Kent & Bexley Mums

After the 11+ experience I don't really want to go for more testing. It is very hard to get your head round the btec / gcse thing! I really want a school where my child will be guided into gcse exams in the more traditional subjects!
The extent of tuition used within my child's school to get through the 11+ has shocked me. The whole system needs a good shake up - unfortunately Gove is probably going to mess my brain up even more in the next 12 months.

I worked @ St Columbas. It has a lot of racism. Their pupils are always in the News Shopper. Persaonlly it wasn't an employment experience I would wish to repeat. Again it's one of those schools that use BTECs in place of GCSEs to bolster its results.

Only advice i can give you is 'go and look' - and look when they are open.

CPS is Tues, weds, thurs AM
Bexleyheath is Mon Am
Erith Weds Am
Welling Thurs AM

The faith schools are open all week.

The only non-banded selection schools are: Welling, Business Academy, Bex/heath and CPS.

I, personally, have big issues with banded selection. Just dont be suckered in with gloss paint.

My child also missed a selective place by a few marks, is bright and was really upset at his results. We looked at St Columbas's with an open mind. Everyone seems to have a negative opinion. We were really impressed by the pupils and results they achieve. Anyone have experiences to share?

Other Bromley selective I think is Newstead Woods. I know a child from Bexley at both, however they attended private prep schools (where they are heavily coached for the 11plus). I don't know of any others who even sat the test, let alone got in.

I've only heard good things about Harris up til now, something of a contrast to all the other non selective schools which no-one says anything good about. So much for picking 6 schools on the form, I wish there was even 1 school I actively wanted DS2 to go to!

TBH no one I know enters for St Olaves (I dont know the other?) - they do enter for Dartford and Wilmington.

Where I work (non selective) we get a lot of Bromley, Dartford, Greenwich students in.

Harris, I wouldnt piss on if it were on fire (sorry!) but we pick up all their disruptive kids who settle in nicely after two weeks and never are their names on round-robins. I don't like the Harris ethos with (a) staff treatment (b) the selective banding (c) pastoral care. Results driven.

What about Kent and Bexley parents entering their children for the two selective Bromley schools???

Having 2 DC who have been through it, without any tutoring, extra lessons etc and neither being deemed selective (eldest failed by 1 mark) from a purely selfish point of view, less out of borough children would have meant a place for DS1 at grammar, and a chance of a decent education, rather than what he is actually receiving.

Problem in Bexley is that (excepting the church schools, and Harris) the other non selective schools are shit. And now I have to send a second child to one, to get a sub-standard education. Not an enthralling prospect.

starlady

I have 3 children - Eldest was soooooo not 'bright' - bottom set, Welling - tested for everything, border line everthing but diagnosed nothing. He is what we would have euphamistically called a 'simple, gentle giant' in years gone by. I have no issue with that, it was schools that always wanted to stick a lable on him. He hated school, he really couldnt cope with it at all and eventually he was outsourced to one of those private enterprise educators who do 1-on-1 for the Y10 and Y11. He's at college now.

Middle is a classic 'work to get where I need to be' - top & middle sets BETHS

Youngest is on paper brighter than Middle - that would also factor in absolute laziness on Middles part - he refuses to revise for exams that have no actual impact on his life .... pointless picking a pen up in a mock.... but he always pulls it out of the bag in the real thing. Youngest also doesnt like to stretch his boundaries - HW ends in melt downs. He actually wouldnt cope with grammar expectations.

Im now torn between CPS and BA. BA is too big. Im swinging to CPS.

I do wholeheartedly believe in the grammar system. I've always lived in Bexley, grew up with it. I would take it further and reintroduce the tri-part system we used to have prior to 'comprehensives' .... Grammar, sec moderns and tech colleges ..... everyone has a niche in life and should be educated according to their strengths and abilities - but not stopped from having dreams or aspirations.

Im a sec modern girl - I did far better than my grammar friends (and way better than my comprehensive friends) because I had a point to prove! They rested on their laurels. My DP is a grammar boy - he left with nothing because he went into an apprenticeship scheme - and did very nicely - they paid for his degree! I did a foundation degree when I was at work in the city (all a box ticking exercise) but frankly have found it useless in real life!

jinx no idea what happened to the petition - I would assume under the right to send you child whre ever you like - it was thrown out. Deborah Absolem (sp) was made redundant as Head of Education and the post was merged with the Directorate of Social Services.

