St Anthony's vs Heber

[jj1]

Hi all,

we are starting to think where to move house for primary school applications and East Dulwich seems the best place so far!

The 2 schools we were considering are St Anthony's and Heber: does anyone know how these two schools compare? Being a catholic couple, we would prefer St Anthony's, but Heber catchment are seems so small (about 200m) compared to St Anthony's (about 2 km), so I was wondering why it is like that?

Is it just because of the Catholic requirement or it is because St Anthony's is less good?

Also, which streets / area would you suggest to live in for a family? St'Anthony's is quite far away from the stations, so ideally we would like to move a little bit toward either north dulwich or east dulwich station. However toward North Dulwich looks so expensive, so I guess we will have to look at the triangle Barry Lane / Lordship lane / Wateley road - are there nice 2-3 bed houses there?

thanks in advance for your help!

JJ

[familyof4]

It's tough to aim for a school and join the scramble involved in finding a house w/in the catchment.

Have you considered widening your school choice?

Goosegreen, Goodrich, dvis, bessemer, dog kennel.

All very good schools and potentially more likely to find somewhere to live if you increase your school choices.

[dollydaydream]

Hello jj1,

You have to decide what route you want to take regarding schooling because if you take the state primary schools and nothing wrong with them, then the choice will be limited regarding RC secondary schools, you have to have attended a RC primary school and they ask for references from the priest for church attendence etc. St Anthony's is a very good school they have just or very near to finishing work on extending the school from a 1+1/2 form entry to a 2 form entry. And don't assume when you apply the catchment area will be 2km the closer you live to the school and the priest's reference all play its part.

Heber school has a good reputation and like secondary schools you have to apply to more than one school just incase you don't get your 1st choice, so you can put both down if you are living within both catchment areas.

Look at the bigger picture what secondary school are you looking at because without the RC primary school education most RC secondary schools won't even look at your application.

Good luck

[Pugwash]

Like most RC schools - a letter from the priest is essential and you and child must be a regular mass attender. Hubby is RC and I have no religion and our daughter went to St. Anthony's at rising 5. She was christened in St Thomas more when she was about 16 months old and her name was put on the waiting list when she was 2. Hubby went to Mass most weeks (except when ill) and Father o Connor got to know him well so there was no problem in getting a recommendation.

daughter attended mass at odd times but was really too young to sit through a service.Hubby still attends Mass at least once a month.

Friends who have Cof E faith - also state that they had been attending church each week for 2- 3 years before child of school age to also get a recommendation from priest. They also had to keep up attendance (although not every week) at the church to prove their 'religious observance'.

[jj1]

Thanks for your replies! I actually was not thinking yet about secondaries, that's a good point to keep in mind.

@Pugwash, I don't really understand what you mean by 'waiting list since your child was 2'. As I understand there are no waiting lists and applications are simply evaluated in the same way during the application year.

We currently worship regularly in a different Parish (we would plan to move to ED about one year before the child is due to start school), and my plan was to only start speaking with the Priests in the moment we will be preparing applications... am I missign something here?

[Dodo1]

Hi

St Anthony's regularly is at the top for stats locally. This means that it is very popular. School has recently undergone a massive refurbishment and will increase its intake to cope with demand.

Regarding RC Secondary Schools, if your child is a girl and was christened at 16 months I am sorry to say that she will have no chance of getting into Coloma which has as its criteria that the girl must have been christened with a few weeks (i think) of her birth.

There are other secondary Catholic Schools that admit girls but their performance in stats are not on a par with this school. You of course could send her to Bishop Challoner the nearest independent Catholic school when the the time comes of course.

[rachel83]

Same with Sacred Heart mixed secondary in Camberwell, this states baptism must be within a few weeks of birth.

[jj1]

Thanks for letting me know, I wuold have never told that they would set such a strict requirement on Baptism!

In any case my child got it a couple of weeks after birth, so I guess he should be fine :-)

[Pugwash]

It was some time ago the youngest daughter went to St Anthony's( she is now 27 so things obviously had changed. In those days for a church school you had to get child onto 'waiting lists' these lists held all children who would need entry in such and such term and year. You could not just go in to register an interest/apply a couple of terms before starting as all applicants were taken from an approved list and connection with the church re checked

[buttercupSE11]

Does anyone know if you have to attend mass at St Thomas More to get your child into St Anthonys? or can you go to weekly mass at any other catholic church,even outside of the the Southwark Diocese?

[HOMum]

As far as I am aware (and I do go to St Thomas More, child has just got in to St Anthony's Nursery) You can attend a different parish and still get in but your chances will be lower. In the same way your chances will be lower than say if you attend church buy only once a month as opposed to once a week.

I found Mrs Squires, who deals with the administration of the applications to be very helpful when corresponding over the phone and by email, she always replies to emails very quickly if you did have queries you would like answered more accurately.

[Dodo1]

You can go to any Church as long as it is Catholic and of course the priest knows you well enough to give a reference.

[buttercupSE11]

Great. Thanks for church/parish info x