You might be interested to know that we moved to the H.B. area 1.5 years ago with a three year old daughter. Whilst being no expert on all the schools in the locality, we have found Stubbings School which takes children in the 3-7 age group provides an excellent educational environment for our child. A visit to the school would confirm this. We found that all the schools were happy for us to make an individually arranged informal visit at short notice. I also know from friends that Wadsworth Old Town has a similarly excellent reputation which is backed up in league table performance (if you go for that sort of thing). The problems at Riverside Junior are well documented (inspector's reports, etc). However, there has been a sustained investment in the school over the last two years and the problems there are now being addressed. The apparently below par GCSE performance at Calder High would appear to be an anomaly given the socio-economic background of the area but there would appear to be two mitigating factors: 1) the possible effect of selective state Grammar schools in the Halifax area 'creaming off' academically gifted children, 2) under-performance at GCSEs is partially offset by 'A' level performance which is well-above national average.
If there is one criticism it is at pre-school level, there is a chronic lack of private nursery provision and a real shortage of child-minders in the area.
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