My oldest child started at Belleville when it was Good not outstanding and we remember the day, the Outstanding Ofsted was announced - all the children & some of us parents received gold pins from some very happy teachers, who were so proud to have all that they had achieved to have the school recognised by Ofsted.
I have one child left at Belleville now & in my opinion the school today is much better than it was in 2007. I believe Belleville would receive an Outstanding if Ofsted walked through the door tomorrow.
Although there has been no Ofsted inspection there is still data available to the public to support my opinion eg Dfe Performance Tables of all Wandsworth Schools 2014
http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/per ... 12_ks2.pdf
The table is not the easiest to read but if you look for the figures of children who achieve level 5+ in all of the KS2 SATS subjects at Belleville it is 44% of 81 children. From a quick skim read the only others to get over 40% in that column are smaller church schools with the exception of Honeywell 47% & Brandlehow 48% . Obviously that figure is a measure of attainment and to see how good the school is you also need to look at the progress children make, but as a blunt rule of thumb, most parents would/should be pleased with their child leaving primary with a level 5 or more.
The size of the catchment area should be seen as a measure of demand rather than simply how good the school is. This can be dependent on number of siblings & admission rules (ie the council has clamped down on renters this year) Also to put it in context in 2012 it was 589 metres, so it could just be last year was a bubble -remember there are 120 places available & people are staying put as older siblings go on to Bolingbroke.
Whether you should accept the Belleville place or go for a Private school is a matter of personal choice though & depends on what outcome you are hoping to achieve at the end of primary school. Around 50% of children leaving Belleville go to the Bolingbroke Academy. I'm not sure of the exact figure for private schools but it is between 10-20% each year. Belleville will prepare the Year 6 children for the Wandsworth test and the KS2 SATS but not specifically for the entrance exams for these schools, that would be up to you as a parent.
Now that my two older children are at a State secondary school we have also decided that they do not have access to as much competitive sport as we would like and know from friends is on offer at private schools (eg Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings). Belleville does offer a lot of sport & some competitive at a very high level (eg cricket & gymnastics) but swimming for example, children go once a week for 2 terms in Year 4 & so all 3 of our children have had swimming lessons outside of school.
So when you are thinking of outcomes you also need to think about what extras you want your child to have & do you want it all to be taken care of by school (sometimes with a fee attached) or are you happy to source things like sport or music lessons externally.
Good luck with your choice, you will find Belleville parents a welcoming lot, if you do decide to take up the place. Equally I'm sure someone else will be incredibly grateful for the place if you turn it down in favour of an independent school.
). I guess there isn't really an answer there, it is an amazing school but for private secondary you need to tutor. Sorry for the typos, commuting.
