Millfields School Hackney - can anyone tell me about it?

[ladyjarjar]

We are moving to Hackney next year and considering what primary schools we can hopefully move near to. Millfields has an outstanding ofsted and i gather it's really well regarded locally as the house prices are higher close by and it's oversubscribed. Can anyone with direct experience fill me in? Is it really that great? Worth paying a premium on a house in Lower clapton? We can't afford London Fields or Stokey which is where the other good ones are. There seems to be quite a difference between that and other schools in the area according to ofsted.

[londonone]

It's a good school but certainly not markedly better than others around there. Where are you comparing it with?

[ladyjarjar]

Rushmore, Brook, Baden Powell, Benthall sounds good but bit further than we wanted to live..why not much better in you opinion?

[cluttered]

I wouldn't entirely go on Ofsted, we were offered a place at Millfields but appealed to get a place at Rushmore because pupil numbers are a bit smaller and it has lots of green space, Millfields has mainly concrete play areas and we thought the old style school building might be quite off-putting for infants. I know lots of Millfields parents and they do have the usual complaints over teachers etc. I do think Millfields is very good for special needs provision and children who don't speak English as a first language. Also, they are more flexible than Rushmore about after-school clubs, you can just opt in and out on short notice, at Rushmore you may wait ages for a space and are then committed to use it or at least pay for it.

Bear in mind that things don't remain static, a few years ago Rushmore was more highly sought after than Millfields, then it went through a period of instability with an acting head and now seems to be on the up again. FWIW I think last year's KS2 SAT results were higher at Rushmore and the absence level lower (though that could just be because Millfields isn't so strict on term time holidays !).

There are some local Clapton schools I would avoid however, namely Mandeville and Daubney, I have heard some bad stories first hand.

[ladyjarjar]

Ah thank you cluttered, that's really interesting, we had discounted Mandeville on those grounds but one of the estate agents who sent us some house details around
daubney was saying it was improving due to the old head from Millfields taking over etc and would be really good in the future. What were the stories about Daubeney?

[cluttered]

Daubney may improve in the future so may not be so bad for children entering reception but I wouldn't send a child into the juniors there, after several years of poor teaching I think the overall standard is quite low. It's true the intake is different since more children would be from social housing compared with Rushmore and Millfields but some schools with a similar intake eg Kingsmead do better.

There is a TA at Rushmore (working as TA but actually a qualified teacher) whose son did reception at Daubney and she was really unhappy with it and desperately trying to move him to Rushmore or Millfields for Year 1; don't know whether she managed to as I haven't spoken to her recently. She felt that more challenging behaviour wasn't controlled well and that the teaching staff were doing crowd control not teaching which shouldn't be happening in reception!

Will your DC be entering reception or higher up because it is much easier to get a place in later years as there is a lot of movement : many families who can, move out of London to be well settled before secondary school application time (although that may happen less if all the new academies prove to be as successful as Mossborne).

[ladyjarjar]

That's interesting, it sounds like it was recently too..Crowd control in reception is all wrong! Ds would be going into reception the year after next (sounds like miles off!). I would really like to hear from someone with dc at Millfields - or actually Daubeney too. Are yours very happy at Rushmore?

[cluttered]

Yes these problems at Daubney were recent, in the academic year 2008-2009. I would say my DC are fairly happy, any problems they have are due to personality clashes with other children in the class rather than the school per se. I know a lot of Millfields parents and I think they have similar feelings about the quality of their children's education. None of them are raving about how the school couldn't be any more perfect but all fairly satisfied I think.