Local primary schools

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Permalink Reply by JamesN on October 27, 2023 at 12:03

Schools can change very quickly depending on staff and student cohorts, and parental involvement. Focussing on mumsnet-style critiques is often counterproductive, but understandably hard to resist sometimes. What you do at home will be far more impactful than any relative differences in the local schools.

On a more pragmatic level, you'll likely need to live well within a third of a mile of South Harringay to be allocated a spot. Under half a mile for Chestnuts. Up to half of the places will be allocated to siblings in some of these schools. There are a lot of resources available online for comparing schools, with their 'catchments' and results published.

Here's the distance file from Haringey for reference.  https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/distance_of_l...

And the details of those schools oversubscribed (using distance criteria) last year.

https://www.haringey.gov.uk/sites/haringeygovuk/files/reception_tra...

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Permalink Reply by JulieB on October 27, 2023 at 15:35

I would say the best thing to do is go to the open days for all the schools you're interested in. I'd check their websites because I think they start having open days/sessions in Oct/Nov. You can get a really good feel for the school by seeing how the children are in class and in the playgrounds. Chestnuts, South Harringay and North Harringay all had PSAs. so if they still do it might be a good idea get in contact with them and they will be knowledgeable about the schools, from a parent's perspective. 

Both mine went to Chestnuts but my youngest is in year 12 now so my knowledge is from quite a few years ago. They both loved really loved it there though, it was great having the park right opposite.

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Permalink Reply by AndrewAW1 on November 2, 2023 at 14:49

Thanks for the thoughts, for various reasons there's a few schools that we can get into but it's interesting to see the different levels of applications at each one, quite surprising to see that North Harringay seems relatively easy to get into compared to South Harringay.

We've done a few of the open days and all look nice when we've seen them like that but interested in any other thoughts.

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Permalink Reply by JulieB on November 2, 2023 at 19:14

I'm not sure if it still does but for a long time South Harringay had an Outstanding ofsted, Chestnuts and (I think) North Harringay were rated Good. So that might partly explain why it's more popular.

I have to say for Primary living close to the school is a massive bonus, being able to walk there within 5 or 10 minutes is great for everyone.

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