Holland Park School

[yumskimumski]

Does anyone out there have a child at Holland Park Comprehensive? Can you tell me about it, how the streaming works and whether an academic child would flourish there? Would I be better off looking at the new West London Free School that Toby Young is opening? Thanks

[HollandParkMum]

I have a child in year 7 at Holland Park. The children in the top stream are pushed and pushed. They are expected to be working at least at level 6 to stay in the top band and many are currently working at level 7 English and level 8 maths. An academic child could definitely flourish there. Remember there are no grammar schools round here to cream off the more clever and most parents do not even think about scholarships to private schools. The homework burden is heavy compared to other schools.

The initial streaming is done on the results of the test done in the the December before joining; however quite a few kids get moved up or down after the first term. It is important to note that they stay in the same class for everything; so if they are good at English and bad at maths they will not necessarily stay in the top set. The top 2 or 3 sets do Latin. They can choose either French or Spanish but those seem to be the only languages taught.

They have the same approach to GCSE's as many other schools - i.e. take some in year 9 or 10 and keep on resitting! I also dislike the fact that you cannot take the sciences as separate subjects. While saying that, a lad got in to do medicine at Cambridge last year with 4 A*s, so I don't think it necessarily holds you back.

The school has improved dramatically over the last few years, there are some disruptive kids or "chavs" as my kid calls them, but generally behavior in the school is OK. They are very strict on uniform and the teachers tend to shout a lot. There are a few things I don't like about the school. I feel there is a lot of favoritism and kids in the top class get picked for special stuff and others don't. I don't like the way that geography, history and RS are taught together as humanities. I also don't like the rewards system - Vivomiles - as again I think a lot are awarded on favoritism or natural ability and not hard work. I don't like the Head Teacher and the teachers have to work long hours. However the senior leadership team are very approachable and really do make an effort to try and sort out any problems. There are a lot of recent graduates among the teachers and they seem very good and committed. There are a couple of poor teachers but on the whole they seem excellent. There don't seem to be many school trips - in fact I don't think we have been offered any - but maybe there are further up the school.

There is currently building work at the school but the new building should be finished by Sept 2013 and the council is lavishing money on them.

I was at Oxford at the same time as Toby Young and would not send my kids to his school. I think getting into either of them depends to a large extent on where you live. To be honest if I had the choice I would still choose Holland Park because at least they have proven results.

[yumskimumski]

Thank you, Holland Park Mum, that's a really helpful reply. As you say, the Toby Young school doesn't have a track record, but my son is at a very small primary and I like the idea of him going on to an (at least initially) small-ish school. HP is on our doorstep but it's so huge! Is your child happy at the school overall? Did you look at any other schools?

[Northernlurker]

Tony Benn's children went there and his wife was a governor for years. Obviously depending on your stance that's either a huge plus or not


I came on this thread just to put that in but I have read the reply you got and found it really interesting. If you swap Spanish for German, add in seperate sciences and take away the 'humanities' thing and the Latin then you could be talking about my dds comprehensive up here in the North. The feelings Hollandparkmum express about teaching, discipline etc are exactly the same! I would say therefore that it sounds like a school that is good enough. Not perfect - but what is? Certainly my academic child is thriving in her school.

I wouldn't go fo anything operated by Toby Young either - or anything totally unproven tbh.

[HollandParkMum]

I've already posted on another thread, but yes my child is happy at Holland Park. There are a lot of nice kids there and made good friends. The size was scary at first - we also came from a smallish primary but they soon get used to it. It was actually our last choice, we put 4 other schools higher up and there were tears on results day, but generally it was a lot better than I expected. My child wanted Chelsea academy but I was a bit iffy about that for similar reasons to the Toby Young school i.e. it takes a good while to build up relationships with exam boards and for departments to know what they are doing. To be honest if my child wasn't in a high set I might feel differently but so far it has been good on the whole. There are some things that annoy me and my child does complain about the chavvy behavior of some kids but I think in our part of West London you are going to get all sorts. There are some pretty wealthy kids there and some from the sink estates in North Kensington, the full range. Although I do moan about the school, I think in our area it is pretty much as good as it gets. Most of the other parents I know think the school is absolutely wonderful and won't hear a word against it, so I seem to be in a minority.
I know of someone going to West London free so if I hear anything good or bad I will post it.

[yumskimumski]

All this is reasonably reasssuring, and just to put in a good word about Toby Young - not that I know the man - at least he doesn't use religion as a criterion for selection, which would have excluded my kids. Out of the 6 state schools in this borough my kids are only eligible for 2, and one of those has a 50% C of E intake, so make that 1 and a half.

Northernlurker, I like Tony Benn, but I'm astonished to read on Wikipedia that Hilary Benn went to Norland Place (uber-posh primary in Holland Park) and the Westminster Under School before ending up at HP.

I'd like to think that the Toby Young school is so high-profile that the government won't let it fail but even so I tend to agree with Holland Park Mum that I don't really want my kids to be part of a social experiment.

[HollandParkMum]

Yes the religion thing is really annoying in RBKC. Sion Manning seem to take anyone though as long as they are female as they get so few applicants. RS GCSE is compulsory in Holland Park at the moment which is odd, but I guess it is to teach tolerance to the diverse intake - we are an atheist family so it is another thing that makes me grit my teeth. Hopefully they will change because of the new English Bacc thing (i.e. they have to do geography or history) but no guarantee.
Another thing I really like about HP is that my child has friends in nearby streets, also we have met up with a lot of people from nursery or that we knew from out of school activities so it really is a community school in that sense.
I would go along to the open days in the autumn; ask some tough questions and see which one you and your child like best.

[yumskimumski]

Yes the community school aspect is very appealing. I didn't realise that Sion Manning was under-subscribed, although it doesn't help us as I've got two boys! Will take your advice and go along to the open days and try to stop obsessing in the mean time.