Graveney - Renting in catchment for admissions purposes

Agree. Part of this is because whilst a decade or so ago it was reasonably easy for a motivated Lambeth parent to get a place in an out of borough school and other boroughs liked to take this group it is now much harder. So people are staying within borough and previously very challenged schools who offered very limited subject and level choice, now have a more comprehensive intake with a good cohort from the upper end. It is not for nothing that Stockwell Park is advertising its "grammar" stream on the back of buses.

Schools improve and demand increases. Anywhere but Lambeth this would be seen as a virtuous cycle. I suspect they are still short an awful lot of school places. At one point a few years back I was told off gently by the then Executive Member for Education, who I knew, for sending my son private. I pointed out that Lambeth had failed to offer us any school place at 11+. (It had been a notoriously difficult year.) He did not disagree and suggested that Lambeth were short over 20 Primary Schools and several secondaries.

Demand for Private overall is increasing. Lambeth has very few (is Streatham High the only one?) However I suspect that this demand is generated by the increasing numbers of very rich living in London and many better-off middle-income Lambeth residents have been priced out. So you are right. Another whammy.

NeedMoreSleep - the final double whammy for Lambeth has been that Lambeth schools have improved so much over the last few years at primary and secondary level, that more parents are choosing to stay, rather than move to Surrey or go private - demand has risen hugely.

Victims of their own idiocy (I know exactly the school sale you talk of), and then success!

But they have also managed to open 2 new schools over the last 5 years, and have another big secondary opening in 2013.

Fluffy, I suspect the two authorities have different approaches for historical reasons. RBKC is really short of school places, and even shorter of sites suitable to build secondary schools. Wandsworth 15 years ago probably had more than enough places and was happy to take a number of students from Lambeth and other boroughs, with the probably assumption that pupils willing to travel into the borough would tend to be the better motivated. (Some over-lap with "middle class" but not entirely. There are plenty of less well off including first generation immigrants who want the best for their children and a clear pattern of pupils travelling to Battersea Park School away from Stockwell Park and Lilian Baylis when the latter schools were at their most troubled.)

A few things have happened since then. Demand in Wandsworth has grown:

1. generally population, and birth rates, in London have grown.
2. People started moving to Wandsworth because of their good quality primary schools. Not for nothing was Wandsworth the original nappy valley and a decade ago it was said that Wandsworth had the highest proportion of under 5s anywhere in Europe. This pipeline is now feeding into its secondary schools.

The casualty has been Lambeth, who historically exported a large proportion of their school population to local boroughs, at both primary and secondary level. As boroughs like Westminster, Wandsworth and Southwark have faced increasing demand from their own residents there are fewer places for Lambeth residents and with its own population increases Lambeth has the double whammy.

The catchment for Graveney is now tiny. However the good news is that Chestnut and Ernest Bevin have really benefited from a settled population who have been in the Wandsworth School system from the start and are heaps better than they were.

Sorry for the long and slightly nerdy post. A long time ago I was involved in a campaign to prevent Lambeth closing a school and selling off the land. Such a proposal would be unimaginable now even to the most cash-hungry council and it did not take a lot of vision even back then to realise this.

No - thankfully. Found it on the internet. DH has an interest in the area as he works for the LA and hears all the gossip.

Not surprised as they only started the building works about two months ago!

Oh dear! Does that mean you have DC(s) attending the Bolingbroke Academy, BeingFluffy? Rather disruptive for them....

Apparently opening mid September on a temporary site...

www.arkbolingbrokeacademy.org/Mainfolder/Bolingbroke-Letter-to-all-parents---August-2012.pdf

Wandsworth probably turn a 'blind eye' because it suits their purposes. I'm sure if you did a maping exercise of socio-economic backgrounds of the pupils attending the state schools in Wandsworth they would be very skewed!!

Does anyone know if the Bolingbroke Academy is up and running yet or is it due to open next academic year?

I am surprised that Wandsworth don't take a more robust approach. My own borough (RBKC) clearly state in their secondary transfer booklet that moving to a temporary address and using that for application purposes, while retaining a permanent residence elsewhere is against the rules! They also ask for details of all properties owned or rented.

I am not sure if LA have access to Experian or the Stamp Duty Land Tax database but those are very easy ways of checking residence or ownership of various addresses.

Just to let the skiing enthusiasts know, Lambeth Academy does offer a skiing trip - last Easter they went to Andorra and shared a coach with Kingsdale School. They are planning to go to Andorra again next Easter.
As to Chestnut Grove, people from further away can get in because they have a music and language special selection test, so they select a number of kids that way. It certainly has plenty of kids from Clapham going there.

