Help! Byne Road - schools catchment?

[Its_me]

Hi
We are in the process of buying a flat on Byne Road.
Does anyone live here? We're a bit worried about what nursery and infant schools there are close by. We don't yet have a family but would like to one day, and stupidly didn't factor this in when we proceeded a few months ago.

I guess we don't want to feel isolated from nurseries, childcare or mom and baby groups, and when school age comes around, would like to have a drop off that ties in with our commute (from Sydenham to London Bridge).

What's the best/ worst bits of living on Byne Road? I may be worrying over nothing..

Thanks
Alex

[Pally]

Kelvin Grove/ Eliot Bank/ St Brats are probably closest Lewisham Schools ...all up hill from Sydenham station

Alexandra Infants and Jnrs (split site) are closest Bromley schools and you would be living in Bromley Borough. Two Harris Primary Schools in Penge.

Possibility of changing commute to leave from Penge East or Penge West as nearer you in Byne road (particular Penge East) and /or nearer the Bromley Schools

[leenewham]

Kelvin Grove is excellent.
Rose House Montessory Nursery in Lower Sydenham is fantastic.

[monkeyarms]

In terms of childcare, you don't need to worry. There's a lot of nurseries and childcare options nearby.

In terms of primary schools, it's a bit more tricky.
We live on Tredown Road. Our son is 3 and we are just about to start going to open days.

We're going to visit Harris Academy, St Bartholomews, Kelvin Grove and Adamsrill. And possibly Alexandra Infants, although from what my partner has researched, it's highly unlikely we'd get a place.

It's all a big, frustrating journey of discovery, because there are so many factors.

Harris Academy, I suspect, would be easy to get into; it's very good reputation; and all the parents from there I've spoken to are happy with it.. St Barts I have no idea - not being religious, we'd be a long way down their list of priorities (I think it's outrageous that state-funded religious schools should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of [lack of] religious faith, but that's just how it is...) Kelvin Grove was in our catchment area for 2016 intake, but not in 2015... so we're not certain yet it will be in 2017. Someone mentioned Eliot Bank - that's not an option if you're on Byne Road. Eliot Bank has a tiny catchment area.

But having said all that, I really don't think any of that should put you off buying a flat on Byne Road. The area is very family-friendly. Quite apart from anything else, the intake numbers and catchment areas change each year, so nothing I can say here is set in stone anyway. Plus you haven't currently got kids. It's impossible to say what the primary schools situation will be in 5 years' time.

Incidentally, following a conversation I had with someone over the weekend, I am going to start petitioning all the various single-sex boys secondary schools to go co-ed. I really want my son to go to a mixed school. I've got 8 years to try to get one to change its policy!

[Suzee]

I think there have been other threads on this, as it's an issue for those living between Sydenham and Penge East. We live on Tredown Road too.

My sons are 4 and 7, one at Kelvin Grove, one about to start. We really couldn't happier with the school. We've had excellent teachers, the school is vibrant, friendly and welcoming. It's a large school but they manage it well.
Sadly the wonderful headteacher is leaving but the new guy is apparently very good too. A PTA was set up last year which has been really successful.
They have fab breakfast and after school clubs on site for working parents.
Music teaching is excellent.
Plus the 20 minute walk up the hill to school is great exercise!

They are a 3 form entry to hopefully you should still be within the catchment.

Eliot Bank and Alexandra Infants - no chance I'm afraid, they are small and v popular. I personally think Alexandra infants and juniors should combine into one on the juniors site. The infants site is so close to the Harris Academy and there seems to be lots of fields around the junior site for expansion.

Agree about the co-ed secondary schools. Not many of those around here.

Good luck!

[Suzee]

Hi
We are in the process of buying a flat on Byne Road.
Does anyone live here? We're a bit worried about what nursery and infant schools there are close by. We don't yet have a family but would like to one day, and stupidly didn't factor this in when we proceeded a few months ago.

I guess we don't want to feel isolated from nurseries, childcare or mom and baby groups, and when school age comes around, would like to have a drop off that ties in with our commute (from Sydenham to London Bridge).

What's the best/ worst bits of living on Byne Road? I may be worrying over nothing..

Thanks
Alex

P.s. If you're at the Tredown end then the worst thing about living on Byne will probably be the parking!

[monkeyarms]

One thing I'd love to see stated clearly and unambiguously on an official .gov website is how your priorities of school actually work in practice.

None of the 6 schools you apply to are informed which order of preference you put them in. Therefore all applications are considered solely on the school's own criteria (proximity, special needs, cared-for children, faith etc). So, logically, putting a particular school as first choice makes not a jot of difference as to whether you'll be offered a place there, any more than if you put it sixth.

Preferences therefore, presumably, only come into play if more than one school from your list offers you a place. So you may as well put the "impossible" school down as first choice, as it won't affect the likelihood of being offered a place at your nearest, or second-nearest school.

