sch.uk/page8.html

If you read down to pt 4 it states

4. Distance from home to school is measured as safe walking distance from front gate of the home to the main gate of the school using the measurement supplied by the local authority derived from their computerised mapping system. ...

[agathoise]

James - my kids are at the school, and distance was definitely taken into account (cf Fuschia's point re: admission pt 4 on the page you linked to). We are very local, have lived in the area a long time, and knew a large number of the families at the school before our children were enrolled there simply because the families had been local to us in ED and active members of the parish (it's not a big school, and with quite a lot of larger-than-average families, there are fewer families than at many schools therefore easier to know a larger proportion). Bear in mind that St Thomas More is a very large, vibrant and very active parish (there are *five* Sunday Masses including the vigil, and you'll find surprising numbers of young people at the weekday morning Masses as well, including mums and young children: this isn't the much-derided church-school "tokenism" that is often inferred): there are **far** more Catholic children living locally than there are places at St Anthony's!

I don't know anything about bike sheds, but there is a bike-and-scooter-corral which is very well used :-)

- Agathoise

[observermum]

I agree that the vast majority seem to arrive and get picked up by parents/carers walking.

However places do become available further up in most schools -

I am not sure of the situation in Southwark but there is definately an exodus of families who leave the borough I live in because of dissatisfaction with secondary school places - this has a big impact on primary schools. My older children did not attend St.Anthony's but in their primary school over half the class had left and for the most part the places taken by other children between yr R and Yr 6. I have met many parents who return to their homeplaces as their children get to secondary age as they cannot face the overdemand for spaces in london and the options open to them or move borough to live closer to what they consider to be more desirable schools.

[sillywoman]

poor you observermum - i take it you're not an ED-er then?. Here at the southern tip of Southwark we're lucky enough to have some great state secondaries now. In fact a lot of people move here for the secondary provision.