Well i did it. But we actually moved into the house lock stock and barrel and let out our 'real' house on a 6 month let.A friend just moved out and didn't let the 'real house'. It is perfectly legal and morally fine too I think because you are actually living where you say you are.
I don't understand the bit abut the primary school address being different? Why wouldn't you give the primary school your new address too?
I don't know how the council can check what other properties you own because as far as I know you can't search the land registry by owner.
All they asked for was to send Council tax bills, NHS cards and utility bills (showing fuel usage) at the new address.

Just wondering if OP did in fact move to within catchment?
Are you there now?

Everyone has different buttons I suppose, and information about schools dates fast, and is also complicated. I have heard hearsay go round the block and come back very different, but recognisable in peculiar little details....

Because of her comments about Lambeth Academy, I assumed she meant Stockwell Park and then either Lilian Baylis or Evelyn Grace depending on which direction. Actually she only talks about one catchment school she has doubts about.

It's funny - my friend put Chestnut Grove as top preference and was to have been offered Dunraven, as her 4th choice after Kingsdale and Elmgreen - she had heard one story of bullying a few years ago and discounted it. Another put her super bright top scoring DC into the Graveney test as a contingency against not getting into her nearest comp, Dunraven, her first preference.

Different poeple, different views, different hearsay.

I'm afraid I haven't read all the replies to the OP so apologies if the conversation has moved on but I just wanted to say that this happened in my county last year and yes they were found out and yes the school in question withdrew the place.

I have been very pleasantly surprised by how good the behaviour is, on buses and out and about, of children from all the local schools, especially when I was grappling with small children.

Chestnut Grove has (or had, I have not checked recently), specialist places so it takes children from a wide area. But I am not sure the speculation about which schools the OP was referring to is helpful, to anyone here or to the schools so fingered.

I thought (at least some parts of) Stockwell was within catchment of Lambeth Academy (but of course not chestnut). But perhaps wrongly ....

I agree. My guess had been Stockwell Park, which seems to have resorted to advertising on the back of buses, and Charles Edward Brooke and maybe one or two others.

Chestnut Grove is not in Lambeth and someone from Stockwell would be doing well to get a place.

aha. On reading the OPs responses I don't think it is these schools.
And anyway, Chestnut Grove is really competitively sought after now, and I know families who are really happy there - though I don't know it myself - and locally Lambeth Academy doesn't have a bad reputation. It isn't discussed at dinner parties as a top one to go to, afaik, but it isn't viewed with horror, either!

S London has a highly mixed population. Where in London would ANY school have a catchment that didn't include some badly behaved kids as well as some paragons of academic virtue and innocence?

Blu: The two schools were Lambeth Academy and Chestnut, at least one of which I am guessing is one which OP doesn't like the sound off ...

Witnessed by my DH, who is now adamant that we should not consider these schools further. As I said in the other thread we will see what other options are achievable for us. OP didn't seem to have the money to go private though.

Not saying its moral of course ...

OhDearConfused -would it be more moral to push another child who lives near Graveney out because OP has the money to rent a property there? No.

I have posted on another thread but repeat here - I have previously seen girls from Greycoats which I think it is desirable school brawling with Westminster choir boys. At my DD2s school the behaviour was appalling a few years ago, but has now improved thanks to a robust head.

Did anyone here actually witness the brawl? Yes there may be a disruptive minority but there may well be at Graveney and most other London schools. How the schools deal with it going forward is the main thing.

Do we know which schools the brawlers were from or which High St?

Going back to OP's issue. She seems to have choices of schools which may be one or other of the two schools that had DDs involved in a brawl last week BrawlThread

What should she do if she likes the area she lives in but wants to avoid these schools (and can't afford to pay)? Would any of the people critical of her decision to rent short term like to swap school places with her DCs?

"There is less parental involvement from these two groups, which as most MC parents know, accelerates learning."

Often because the children spend very little time at home with their parents because the parents are out at work ALL THE TIME.

So children are going to after school club, breakfast club, being picked up by grandparents, aunts, siblings etc.

Also many West Indian and African children being bought up in single parent households, far more than the average (46% of children in Caribbean households as opposed to 25% average). And very high percentage with working single mothers.

I see these women at the school gate occasionally and honestly I don't know how many of them cope with their lifestyles. They work SO BLOODY HARD. Yes, they may have good networks of extended family support, but even so, I imagine it's a struggle. Particularly when the culture their young people are often buying into is so violent, so materialistic, so highly sexualised.

Compare that to say Indian parents where there culture as such where your success as an individual is sole based on your education success, means that their kids doing 3/4 hours extra work after school, especially if the aim is Grammar school, is not unusual.

Oh geez, should have read...Compare that to say Indian parents where, their culture determines their individual success, based on their educational success, which means, their kids doing 3/4 hours extra work after school, especially if the aim is Grammar school, is not unusual.