Help me choose between Cardinal Vaughan and London Oratory School for year after next

minifingers -I agree. If you look at the Ofsted dashboard you will see eg that the number of pupils eligible for free school meals at the Oratory is around 9 per cent which is shockingly low for a state school in London. Cardinal Vaughn is around 21 per cent. As the FSM figures for local comps like Holland Park and Chelsea academy are in the 50-60 percent range you can see that the Oratory in particular is (and always has been) very posh for a state school and IMO a lot posher than CV.

Oratory UNDOUBTEDLY more sporty. If your child is able sport wise, oratory would be more of a suit.

Gunnersbury Catholic School is the Better than Oratory and Cardianal of Vaughn. Trusssssss Big man thing init

Ad Altiora

I've just been looking at these schools in the league tables.

It really is amazing how top Catholic schools which aren't (theoretically) academically selective manage to take so few children with special needs, and so few poor and low achieving children, compared to other local secondary schools.

Shocking really.

Happycat123 doesn't sound to me you're actually at the Vaughan. Firstly you wouldn't refer to year 8. And you would have known before applying that the art areas you refer to aren't available at the school.

milkqueen, i am currently in year 8 at cardinal vaughan and there have been 3 exclusions so far for my year

1. i am not too clear about the first one because it happened at the very start in october 2013
2. a boy hit another boy on purpose with a table tennis bat in the face multiple times
3. a boy was very disruptive and refused to cooperate with the schools policies

furthermore, if i got the chance, i would leave cardinal vaughan as i am under so much pressure from homework and they do not cater for many vocational art gcse's like textiles, drama, and dance. they do not even out homework and i am always working till 11pm on some nights and on others only 5pm
, the school is very proud and does boast good results but only due to pushing students to their limit, it can get very depressing to be honest. the teachers do expect you to join in band or orchestra if you play an instrument and you have no say about it.

Mixer: My son got a music place at Cardinal Vaughn for 2014. Reading that your friends son got excluded before the second term makes me very worried about Johnny. Would you mind if I asked what did he do? My son is a bright boy but a bit of a class clown and every year since nursery he has been in trouble at school for silly things. His school is in Kensington and is very strict. It does not matter what we say, he still can be a bit silly regardless of the promises to be good and less childish. We tell him to play the game but I dont think he really means to be disruptive, its his character and he cannot change. I am thinking of getting him a counsel because I really dont want him to get thrown out of school after getting this music place and turning down three independent schools with scholorships.

Hi, we put both the Oratory and CV on our forms as we were eligible for both. CV was our first choice and we were thrilled when we got it.

I wasn't overtly keen on the Oratory because the kids are not allowed to run in the playground which I think is both unnatural and an awful restriction to put on kids. Fine for when they're older but not for the early years. My son, with the introduction of a new head teacher, currently has cops and robbers and running barred in his primary school which is making his life a misery. He would have been depressed about starting a new school where the same restriction applies. At the moment, he's excitedly counting down the days to start CV.

I spoke to a couple of the boys who go to the Oratory to check if the no running rumor was true, to which they confirmed that it was. They siad a few of the boys still give it a go and those that do, don't get to major trouble, but are told to stand by the wall. Oratory is a great school and has a great brand, but my son's happiness was paramount.

In any case, my DS is relatively academic, sporty and as such, can be a tad competitive, so we felt CV was definitely the right school for him.

thanks trickcycler, I suppose the reality is different schools suit different children/families.

My husbands cousin went to the Oratory. He was very unhappy, and went to Gunnersbury instead. He loved it there. He said the Oratory was so strict, it took away all his passion for learning.

My friends son just completed his education at CV last year. Although he had outstanding grades, he was so fed up with learning he has opted out of further education and is working in a shop. He says his life has been nothing but homework and homework and homework, and school work, and he has had enough.

We wont apply for either for our son.

First of all, the admission criteria state your child must be baptized Catholic within 6 months of birth. Massive fail for us, both of our children were baptized when they were 1. We did a pre baptism blessing with Father when they were babies instead. You need to go to Mass 3 out of 4 Sundays. Another fail. More like 2 out of 4. They are so oversubscribed, I doubt they will listen to "reason".

@universalis-recently there was a revision of homework policy to try and cut back the amount the boys were expected to do each night. I'm not sure there has been much of a change as a consequence, they still have to do homework most nights but it's manageable and there's not much to complete over the w/e. Sport out of hours is voluntary...my son does cricket when it's available after school but he opted out of rugby...didn't fancy the early morning saturday training. You haven't got the wrong impression about the teachers, they're a great bunch and I bet your son will get along just fine and really enjoy himself.

