Is Kingsdale Foundation school as amazing as everyone makes out??

I think because the year groups don't mix (staggered starts, finishes and lunch breaks) it actually ends up feeling a much smaller school in many ways.

DD is now Y10 (still very happy there) and bullying isn't something she has encountered and I've not seen any posts about it on the parents WhatsApp groups. I'm sure it does happen - any school that says it doesn't is lying - but it's definitely not a problem area.

Ah thanks for this, we have got kingsdale but it was quite far down our list and I have been worrying about the size of the school - bullying in particular. This has been a reassuring comment at just the right time. Thank you.

I have two happy children at Kingsdale, year groups don’t mix so children benefit from a large cohort of friends in their year group, with lots of room to play. Some parents around us choose to go private by fear - but don’t have the same facilities & teachers. Some locals love hating Kingsdale- and comment negatively on here- with no direct expérience ( just disagree with lottery/scholarship) On my first visit- the school felt too big and I was scared of chaos and bullying for my year 6 baby-but I have not heard of one incidence of bullying from large parents chat group, friends or my children- the school is very strict- my eldest is a Math scholar, attend workshops at Imperial college & classes have weekly online challenges + daily homeworks They share a sport field with Dulwich college, and have many lunch clubs. Daughter is a music scholar & choose to be part of a percussion ensemble and perform every term. Many children cycle to school in groups ( even with large music instruments) , and my only criticism would be the lack of cycling infrastructure towards the school- but it is more to do with Southwark council than the school. I like the general innovative philosophy of the school. Probably a detail- but in warmer days children don’t have to wear a polyester uniform- just their sport shorts/tshirt- a detail- but shows they have children wellbeing at the heart, and listen to their needs. Happy children-happy parents.

I would echo the comments made by OhCrumbs. Our son is towards the end of year seven and I’ve been pretty impressed with the school. It’s big but I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how they welcome direct email contact with teachers and pastoral care staff and I am also impressed with the tracking of each kid’s progress - they seem to have a good system to ensure your kid doesn’t fall through the slats (which was one of my worries about my son who isn’t gifted and talented, and tends to quietly get on with stuff so could be easily forgotten about in a big school). We’ve just had parent teacher meetings and all of his teachers seemed to know him really well. We’re very pleased with his academic progress and are hoping that he might feel more like getting involved in all the extra curricular stuff as he moves up the school

Avoid like the plague. Poor behaviour. High staff turnover. Constant stream of supply staff. The head is good at lying and pretending the school is brilliant when it’s chaos. Not too mention The fact that there is 2400 students in a building designed for 1700

Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts - that is really useful and helpful feedback. Impressive how quickly the staff get back to you - that is a very big tick and relieved that it seems to have a good balance with discipline. Been on one tour at a school that felt more like a boot camp and really put us off...

Is it friendly? DD seems happy, no reports home of anything to worry me. The usual Y7/Y8 girls stuff... best friends one day, new best friends the next. I keep an eye on the class WhatsApp and everything seems friendly and nice on there (no teacher on it). Far more so than I would have actually imagined for a bunch of 12 year olds, was very pleasantly surprised. Nothing inappropriate either.

The year groups don't seem to mix an awful lot - staggered start/end, lunch and break times probably don't make that easy - plus the Covid bubbles last year. But with nearly 400 children in each year it probably doesn't matter.

Is it very strict? No. I would say they lean the other way if anything. They do give out 20 minute detentions for things like wrong uniform or not handing in homework or blatant disregard of instructions. But they have an easy introduction to what is expected and plenty of warnings.

Scholarships - I wouldn't say a huge thing is made of who is and isn't a scholar. Also they have so many. The Sport and Music ones are used as part of the admissions process. But then you can apply for Maths or Art scholarships once you are in the school. There are also other ones on offer. DD didn't apply for the Art scholarship as she already focuses on music and drama and I felt it would be too much to be doing that too. However she was invited to apply for a Graphics scholarship based on her work in class in Art and in Design Tech. and gets to go to classes after school for that. They seem to be very good at spotting talents and maximising potential even if your child doesn't push themselves forward. It feels like almost everyone ends up with a scholarship in something so it's not as if there is a Them and Us situation.

Pastoral care - the staff seem very clued up as to what is going on, and will be on the phone very fast if they think there is a problem in any area. The kids are assigned to tutor groups at the start of Y7 and stay in those the whole way through the school, so their form tutor has a very good feel for those children both academically and socially. You can email them about anything and they will email back or call the same day.

Feel free to drop me a message or ask anything else.

Good point re the number of kids levelling things out a bit. I'm not sure how reliable my gut feeling is when presented with such a slick open event. We've been really impressed by schools on open days before but the reality can often seem a little different when you get the chance to hear first hand accounts from parents and kids. During the event I was getting visions of my first born playing the trombone while riding a horse and possibly getting an Olympic medal along with her 16 GCSE's... Personally I was super impressed by the campus, facilities and extra curricular stuff but it would be hard not to be. Easy to see why it's so over subscribed.

Not sure why you think your child will feel inadequate if he/she is not a scholar. With 3,000 (or is it 2,000?) children I am sure there will be lots of different children who are not scholars and opportunities to make friends. There will also be lots of good things and perhaps not so good that come with the size of the school. You have to go with your gut feeling.

