Hello wise parents, I am struggling to decide between these two schools although I know one is a private and the other a state. Forest School had a not so good ofsted but I went for a tour with the new head teacher and I was surprised at the changes she's made and assured me it's on the up now and they are fully staffed for the core subjects. Two boys were offered Oxbrige and one medicine at UCL. They also have good sports facilities like football pitches and Rugby.
What more do I have to look at to make the right choice? My son has his place reserved at St.josephs which I obviously have no doubts about. Does anyone have any recent experience of Forest School or any advise?

I don't know either of the schools I'm afraid, but I would say if you have no doubts about the (free) state school and doubts about the (fee paying) private school, the answer is fairly obvious!
Hopefully someone who knows the schools will be able to help you further.

Hi Scary mum, I have doubts about the free state school (Forest). DS thinks highly of it as one of the boys of that school got selected to play for his favourite club and two boys from his school will be going there.
I'm doubtful because of the dubious Ofsted and also because people talk about Holt and Bulmershe etc but no one talks about Forest. I read that it had lack of funds too but then my DD's super selective is no better.

I know Forest went down in their ofsted, but I’ve heard they are improving. I doubted it would be long before they were on the up. If there’s been a change in head then I’d expect improvements. It happened at Bulmershe. Obviously if they are getting Oxbridge and medicine offers, then they must be doing something right.

Tbh in all the years I’ve lived locally I’ve never heard a lot said either way about Forest, but then I have a DD and live in ME catchment, so I’ve not really had reason to. It’s always going to be unfairly compared to Holt, being the ‘brother’ school, but Holt is the best performing school in Wokingham.

I do know a number of people with DCs at St Joes. All are happy with it. Obviously there are fees, but lower than most private schools locally.

Thank you Tinkers, see that's the thing. I haven't heard any real life experiences about this school. The new head looks promising and showed us data which said the attainment of boys was actually higher at Forest than the school which we had appealed for.
The safe bet would be St.joes where I know he will be safe and happy.

Did you go on the WL for the other schools we discussed? Any chance of those?

Yes we are on the WL on St.Crispin. Others are more or less similar to Forest. No chance of ME anyway. We need more school tbh

I don’t think WBC has a big secondary school place issue to warrant more schools. They would have done if Oakbank and Bohunt didn’t exist (and the opening of ME in Reading has also helped). Wokingham have a good set of secondary schools tbh.