Primary School

I had my twins Poppy and Harry in April this year and I am now looking at the options for their Primary School education so that I am not shocked or disappointed in 4 years time when they are due to start.

The closest Community Primary School to my home in Bourne Hill is Walker based in Waterfall Road and approximately 1/2 mile from our home. Walker School has an excellent Ofsted report and is the primary school that I want my children to attend.

My next door neighbour’s children go to Firs Farm School because they could not get into Walker School and another neighbour’s children go to St Monica’s Roman Catholic School. Therein lays my problem!

Based on this year’s Primary School admissions from the London Borough of Enfield I would not be able to get my twins into the closest community school to me, and would therefore have to accept any school offered to me by Enfield’s School Admission Service.

All other schools within a 1 mile radius are religious schools and they have their own admission criteria based on their religion.

I wonder if the number of school places provided in Enfield meets the needs of the borough?

Enfield has kindly replied to my question regarding where they obtain their statistics from and I quote:

In common with most other boroughs in London, Enfield Council subscribes to the School Roll Projections Service of the Greater London Authority, who produce annual forecasts of pupil numbers for each year group for the primary and secondary sectors in our schools, including the 6th form. These forecasts, which also include numbers in academies, are based on a number of factors appertaining to Enfield, including trends in pupil numbers over the previous four years, birth trends, data on known new housing developments and migration (both national and international). Projections are provided for a 10 year period and are produced each year following the annual census of pupil numbers in schools, which is carried out each January. These most recent pupil numbers are also used to inform the projections.

 I have 4 years to work out what to do next!