Stroud Green Primary Ofsted report

katiejane

Sad to see it's only achieved a 'satisfactory' rating this time round. (A grade 3 from grades 1 - 4.)

I've only got reception to go on, but think it deserves better.

dominic

And me!

andy

Dom - you've only received a 'satisfactory' rating? That's a shame.

dominic

Hah. But I do deserve better.

tosscat

Satisfactory'll do!

naomi

that is a shame, it's our nearest school, our little one will probably end up there. talking of schools, does anyone have children at (or know anything about) st aiden's? it seems to be church of england but has regular state school admission policies. is it a particularly religious school? i'm looking for non-religious options if poss.

p.s ofsted can be a bit harsh, sometimes it's just about not having a poster about washing your hands.

Giles

St Aiden's has quite a small catchment area (.205 miles ) so you may not get a choice. <a href="http://www.haringey.gov.uk/primary_admission_booklet_-_full_version.pdf">Here's a document with all the catchments etc </a>

katiejane

Naomi - don't rule it out! We're very happy with SG school. As I say, we've only got reception to go on, but I know parents of children higher up the school who are equally as happy.

Personally, I like the emphasis on creativity there, staff retention is good, and many of the staff's children are there. All good stuff, and not a bit religious!

Liz

Have solicited some opinion about St Aidans from someone I know whose child goes there...here's what she says: St Aidans I believe is technically a church school, but also a local authority state school (and is inspected as both)- it has this Voluntary Controlled Status (of which i think it is the only one in London to have!)...essentially the status comes from some of the land it is built on being church land. It has I think 1 or 2 Governors from the church next door. It follows the state religious curriculum, and is not overly religious, certainly not to the extent of a fully fledged church school - they celebrate all the different religions and their celebrations...but do do quite a bit at the church next door (e.g Easter Service, Christmas carols etc). It is a great school, and by virtue of the fact it only has one class per year (30 kids) it has a tiny catchment area, I think it was 0.2km this year. She's joined the forum too, so may have more to add!

naomi

thanks so much katiejane and liz. great help. i haven't ruled out stroud green, it's previous ofted report and all the numbers looked like they were definitely getting better and i love the emphasis on creativity, the website looks like they really care.

and i have always loved the look of st aiden's while never being sure of it's status so such a great help thank you.

anyway, i have another year to go before all this so i'll keep my beady eye on both schools.

dion

So basically you don't have to have anything to do with churches to get into St Aidan's - all you need to do is live within spitting distance which is pretty tricky as it is always oversubscribed. SG Primary is never oversubscribed because it is bigger and, dare I say, not as good. The whole thing is a bit bonkers really. I might set up an atheist school where the parents have to prove they are committed atheists to send their kids there just to counter the sheer weight of Catholic and CofE schools with similar admissions policies. @Katiejane - isn't much of the problem with SG Primary that many of the children don't speak English when they start?

suzl

That's right you don't have to have anything to do with churches to get into St Aidan's...and potentially not to get into St Peter's too (the Catholic primary)...they can be undersubscribed and I expect with Coleridge expanding its intake to a whopping 120 a year it is likely to have some places going - just a guess and obviously depends on your feelings on religion... Worth keeping an eye on what the expanded Coleridge does to intake figures and catchement areas. And if you don't get school of your choice stay on the waiting list for your preferred school, places do come up..

katiejane

@ geoff - I would expect that to be reflected in the test results and their value added score (which, I believe, takes account of the ability of the cohort when they start school), but not through the Ofsted report which assesses teaching.

SG school's Key Stage 2 test results are pretty good.

Hear hear to atheist schools! Like many, I have a bit of an issue with faith schools and their admission policies.

Busby1

I hope no-one minds me butting in.

I went to SG Secodary Modern (as it was then called) from 1945 - 1953. The school was divided into Infants; Juniors; Seniors. All classes were large - about 40 children, it was pretty well-behaved. Lots of sport; we had PT three times a week, went swimming once a week at Hornsey Road baths (on foot) , had a sport afternoon on Wednesdays on a field just below Alexander palace (by 233 bus).
Our teachers were mainly women - because the men were absent - and many were housewives without any training.

We were a mainly thin and shabby lot, but we were healthy and happy.

Ali

Heard in the playground that apparently the school the Ofsted rules say it can’t get higher than a 3 because of it’s financial situation. It has a deficit of £80K which costs it £15 k to service annually. This is a hang over from quite a few years ago and the current team there (Head, Governors) were not around when it happened. If any one wants to read the report go here http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/portal/site/Internet/menuitem.1c8478149b4a6342502b011069f034a0/?event=searchByAuthority&previous=providerCategoryName@Nursery%20and%20primary%20education|event@searchByDateAndRegion|regionID@8|currentPage@1|providerCategoryID@4096|sortOrder@1|maxResultPerPage@10&currentPage=1&authorityID=309


It also is a bit undersubscribed so looses out of some funding as it comes with the Child.

I have my boys at the school and found it to be much much better than I thought it would be ! The first one went to the pre school at St Aidans i.e. half a day for a year before reception. It was okay but he did seem to know more about Christianity than I do! Number two is in the new nursery that is attached to the school which is very good.

The is anew set of Governors and the Friends Group is pretty active so get involved as that is the best way of getting improvements for all the kids !

Although St Aidans does do a great Fireworks display at Guy Fawkes !

dion

How can the deficit cost them £15k p.a.? That sounds pretty extreme to me. Or would it be a rolling deficit growing by £15k each year? Either way, it is not a massive amount of money at only a few hundred quid per pupil. Hmmm.

katiejane

Maybe if we had a cake sale and sold brownies for £15 a pop...

dominic

They'd have to be *special* brownies.

dion

So how many of you have kids there? Katiejane and dominic do - anyone else? We are thinking about the nursery there for ours.

tosscat

[The Matrix](http://www.stroudgreen.org/discussion/743/)

tosscat

Well, about half way down.