Which primary school? Chesterton Post Reply

[BumblingBee]

Hello all!

Am a newbie here, please forgive if I have overlooked a previous thread that is relevant. I have recently moved from SW17 to SW11 and am looking at nearby primary schools for my two daughters. Current contenders are;

1- Chesterton
2- John Burns
3- Wix -English Stream

I would really appreciate feedback (from any parent who currently has children attending any school mentioned or nearby) on general teaching, arts and music plus extra projects the school may offer.

DofE performance tables have shown Can't make head nor tail of it!

[BumblingBee]

Oops, posted without completing!

..So the DofE tables show Chesterton as rated outstanding (last Ofsted report in 2008) but their results for level 4 and above attainment dropped to 80% this past year from a previous 97%.. Could this possibly be due to internal restructure?

John Burns is a relatively small school in comparison to others but seem to be performing well. I like that the classes are small, but wonder whether they have good facilities, and a broad teaching spec - arts, sports and music -they were rated good by Ofsted.

Finally, Wix - they offer French which is a big plus, but their performance is not seemingly upto scratch - is this due to number of children with French as a first language?

Can't make heads nor tails of it, all thoughts welcomed!

[kiwimummy]

Wix were unlucky as there had been an interim head, and the inspection happened two weeks into the first term of the new head. Rapid progress is being made under the new head already. We can already see the difference.

As a parent, it's a great school and highly recommended.

[beanzmeanz]

I have friends who work at Chesterton so I can tell you what I know from them. It's an excellent school with specialist music and PE teachers and they have an artist who spends a day every week in school and the children have produced art work related to their topics which they displayed in a gallery in the school hall for the parents to come and see. There is also a Mandarin teacher and a Spanish teacher.

They have Forest School for the outdoor curriculum.

There are lots of after school clubs as well as breakfast and after school care.

The intake is very mixed and it seems to be a happy and harmonious school as a result.

The current head has been there a number of years so I'm not sure about the restructuring you mention.

Go and visit all the schools on your list - gauge the atmosphere, how children speak to teachers and TAs and indeed how the staff speak to the children. We are very lucky to live in a borough with so many great schools. Good luck with your decision.

[atbattersea]

Go and look at the schools. My child was at Chesterton for a short time, but I removed him from there due to some personal care and security issues. I also found the admin staff incredibly hard work.

Now at John Burns I am a lot happier, but the head is very difficult to talk to (if you are trying to get them to do something/change something, just forget it).

The main differences between these two schools are: Chesterton is a two form entry school, and John Burns is a single form entry school - so there are effectively twice as many kids at Chesterton as John Burns. John Burns has a lot more room around it in terms of play space - without even taking into account the number of pupils. Chesterton is also right next to a main road (so if there really is a negative effect on health/intellect from traffic particulates…), where John Burns is quite a way from major roads (probably about as far as you can get in Battersea).

I do not know much about Wix, I think the French aspect is good (but Shaftesbury Park also has a bi-lingual class intake - but *very* small playground). One of my neighbours has her older son at Wix, but her younger one at John Burns - not sure why she made that decision.

John Burns has many after school clubs, and volunteer input from Kids Co, the children seem generally polite and well behaved, I don't hear stories about consistent behaviour problems. They had very good year six results recently - but for some reason this seems to be on a smaller sample than the whole of that year (something I haven't enquired about, but does seem odd to me).

[New French Mum]

Go definitely and visit them.