AIBU to feel angrey after Holland Park School open morning?

Send her somewhere else. Behaviour can be terrible in schools and schools need to create structures in place to create boundaries. My children have had 1 detention each at their secondary school over 5 years. It's not that deep. They will get over it. It's a Victorian education system in the UK, that's true.

That’s kind of the point though; they should not be ‘warm and welcoming’ classrooms, but places where students don’t want to be. Don’t like it, follow the rules! In many schools they have been rooms with similar set ups as classrooms etc, so pupils misbehave to get some time in there away from their class, subject or teacher. Of course, that throws up other issues…
But if it’s a case of the room being a place where you’d rather not be, or not as nice as the other areas of learning, then you’ve really answered your own question.

@GentleMintCat look.at the church schools too.
They don't always just take children from that religious background.
One South London one I looked at was CofE but was pretty much 60% Christian (various denominations) and 40% non Christian.
(unfortunately now closed down due to lack of pupils)

Very much a thing of the past. It had a complete overhaul a few years ago - it was in the news a lot.

There are many myths about Holland Park and this is one of them
A handful of Labour MPs sent their kids there in the 1970s - most notably Tony Benn.

I was there shortly afterwards and have spent my life being told that I was at the "socialist Eton" and it must have been like a private school. It was a feral school, full of kids who had been excluded from schools across inner London and a massive student turnover. Yes, we had the 30 kids from the Bulgarian embassy but we were also the favourite destination for families in Bayswater's notorious B&Bs.

It's a school with a checkered history; an overwhelmingly working class school planted in a residential area where 90% of the families routinely use the independent sector.

I have known a couple of people who taught there soon after qualification and were terrorised by the management, quickly moving to other schools.

I think the most recent MP to send his children there was actually Michael Gove.

There are good schools in that borough. All Saints and KAA. I can give more info on KAA if you want.

*edited because frankly I inadvertently had a laugh at the coincidence of a sixties stereotype being repeated by a sixties handle. I added absolutely nothing to the conversation with the comment so I retract with apologies.

Trust yourself OP .
Various people have posted here much factual evidence that this particular school has been demonstrated to allow a deeply unhelpful / damaging environment for both students and teachers to develop.

The thing I find upsetting about these threads is how many posters seem positively gleeful at the idea of students receiving draconian punishments for minor infractions.

I’ve taught students from primary level to undergraduate ( Russell group ) as well as running extracurricular groups for people from widely diverse socioeconomic backgrounds over many years .
Kindness , fostering mutual respect & a creative approach have invariably worked in maintaining discipline and ensuring optimal academic results.
You can’t learn effectively if you’re either bored or scared .

This is a bit of a change from the original post, you obviously had fairly decided opinions about this school in advance.

It is a state school.

Ugh my DD went to a school like this but did sixth form elsewhere. She went in as a shiny, happy year 7 and came out with a huge drop in self-confidence, so bad that she stopped taking care of herself and was walking around like Worzel Gummage. She is dyslexic and struggling to keep up in class, the teachers generally disliked her because they thought she cpuldnt be bothered and wasn't listening - absolute arseholes. Those schools do get good results but at the expense of everything else.

There was also a lot of self-harming etc at this school too.

Sixth form at another school was so much better for her. It was absolutely the best decision to pull her out and quite a few of her friends also left at that time too.

You can apply out of borough as well eg you might be close enough to schools in Brent etc

Send your kid to a state school, then. Calm down. You have choices.

It's a huge Multi Academy Trust.

I don't agree.

I think it can be very unsettling for kids when strange, adult visitors are in the class.

@WearyAuldWumman Agreed - to be honest, I only found out Catholic schools take non-Catholics when my best friend suddenly went to one. Did see they prioritise Catholic families while C of E apparently prioritises area. I thought I'd try to find out reason, though, in case OP's one of the apparently many (I've seen a lot of them!) who didn't know their rights when it comes to the religious element. After all, in that situation - if you don't know so you're looking for non-denomination - choices can be very daunting.