Jumping in as we looked at it this week. Impressed by the 'sparkly' bits of the school but keen to know what's beneath the surface i.e. they claim it's a super friendly school and that the kids look out for each other but as the intake is massive I found that a little surprising. Is it very strict? Heard positive and less positive things about pastoral care so hard to get a clear picture on that. We have an average child but slightly concerned that if you're not one of the scholars or 'gifted and talented' you might feel a bit inadequate. Don't want to send them to an us and them school... Can anyone shed any light on that at all?

I wouldn't say they 'admit quite a lot of children with sen'. My experience is pretty much the opposite.

There's definitely a SEN parent further up this thread Ruby - she seems happy - hope she can help you!

minisnowballs thanks for explaining. I am worried that progress 8 is negative particularly since they admit quite a lot of children with SENs - how do they progress?

I can explain the progress 8 thing (I think!).

The measure looks at where children start and where they finish (I think just using Sats results and GCSE grades) so if progress 8 is zero, every child would make exactly the average progress that a child with their sats score makes towards GCSEs. If it is positive then the school has 'added value' - the children do better than suggested by their starting points when coming into the school. If it is negative, the children do worse than they should have done - theoretically they would have done better at the 'average' school.

So if a school has a high percentage of higher achieving children, perhaps because it is selective in someway (music and sports scholarships perhaps), or because it is in an affluent area or has a difficult entry process, it can get higher than average GCSE results but still have children making negative progress, because they should have done even better based on the cohort.

It's a pretty broad measure though.

I was shown round Kingsdale last week by two super confident girls. My son wants to go there and I am still trying to understand the draw. Everything I think is negative he changes to a positive. I like the fact they have school buses to drop kids home and that the after school clubs are all free. I am still not sure how they help children who need extra support - I just see my son getting lost. Ofsted states SEN children do well but their report is from 2017. I was told that most classes except maths and English only have 20 children but did not see that. Government website puts Progress 8 score below average - and GCSE results above England average. Not really sure why Progress 8 is below average if GCSE results are good. I also visited North Dulwich Charter but I will have to go back because an open day is so busy and no one really has time to talk.

Blimey.

twitter.com/rogershistory/status/1442183300127264770?s=21

We certainly heard quite a bit from him, although noticed that any ‘difficult’ messaging came from the deputies.

Just asked DD if she had ever seen him and she said no... but Covid...

His name is still on the letterhead though. I found it a little strange that he never seemed to feature but just assumed he was kept busy fundraising or something and wheeled out on open days to talk at the prospective parents.

How strange. Well, if he has gone, the HoLs and Deputy HT seem to be doing a great job in terms of none of us noticing!

Is the head still there? I heard he'd gone?

I think it must have been really hard picking schools in the last 2 years with nothing more than virtual open days or looking at the website.

I looked at at least 12 schools for DD back in 2019, and - as was the case with Primary too - I had a rough pecking order before I started based on all the data you can find online, the Ofsted reports etc.

But the visit in person was what really made the difference. Schools I had at the top of my list turned out to be ones I didn't even bother taking DD to see, and ones that I had been meh about based on playground chat I really liked in person. One school DD and I actually ran away from the open day we disliked it so much.

If you have an actual choice (some areas don't really) then worth going to see and having a bit of a check-list of what you want. Ask lots of awkward questions and see how they react.

With KFS, I think it's probably best suited to reasonably confident, outgoing children who are interested in doing extra curricular stuff and want to be in the teams, orchestras, art scholars groups etc. A lot of this is after school, so it wouldn't suit someone who wants to be home by 4pm every day. (Although homework is very, very manageable in terms of quantity and time given to do it).

I know families with children there who are happy with the school. I think it is better for kids who are in the top, like sports, music, etc.

I don't think it is for everyone though, especially if your child is behind or needs additional help or have issues with behaviour. I its a a very big school, some people really like it and some don't. You have to see it and go with your gut feeling.

Glad to hear it's better on those fronts.

As I said, I have friends who are happy with it.

I don't know how long ago your child was at K, but we haven't been asked to sign anything that remotely looks like an NDA, and no mention of social media.

Also not been asked to buy an iPad - only a handful of kids have laptops/ipads in class for SEN purposes. and we had to provide DD's.

While central SEN support was pretty minimal in Y7 this was mainly down to Covid, however the individual staff have all been very helpful.

Not seen a single communication from the Head since open day.

Careful now as parents aren't allowed to talk about Kngsdle on social media. They sign what amounts to an NDA. You may find this thread disappears.

We were very unhappy with it. We moved in year 8, without a tear. The SEN support was poor, they didn't address bullying, they were trying to make every parent buy an ipad on the back of a massive sales pitch from a private company, they are self satisfied (every communication from the headteacher made me seethe), and when our child moved schools, they ignored repeated requests from his new school to send over his records or have any sort of dialogue with them - he was on an IEP so pretty important to be helpful. We had to complain to the Governors before they sent any information, and it was incomplete.

I have friends who are happy with it. So I will offer that as a balanced view.