Advice, please - schools in Brentwood

Milky_Mocha

Hi

I'm having a hard time finding information on the net about good schools in my area or in Brentwood which is about 15 mins away from me by car.

I'm particularly interested in word of mouth opinions and experiences of people whose kids or friends have attended schools in these areas. Im mainly interested in non-private school for ages prior to secondary school age (ie primary, preparatory etc). I'll consider private schools as a last resort. I've heard for e.g. about St Martins in Brentwood but realise now that its secondary.

I once found a site that showed various rankings of such schools and how you can read their ofsted reports etc but a google search using all sorts of keywords returns nothing useful so if anyone knows the site I'd be grateful to have it please. I notice though that that site did not (and probably cannot as its rather subjective) give readers an opinion of the reputation of discipline hence your replies would be really valuable.

I live in Thurrock and I get the feeling all the good schools are in Brentwood but am concerned I'm not in the catchment area for those schools. I was glad to read however that many schools take a percentage of pupils from outside catchment but I don't know if that only applies to secondary education.

My questions are:

Does anyone know of any very good schools in Thurrock which are of the standard of the Brentwood ones which have such a good reputation?

What schools in Brentwood are known to be very good, taking grades and discipline into account? (those are the two factors I consider most highly). If I'm not in their catchment area then perhaps I could give my daughter some home tuition to prepare her for entrance tests. She's only 2 now but I want to be prepared so that if the only solution is to move house then we have at least another 2 years to plan that.

Also, does putting a child's name down early make a difference to how likely they are to be accepted even if you are not in catchment?

Sorry for the longish post. I have tried to research this on the web but am getting nowhere.

SuzySu

Hi Milky_Mocha.....will PM you.

VickyA_2

My friend teaches at St Martin's in Brentwood, so your children will be in safe hands once they get there.........................

Sorry, I can't help you on your search. When you have a shortlist, ask to be shown round the schools and just go for the one that you get the best "feeling" about, especially if there's nothing to separate them Ofsted-wise.

Milky_Mocha

Thanks for your replies. Useful stuff. I've started my shortlist. I guess from your reply, Vicky that there are lots of good schools then. I've been reading the criteria for admissions of two of the schools suggested in my PM and find it interesting. I'll reserve further comments till I receive more replies (hopefully)

Milky_Mocha

OK, here's my shortlist, based only on web surfing.

Bentley St Paul's Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School,

St Joseph The Worker Catholic Primary School, Hutton, Brentwood

I would have liked St Thomas of Canterbury Church of England (Aided) Infant School, Brentwood but the criteria as well as the number of admissions versus applications pretty much rules it out for me.

Would also have liked St Helen's Catholic Infant but again, although less stringent criteria than St Thomas, it still looks unlikely I'd be considered due to again, emphasis on applicants from the Brentwood area.

Any thoughts?

Just to add, all the schools in Thurrock appear to be rather poor.

Spendless

Since they are all church schools, they will all have their own individual criteria. I'd get hold of the prospectus/criteria list from each school and see what the top criterias are, for example it may be that you worship at a particular church.

Milky_Mocha

Thanks Spendless. Yes I checked the criteria of all of them and I fit at least one of each set. If the criteria are put in order of priority then there's hope, especially as they tend to show which criteria was met by the last person admitted.

I did find the site that shows league tables and read some ofsted reports in detail. I also compared these to a couple of other areas and I think I'm confident that a majority of schools in Brentwood are good.

ukjoel

Why dont you move to Brentwood.
Not being rude but I used to live there and I would be amazed if Thurrock and Brentwood had overlapping catchment areas as they are so far apart.

Essex is very much split between the good towns and the not so good.
The point made earlier about all the Brentwood schools being good would also be the case over in Chelmsford.

Wheras Thurrock, Dagenham, Romford would all be a different again.

What about moving to the outskirts of Brentwood ie Pilgrims Hatch.
You can buy 3 bedroom houses there still for 220k and it sits between Brentwood and Shenfield both of which have decent schools.

I know someone selling a place if your interested.

k1mmie

Hi. Well I lived in Brentwood for 12 years and all my children went to primary and some secondary there. Are you of a faith? This will make a big difference as there are some very good faith schools. Alternatively, you have several options and I noticed the OP mentioning some also which are all worth considering. To be honest I dont think there is a bad school in Brentwood and whilst I thoroughly loved living there I could not wait to move out. The traffic and snobbery are not worth tolerating for nice schools. However, with catchments changing regularly, I would suggest you find out what would in your catchment nearer the time as most schools will not take names that far in advance any longer. If you need any further help, don't hesitate to let me know. Happy hunting.

jetcat

i see you found a site with all the school/ofsted stuff on, but thought i would post anyway! i use the bbc site, and type school tables in search box. when you click on a particular school, it gives you a link to the ofsted reports. i think it is useful as you can sort the table into which info you want - value added etc.

Milky_Mocha

ukjoel wrote: »

Why dont you move to Brentwood.
Not being rude but I used to live there and I would be amazed if Thurrock and Brentwood had overlapping catchment areas as they are so far apart.

Essex is very much split between the good towns and the not so good.
The point made earlier about all the Brentwood schools being good would also be the case over in Chelmsford.

Wheras Thurrock, Dagenham, Romford would all be a different again.

What about moving to the outskirts of Brentwood ie Pilgrims Hatch.
You can buy 3 bedroom houses there still for 220k and it sits between Brentwood and Shenfield both of which have decent schools.

I know someone selling a place if your interested.

No, Thurrock and Brentwood don't appear to have overlapping catchment areas. Someone asked if I was of a 'faith'. Yes, hence I feel there's hope because looking at the admissions criteria, most schools place attendance at church above distance from school and looking at the admissions statistics of some of them, the last person admitted tends to be from the lowest or second lowest criteria category. The only catch for me is that most criteria state 'weekly' attendance whereas I'm more of a 'once a month' church attendee but I have a few years to do something about that.

I am also still considering actually moving into Brentwood. When moving into Thurrock I did some research on schools there but did not know enough. I did find one school which had an outstanding rating and near 100% grades in english math and science but when I checked this year the overall rating had dropped from a 1 to a 2. I was slightly ignorant about the whole school search thing and assumed that because the area we moved to was nice with nice cars in people's drives there were bound to be good schools - only to find after speaking to two neighbours that their kids went to private school.

Please PM me with the link to the house for sale, ukjoel. Thanks for the offer.