It would only have an impact, arguably, if there's a strong possibility you won't get any of your six choices (i.e. it's a waste of a choice), but I don't know what on earth you could put down instead as a safety net option in that situation: you'd need to know of a Bromley school with a good reputation but which nobody liked and was very very undersubscribed, which is pretty much a contradiction in terms.

[elle]

There's a handy website here, which shows you your nearest schools and "Straight line distance offered" from that school over previous years, and then the straight line distance from your road to each school.

http://www.schoolcatchment.co.uk/

Monkeyarms, your comment about schools not knowing what preference they are on your list is very interesting, I didn't know that. I wonder if the additional comments you can leave are relayed to school or not? I've read recently that it's frowned upon to not use all six options that you're given, does anyone have any thoughts on this? There are only two schools near us that would work, allowing for ferrying a younger one to nursery and getting to work. Not sure if that's going to go against us though. Seems ridiculous to list schools that are too far away to be reasonably considered, just for the sake of it.

[monkeyarms]

Thanks, that is a very useful website.

Bromley have just recently a leaflet about applying for primary places. On one of the pages, it lists all their schools and the distances they extended to in offering places for 2016 intake. I don't think the schoolscatchment website is that up-to-date yet. It's in a PDF that you can download here:
http://www.bromley.gov.uk/downloads/fil ... 17_leaflet

I don't think Lewisham has anything similar - yet.

Despite what I said above about preferences, i think, in practice, there's probably not anything to be gained by trying to be too clever/strategic about preferences and distances: at the end of the day, everyone's going to put the school they most want to go to as first choice. Which is kind of how it should be.

Elle - you really should use all 6 because if you only put down 2 and get neither, then you have no idea at all where you will end up. You may as well be as close as possible. I think I read somewhere that the government has a policy along the lines of "anything up to a 45-minute journey is considered an acceptable school commute"!

[elle]

45 minutes!! Wow ok, thank you for the info, I will definitely use the 6 now.

Oh another resource I've found quite handy is actually the Rightmove website. If you find something for sale/rent in your road or very close by and select the "School Checker", you have yourself a handy chart of local schools, distances to the property, Ofsted rating, whether they were oversubscribed in the previous year and whether the property would have been in the admission area in the previous year.

And if you click through to the site that Rightmove gets it's data from, findaschool, there's absolutely loads of info there and you won't get any work done today...

[Suzee]

Thanks, that is a very useful website.

Bromley have just recently a leaflet about applying for primary places. On one of the pages, it lists all their schools and the distances they extended to in offering places for 2016 intake. I don't think the schoolscatchment website is that up-to-date yet. It's in a PDF that you can download here:
http://www.bromley.gov.uk/downloads/fil ... 17_leaflet

I don't think Lewisham has anything similar - yet.

Despite what I said above about preferences, i think, in practice, there's probably not anything to be gained by trying to be too clever/strategic about preferences and distances: at the end of the day, everyone's going to put the school they most want to go to as first choice. Which is kind of how it should be.

Elle - you really should use all 6 because if you only put down 2 and get neither, then you have no idea at all where you will end up. You may as well be as close as possible. I think I read somewhere that the government has a policy along the lines of "anything up to a 45-minute journey is considered an acceptable school commute"!

Here's the Lewisham starting school leaflet, with the furthest distances offered for community schools:

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/e ... ns2017.pdf

I always thought it was the borough or admissions service that deal with the school admissions, rather than the applications going to the school itself. So for each school they first allocate places to the looked after children/special circumstances who apply with the school as first choice, then those with siblings at the school, then lastly nearest distances. If a child doesn't get their first choice school, their second choice school will come into play, if it has spaces left after all the applications as first choice have been considered.
Faith schools see the additional information you supply if you are applying for a faith place, to make sure you have jumped through all their hoops.

I agree to put all 6 choices down, but if you put an oversubscribed school you are unlikely to get as number 1, make sure you put down a school you like and are likely to get as number 2.

[monkeyarms]

Having re-read the "How places are allocated" section in both Bromley and Lewisham, it makes it clear that it is schools that deal initially with applications – i.e. informing the Authority who they will take – and the Authority then sorts things out from there:

"Schools confirm to their home Authority admissions team which applicants they are able to offer to.
All possible offers are shared and exchanged through the Pan-London Admissions System.
The highest preference available will be offered to the applicant and any lower preference applications cancelled"

"The preference order will only be used when it is possible for more than one school to offer"

So your application is considered by all 6 schools simultaneously: it doesn't get seen first by your first preference before being passed to the next.

What the Authority does, once they've received the offers from schools, is:

a) allocate a place according to your listed preferences if you've been offered more than one of your choices

b) allocate you a place if you've only been offered one of your choices (and, if it wasn't your first choice, put you on the waiting list for your first choices)

c) sort out where you're going somewhere else within the Borough if you got none of your choices (and put you on the waiting list for your first choices).


The order preferences are very important therefore, but they are not a trump card: if I put a school down as my first choice and 10 other people put the same school down as their third choice, they will all still be offered a place there rather than me if they live nearer to the school (and don't get their first or second choices).