When it comes to choosing where to raise your family, the quality of local schools is obvs a very important thing to consider, but so is the likelihood of actually getting in. What good is a brilliant school if it’s massively oversubscribed?
Handily, some light has just been shed on the boroughs where children are most likely to get their first choice school. Across England, 83 percent of secondary and 93 percent of primary school children got into their number one choice school, but in some London areas, that was even higher.
The borough with the largest proportion of first-choice places was Waltham Forest, which unsurprisingly was also named as the best place in the whole of the UK to raise a family. According to data from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, 6,057 applications were submitted for places for the upcoming academic year, and 85 percent got their first choice.
In the north London borough of Enfield, the rate was 84 percent, and in Hackney, Havering and Hillingdon, the rate was 83 percent.
All these stats have been revealed amidst a debate on the new government’s proposal to remove the VAT exemption on private schools. Some believe this will lead to higher private school fees and thus more pressure on the state school system, while others note that lower birth rates mean class sizes are set to decline by more than 625,000 by 2030.
The London boroughs where children are most likely to get their first choice school
- Waltham Forest (85 percent)
- Enfield (84 percent)
- Hackney, Havering and Hillingdon (83 percent)
- Tower Hamlets (82 percent)
- Ealing, Haringey and Sutton (81 percent)
- Southwark (80 percent)
London is blessed with some outstanding institutions. This year alone, it’s been revealed that seven of the UK’s best private schools and eight of the world’s best-rated schools are in London, and two of the city’s secondary schools have been nominated for World’s Best School.