Do you know what happened to the petition? As far as I'm aware Bexley council have rejected the whole thing and decided they will continue with the selection process as it is. But I stand to be corrected.

Also, in terms of the children in Bexley grammars, only 31% of these come from Bexley borough and 69% will come from out of the borough

The Y6 talk we had, with lovely side show ...... only 18% of grammar intake were Bexley resident in 2010

Sorry - posted too early

The woman that started that petition was Chair of Brampton PA a couple of years back.

I would be interested to know the ratio of non-residents to resident. Again a collegue who lives near Chis&Sid was walking down the road when the out-of-borough exam was taking place - she reckoned there were in excess of 200 children queuing to get in. One girl was crying and the mother dragging her along telling her to 'get a bit of backbone'.

That is the side f the 11+ I dont like.

Oddly, mine are Y12, Y11 and Y6 - this year with my Y6 the message coming out from the primaries was 'withdraw your child if you know they have little hope of passing'. I wanted to withdraw, infact we left it until the last minute and he decided to sit the exam. We never put any pressure on him - he's (on paper) far brighter than my Y11 @ grammar but he just isnt grammar material. He cried all the way through one paper and had to be taken out. I really wish I'd made the decision and withdrawn him anyway.

I was 'pushy' with my Y11 - no extra tution BUT I was evil enough to take him school viewing, starting with the worst schools in the borough, ending with the grammars. That ws back in the day where you viewed, put in your choices, then sat the 11+. It was the motivator for him to know he didnt have any intention of ending up at Welling or BBA.

At my Y6 school, only 10 are deemed selective out of 60. St Michaels, no boys have passed this year. I think thats a 2 form year group too.

I refuse to consider a non-selective secondary with banded entry testing too. I will not have my child deemed by others to have 'failed' twice before he enters Y7.

Interesting - I know the woman who started that petition, she was Chair of Brampon PA at one point.

This is an interesting one.

I live in Bexley. I know that a few years ago a lot of Bexley parents signed a petition to try to stop so many OOB parents coming in from OOB. It think it was 2 or 3 years ago and made the local news shopper. I don't really understand this so called rule that Bexley are not allowed to favour their own residents in the GS allocations. I know that some of the Kent schools do exactly that, which is one of the gripes of the Bexley parents i/e people for areas surrounding Bexley are coming in to Bexley GS area but it is more difficult for Bexley parents to hop over the border to Kent. If you look at the admission criteria of some of the Dartford GS they actually specify some Dartford parishes as a priority subscription criteria. How Dartford gets away with it and Bexley can not I don't know. I once asked Bexley council but never got a response.

If you take an exam with a specific goal in mind, how else are you supposed to perceive not achieving that goal?

and fail 75% of all children

"fail" is never a word used other than by parents. Schools never use " fail"... there in lays theproblen -parental perception.

Actualy - Im quite upset today - i've seen DS3s classmates totally distraught at "failing" their parents expectations. Frankly parents that put that pressure on kids are so damned awful that I cant actually put my opinion on paper.

218 was the pass mark .... letter on my mat this morning,

You want the statistics?

4862 children sat the test, 1394 deemed selective.

Thank you very much

crabapple 218 and 254 this year .

Incidentally, does anyone know what the pass mark and the top 180 mark are, now the results are out?

Starlady, Bexley and Kent councils are not allowed to reserve places for resident children in their schools, because of the the 1989 Greenwich ruling which established that local education authorities could not stop children travelling to their schools from outside their boundaries.

Some schools get round this to some extent by giving priority to children who have attended primary school in their LEA. Others like the girls grammars in Sutton have catchments for around 40-60% of their allocations, though, as these catchments are on a radial basis, large chunks of the catchments are outside the borough.

I think for selective boroughs, Greenwich provided a win-win situation in that they could still have selective schools but their non-selectives would have sufficient able children to show up well in the league tables.