Mrs Contractor Mum wrote:Do any of the further down the list criteria ever get a chance of St. Anselms i.e. not baptised but live close to the school? According to the calculator, I am 148m away.
Unfortunately no. At least not in living memory. Every year there are Catholics who attend Mass weekly at St Anselm's who live too far from the school to be admitted. I have friends who are not Catholic but who would love their son to go to St Anselm's and would be as near as you are, but no chance of getting admitted.
I don't want to get into the rights and wrongs of faith schools, but I will say that there is huge demand for places in Holy Ghost, St Anselm's and St. Boniface - easily enough to fill another class of 30 a year. Unfortunately, the sites of these schools don't have room for expansion. It would be great if there were more places at Catholic primary schools in the area - not only for Catholics but also that there would be room for non-Catholics as well. Unfortunately, any new Catholic school in this part of London brings out a lot of hostility, e.g. St Richard Reynolds in Richmond a couple of years ago and Trinity Academy in Brixton at the moment.
The other thing that I will say is that at least the area is well-served by state primary schools, i.e. there are enough places and the quality of the schools is good - Hillbrook (now outstanding), Fircroft (good) and Rutherford House (a bit unknown yet but becoming very popular).
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