Look at the price of the uniform My friend's son goes to the Oratory and I was totally stunned at the price of the uniform. It was 4x the price of my son's uniform when he started secondary.

Once all the ranking has been done against catholic observance (which surely must result in over-subscription from families who have been doing their best throughout the primary school years to get a top score) then "In the event of a tie for a place after the above criteria have been applied a ballot system of random allocation will be used with each tied candidate?s name being entered into the ballot and names then selected randomly until a rank of all candidates has been established"

That is the same system for most schools that hold a lottery, All the eligible candidates in an oversubscribed admissions category go into a ballot.

Definitely not a lottery, the have a very strict admission criteria, it is on their website. They band after acceptance unlike CV that accepts a certain number number in each group based on their banding test.

trish, I thought the Oratory admitted on a lottery, so how can there be a higher 'overall calibre' of students?

Our son is joining the Vaughan in September and while well behaved not academically brilliant, we got a really caring, gentle feeling about the school from the open day and as we know virtually no one there at the moment have had only the open day to go on. The teachers were so enthusiastic and welcoming I hope we haven't got the wrong impression. I'm glad to hear your son is happy trickcycler has there been a huge amount of homework and sport at the weekends?

Mr Stubbings is indeed now the head, his bark is worse than his bite and the boys are all very fond of him. The performance at open day is a piece of theatre intended to winnow out any families that would have difficulty coping with the schools discipline. The Vaughan and the Oratory are both great schools and a credit to the staff that work in them. My son is at the Vaughan and absolutely loves being there.

I couldn't agree with you more Viktoria about CV school. We must have been at the same open evening as the speech by the Deputy head was appalling, particularly for a Catholic school. It said to us that discipline in the school was based on a sense of fear and I think that self-same deputy head has now become the head teacher at the school.

We looked at both schools - my DS1 is starting secondary school in September 2012, and while originally I was convinced that we would put both schools on the form, we decided against the Vaughan, not because it's not a good school, but because we thought it's not the right school for DS1.
It seems very very competitive and I think if your child is very good at school, it will certainly be a good choice. DS1 is average with a fragile self confidence and I really had the feeling he would sink at the Vaughan.
The Oratory on the other hand seemed really committed to pastoral care, and the good results seem to come as a result of that care.

I thought the Assistant Head at the Vaughan who gave the speech on the open day was horrible, arrogant and obviously playing a game, ie, we are so popular and oversubscribed, why should I try to convince you that we are the best school? With a new Head this might change, and I'm aware that you shouldn't judge a school by the speeches on Open Day alone. But I do think that the attitude of the Assistant Head must filter down somewhere/somehow.

I know boys at both schools and they all seem to report pretty much the same - both schools are strict, but all the boys seem to be proud of their respective school.

Oh, and of course, chances to get into either school are very small - but good luck!

Mixer wrote on 2/1/12: "Neighbour's son just excluded from Vaughan school - he only started in September. People say the school breaks the Year 7s down and then builds them up - not sure what they build them up to be but whole process seems rather unpleasant." There is certainly no effort to 'break anyone down' in the Vaughan. All the children I know there through to 6th form are extremely happy (my ds is year 2). Concerning Vaughan vs Oratory, my son is very content with Vaughan and, based on hearsay amongst his peer group thinks that Vaughan is a better school to attend than the Oratory.

I fear you are right what I meant was that the rules were in the public domain =

I'm not sure that the Catholic school system is transparent, I wouldn't be surprised if every year there were a few people playing the system to get into good schools.

Moving house to get into a school is very understandable - it does however have knock on effects on others unable to move, just as Catholic schools have repurcusions on the wider system - neither is unfair IMO though the Catholic schools process is more transparent. We are only discussing this because there are so few schools that people want their children to go to. Good luck.

portfolio, I don't think I expressed what I meant very well. I don't think that catholic schools themselves are unfair and, if I was able to, would send my DC to a religious school. What I meant was that I think this situation is unfair as the previous poster's DC won't be able to go to their local school despite living so close.
What is wrong with moving to be near good schools by the way, if you saw the thread you will have seen that people support the idea.

There's nothing unfair about Catholic schools. Certainly, alot less unfair than people moving house to get into a good school which you seem to support.