To be fair if you can't manage behaviours you can't teach, it sounds easy to say let the children do what they like, but the majority suffer if the minority disrupt everything. In the 90s you probably didn't have so many 'difficult' students in main stream schools, now almost all children are expected to attend main stream and the teachers can't cope.

Nope most kids don’t feel awkward unless they are concerned as to how the response will be viewed.

I've taught in As, Bs and Cs.

Cs are lovely if all goes well... but they're not automatically the best if you have pastoral issues and certainly in the past they could be a bit complacent in their policies/ support and too reliant on nice easy kids and nice easy families. (Although likely that they've had to tighten up in the past 10 years, and I've certainly known some shock OFSTED results locally). If you're not in catchment for one, tough luck.

As are awful, soul-destroying places for the nice kids who want to learn and have a quiet life, and soul destroying for the teachers in daily battles for learning and order. There's often little support for the teachers and I've known too many schools where staff are treated with open contempt by senior management. Oh the relief to drive out through the gates for the final time. I did multiple terms of supply in a few, but the worst had me in tears and vowing never to return after 4 days back in the 2000s. It was notorious and frequently blacklisted by supply teachers. 4 days was longer than average. (The girls' school where many sisters went so same catchment, just filtered by sex was lovely. Not easy, but supportive, nuturing and firm and I always enjoyed working there)

Bs are not automatically the worst option. Clear structures mean everyone else knows where they stand. Excessively punitive is clearly not healthy, but strong boundaries can be established with care and compassion. They can still have fun and extra-curriculars.

There are too many children raised putting their own happiness first and with weak boundaries. Learning can not happen in a room with 30 people with that mindset, so discipline in its broadest sense (not just meaning punishment) has to be present for that mini society to function.

My DCs are at a B- a nice B, but the rules are very clear nonetheless. I've had very few issues with them there despite their additional needs. They do their homework, bring equipment (despite executive function issues), wear their uniform neatly etc, and by y10 and y8 neither has had a detention/ isolation etc.

An A would mentally break them.

(I also work in a B. If there is any slack, the system will fail and it will revert back to an A)

@Kikogub I think it depends on how popular the school is. My cousin only got her daughters into a C of E girls' school because she was an active member of the C of E.

On the other hand, the Catholic schools in my area will happily take non-Catholics, but only if they are not full to capacity.

The children were probably all told to be quiet while there were visitors. I would not be unhappy that there are consequences for 'bad' behaviour, Some schools seem to be on the verge of riot some of the time. By all means go for a less controlled school environment but you may regret it.

Why can’t your children go to KAA that’s a really good school?

Yes, I agree - its this idea that if you crack down on the small behaviours you will have control if anything big happens. Never mind that loads of kids have no intention of ever doing anything big and are in a constant state of anxiety and the SEN kids who literally can't manage this level of conformity.

I didn't know anything about this school until I just googled, and oh, how the mighty have apparently fallen. From what I presume, based on reviews I've just read is that the staff are inefficient which perhaps leads to misbehaviour - you say it's an open day, so by all accounts I can only imagine there's a reason the children seemed joyless - people are looking round, be on your best behaviour. But the reviews (not necessarily ofsted, as I'd want to see for myself) for me would have been enough for me to not really consider it. The last ofsted report highlighted a number of issues, and that was 3 years ago, but since it "reopened", there's no indication of how it might have changed.

I went to private school myself - one which, 30 years later, appears to have gone from strength to strength. In my area, that school did give the best education. I have to wonder if that's the case with the one you've looked at.

I see you've also said you only have a shot at 2 of your six local schools because you're neither Catholic nor C of E. Is that more because you don't want to send a child to those sorts of schools? Because both accept children of any faith. If it's more that you don't wish for your children to attend those sorts of schools, you can legally withdraw your child from the religious aspects, including RE (though despite being an atheist myself, I feel it's important to have an understanding of other religions from an anthropology standpoint).