Comprehensives in Gloucester

[yogabird]

What is the choice? What are they like? How do you find out catchments? Where would you send your dd? Not sure that grammar is right for dd2 so looking at what next - currently Y5

[StarDustInTheWind]

Our choice was Chosen Hill, Churchdown - it is a great school - both my girls go there and thrive....

For Gloucestershire schools, If you go to

find a school

select the mapping tool, zoom in on the map, and drag the pin to your address... then scroll down on the left to catchment areas , it will show you which catchment areas you are in..... you can apply to other schools outside these catchment schools, but if oversubscribed make sure you know the selection criteria...

[yogabird]

There's church down school too isn't there? What's that like?

[StarDustInTheWind]

was not impressed myself... but some must like it....

it tends to be a school that gets allocated when you don't get your choices as there are usually places there.. whether that speaks of its standard, or its geographical accessibility I don't know... (Chosen Hill is on a direct public bus route from where we live... Churchdown School is not .. for instance, though both are in Churchdown)

Also, it is an academy and "Visual arts college" , whereas Chosen Hill is an academy with "a specialist focus on language and technology" which is where my girls' focus lies...

[yogabird]

Struggling to make any sense at all of the catchment area bit of the site. The distances don't make sense either when I put in my postcode. We're nearest to Barnwood Park and Glos Academy... do you know what they are like? Are they ones that you wouldn't perhaps choose... I wonder, so hard to get any info that's objective.

[StarDustInTheWind]

Gloucester Academy... no I would not choose this one myself... there are staffing problems and it does not have a great reputation.

Barnwood Park - I did not want my girls to have a gender separate education, so it did not figure on our radar at all.... it is one of the few girls only comprehensives in Gloucestershire - and it an "arts" college, which suits some... but not for us....