Townley (Bexley) v Dartford Grammar for Girls (Kent) v St Michael's Catholic Grammar (Barnet)

I would not recommend Dartford grammar school for girls at all. Very unprofessional and unfriendly environment. Seriously; please do not send your daughter in this school. I have had my daughter in there as well as in Newstead wood grammar school and you cannot compare them two. I am lucky that I have experienced then both and Dartford grammar school for girls sucks. Very unprofessional place. Newstead is amazing, please try everything to get your daughter anywhere else than in this place. They destroy your daughter inside out while Newstead will bring the best out of your daughter. I have experienced them both, please think carefully before considering this school. Full stop.

@mcinesi is today deadline day for applications? What have you decided?

@Tigerbear @Blue5238 - May I ask which school your DD goes to? I’m in Greenwich and trying to weigh up options for DD.

Leigh Academy Blackheath

Apart from echoing some of the excellent points made before, I would add that if you work make sure you can get to the school quickly enough in the event of sickness. You have to collect them from school if they are unwell and they can't travel home alone. If you send a child to Dartford but work in west London for example the journey time is more than from home. We are in Greenwich and our children are in the excellent local state schools, there are some!

We're close to Greenwich and although DD1 had a guaranteed place at a Bexley grammar, she chose to go to a more local comprehensive instead. Her reason was that if she went to a school closer to home, she'd have more time to do what she wanted to. It's been a good choice as she's got older, there's an increased workload and a wider range of opportunities outside of school for her to get involved in and I'm glad she still has time to do that. Being local also means her friends all live fairly near to us which is another advantage.

There are children from here that travel out to the grammars of Bexley or Dartford but they are vulnerable to every incidence of track repair, leaves on the line etc. Shortly after DD1 started Y7 the trains were out of action for months and there were lots of parents driving their children to the grammars so their children weren't late. It made for a stressful first term.

At our primary we have had extremely bright girls with high pass marks who didn't get in to townley based on distance (living in Welling).

Hi OP, ah, my DD is only in Y4, so won’t be going any time soon. I’m doing my research early, for various reasons.
Out of interest, why didn’t you like Blackheath High? I went to the Open Day last week and quite liked it, and the academic scores seemed high.
Tbh, I don’t think your DD will get into Townley, based on the distance. I’m sure the catchment is about a mile.

@Blue5238 - May I ask which school your DD goes to? I’m in Greenwich and trying to weigh up options for DD.

OP - I too have been researching the grammar schools and as mentioned above, I’m in Greenwich so DD would have a similar commute if we went down this route. When you mention the score your DD got, does that guarantee her a place at Townley?
Are independent schools an option? If she’s bright, and the score suggests she is, could you consider Blackheath High, for instance?

I live in Greenwich. We went to look at DGGS but in the end decided that my daughter would not sit the 11+ because I did not want her to do the length of commute involved to Dartford. Sure, some kids do. But it would leave her tired and isolated from most of her school friends. She goes to a school nearer home.

And also just to add - he enjoys the first half of the bus journey home from school as loads of his friends are on the same bus. And there is another boy that goes almost as far as him so he's not on his own...

He's quite happy to hop on the bus to meet friends at weekends/in the holidays. I've noticed that the grammar kids in our city grow up a bit quicker and just tend to be more used to using public transport and meeting up in the city centre. It's fine!

@mcinesi, we were in a similar position a few years ago and I've noticed that the people who've been scathing to me about long journeys are those who instead moved to expensive houses in the catchments of good comprehensives. We couldn't afford to do that, so we were left with four local schools - 1 in the neighbouring county which has the dubious distinction of being quite 'nice' but right at the bottom of the county league tables year on year and 3 within the city boundary which all have 'well below average' progress rates. There's a lot of deprivation in the area which obviously impacts the schools.

Some children would do fine regardless, but our son isn't one of those - he's recently been diagnosed with ADHD and we knew back then he was distractible and easily influenced. So we send him on a long winded journey 9 miles across the city to the grammar he got into (unfortunately he didn't get into the more popular one a couple of miles away either).

I'm not particularly happy he has to do this journey, as it usually takes him over an hour. However, we just can't afford to move closer. And honestly, he's got used to it, he sleeps on the bus in the morning and in the evening he gets off to go to the gym at around the halfway point which breaks his journey up nicely! It helps that his school finishes at 3.05 too.

He's very happy at school and is doing well - much better than he'd do locally I suspect.

So just to say - it's not ideal and obviously we'd all prefer our children to go to a good school round the corner. But not everyone has that privilege.

It's interesting that there has been a local backlash against some selective schools, with some no longer sitting HBS or QEB exams because their classmates will travel such distances that teenage meetups are few and far between

I don’t know anyone who even considered HBS or QE Boys. Too many kids being tutored to insane levels, too many kids travelling too far and not ethnically diverse. All have gone faith or private.

This is surely an argument for expanding grammar type school availability when kids are having to travel so far to attend.

I can assure you that there is another interpretation.

I want my DC to go to grammar school... Fair enough. ...so I'm going to choose to live somewhere where there aren't any and an hour's journey from any of the ones in areas where there are....

Well good luck with the applications. This is surely an argument for expanding grammar type school availability when kids are having to travel so far to attend.

What does your daughter think about all this? Is she happy to travel so far? Does she understand she won't have friends that live locally to her? What happens when she wants to meet up with her school friends to do research projects together at each others houses? What about after school clubs. How will she attend those?

You're welcome. But I'd still recommend the documentary even though its BBC biased.

True. She could stay on until barnehurst and get the 602 straight there actually.

There is no direct bus from the station to townley though, so there would still be a walk.

Agree with the pp who say the walks from the stations are much longer. I attended townley many years ago and lived in the area for 30 years. She could however get a bus down from Bexleyheath station but it depends if one is there or if it’s worth waiting so it could add more time on.

Apologies I thought they were funded by the local council. But also it maybe more difficult to contribute fully to the school community living so far away. A lot of after school or weekend events may not be feasible to contribute to?
If you're interested the BBC did a documentary on townley last year which was good viewing.

The walks to townley and dartford are longer than 20 mins (I've lived in both areas) youre probably better getting a bus from bexleyheath.
also consider exam years when she may have 3+hours homework to do. We revised in the mornings before school aswell as after school. If you lived nearer she would have more opportunities to find friends to revise without trekking across south London.
I'm guessing that you may work in London why don't you move and do the commute the transport is better going into town in rush hour (although having commuted on southeastern for 20+years it's still pretty rubbish especially at the worst times eg winter).
As a final "political" note if you moved into the area at least you would be contributing financially to these schools.