Best primary schools in Ealing
Most of Ealing’s primary schools offer a high-quality education but vary greatly in size and location. Prescribed catchment areas do not exist in Ealing but for admissions to non-faith schools, distance from home to the school gates is the critical factor in winning a place. In recent years the area’s most in-demand primaries have required successful applicants to live no more than 600m from the school.
Ealing’s top primary schools
Among the most popular and in one of the leafiest areas – within ten minutes’ walk of Ealing Broadway station – is Montpelier Primary School (tip: locals pronounce it ‘Mon-pee-lee-uh’). Likewise, half a mile away in Pitshanger, is North Ealing Primary School.
Further south is Northfields’ Fielding Primary School. Perennially popular and successful, it’s right in the heart of an area of terraced streets popular with families, sandwiched between the Grand Union Canal and Lammas Park. South Ealing has the high-performing Little Ealing Primary School as well as Grange Primary School. La Chouette School – a French nursery school – occupies an annexe in Grange Primary and takes children to the end of year 1.
Some of Ealing’s best-performing primaries at KS2 are faith schools. The Church of England’s Christ the Saviour Primary School – occupying two sites a few streets apart in Ealing Broadway – is central and among Ealing’s most successful. Church attendance is essential for a successful application, but keep that up and you have a good chance of moving on to Twyford Church of England High School – see our section on secondary schools in Ealing.
Ealing’s sizeable Roman Catholic community centres on Ealing Abbey, tucked away a few hundred yards from Ealing Broadway station. The RC church runs several popular primaries, of which Mount Carmel Catholic Primary School, Holy Family Catholic Primary School – both very oversubscribed and with stellar results – and St Gregory’s Catholic Primary School are the most central. Attendance at these schools plus the usual church commitment is advisable if the ultimate aim is admission to one of the excellent RC secondaries out of the borough eg The London Oratory or Sacred Heart High School.
A little further from central Ealing, Ark Byron Primary Academy and Southfield Primary School primaries in Acton and Oaklands Primary School in Hanwell achieve results well above average and are in great demand.
Primary schools with provision for children with Special Educational Needs
As elsewhere, most children with mild to moderate special needs are provided for within mainstream primaries with varying degrees of parental satisfaction. Several of the more central primaries have resource provision for additional needs. Fielding Primary School has resourced provision for children with an EHCP who have autism and related speech, language and communication needs. Drayton Green Primary School has specialist resourced provision for children with autism, moderate and specific learning difficulties, speech, language and communication needs and social, emotional and mental health needs, while St John’s Primary School supports 22 children with developmental language disorder. The borough has four special schools supporting children with moderate to severe learning difficulties. Springhallow School and Castlebar School in west Ealing take children with autism and complex needs from age 4.