List of schools without any catchment area.

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ToadMum
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Location: Essex

Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by ToadMum »

FAC51 wrote:On the independent school front, you have Bedford and Haileybury within commuting distance.

At an extreme (1 hour +) commute, but still in Herts, you have Berkhamsted, St Albans and Habs.

As you're considering relocating for grammar schools, I assume St Christopher (on your doorstep in Letchworth, but not the most academic of schools) is not the sort of place you're looking for.
But might be useful to look at as a back up? In case the lad doesn't actually qualify for a far-flung superselective grammar school?
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Daogroupie
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Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by Daogroupie »

Letchworth is on a great very reliable train line that takes you up to Cambridgeshire and down to London.

If you use it you will have seen the students in various uniforms travelling to school.

The Perse Cambridge would be a very easy journey for your ds on the train. We have friends in Hitchin and Baldock who go there and find the journey very straightforward.

If you are anywhere near Knights Templar that is a first rate school as are Hitchin boys and girls but you would not be in catchment for them.

St Christophers, where there is no school uniform and students call teachers by their first names has a very "liberal" atmosphere but struggles to produce results.

Amazingly it does not seem to put off many parents. I have a friend whose son went there and came out of Y11 without a single GCSE.

That did not seem worth the 30k a year they were paying to graduate with no qualifications at all. DG
ToadMum
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Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by ToadMum »

There is the assumption there that it was only at this particular school that that would have been the outcome - which may be the case, but some DC will always fail everything academic and if their parents can afford it, why shouldn't they have a chance to be kept away from the nasty, rough kids at the comp, too? A certain Harry Enfield character springs to mind here, for some reason :) .
Last edited by ToadMum on Sun Apr 21, 2019 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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kunalj
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Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by kunalj »

Perse (Cambridge) and Bedford School, Bedford are good options in independent schools.

For grammar, down the line towards north London, QE Boys and Latymer (need to move before a specific date following exam) are options with no catchment.
ToadMum
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Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by ToadMum »

kunalj wrote:Perse (Cambridge) and Bedford School, Bedford are good options in independent schools.

For grammar, down the line towards north London, QE Boys and Latymer (need to move before a specific date following exam) are options with no catchment.
Latymer very definitely does have a catchment (otherwise, there would be no need to move?). The school cannot stop anyone from anywhere registering their DC to sit the entrance exam, but is at liberty to set an admissions policy which prioritises those applicants (not exam candidates, although for years, the school got away with treating the one as if they were the other, until some brave soul eventually shopped it to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator) living in a legal defined area, which it does. There is a window of about 12 weeks between receiving the exam results and having to prove that you have now moved lock, stock and barrel into the priority admissions area. A slightly different kettle of fish from not having to start the process of finding a new home until March 1st, when you know for definite where your DC has got a place.

Although there is always the possibility that they are only on the waiting list for your target school, which may leave you having to move with very much shorter notice if and when a place becomes available, of course.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
Daogroupie
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Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by Daogroupie »

It was not years.

Latymer was a catchment school until 2016 until they lost an adjudication which then forced them become non catchment for the exam.

The impact on the school has been sad to see.

Thousands using their exams as a mock, being forced to rent toilets to cope with all the candidates, real candidates being knocked out in the first round leaving them with no enough second round applicants to fill their spaces.

It should never have happened. The governors really dropped the ball and now the school is paying for it. DG
mike1880
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Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:51 pm

Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by mike1880 »

Right, this pesky obeying the law business is always a complete PIA, isn't it?
streathammum
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Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by streathammum »

Daogroupie wrote:
Latymer was a catchment school until 2016
It is still a catchment school for the part that matters, which is the admissions criteria. Lots of schools have to administer exams with many more candidates than they would ever have places for and manage it without problem. If the school doesn't fancy complying with the admissions code in relation to selective places it can always change to comprehensive.
Hope4Ken
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Re: List of schools without any catchment area.

Post by Hope4Ken »

Lincolnshire grammars if you don't mind relocating. They have catchment rules that allow you enough time to move which is what we did. Grantham is just 1hr 5mins to Kings Cross but I don't have to be in London or the South East every day. Viv
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