Kingsdale Foundation School

I haven't read the whole thread but get impression loads of the negative stuff is from parents whose kids don't go to kingsdale. I'm quite pleased you are all slagging it off. My 3rd kid won't get a sibling place and I would love them to get in - so hopefully all these negative comments will put you all off applying so we have more chance of getting in. I'd say the music is absolutely exceptional and is my number one reason for trying to get dc3 in, despite other good school options. And yeah, my kid got a scholarship year 8 after no lessons due to covid and is thriving , in about 6 ensembles and now has the opportunity to study music at uni. I feel quite confident this wouldn't have been the case in a different school. Science is shit though!

I have friends whose kids have flourished at Kingsdale and I'm glad your children have too. It's clearly got some great strengths (although I do know quite a few kids who have had similar experiences to ours re SEN unfortunately, but that can be the case in every school).

I'd say though that many of the things you're talking about are found in lots of good schools. These sort of exchanges inevitably bring the parents of children who have had great experiences to feel the need to defend the school, and that's quite understandable. The school's own hyberbole and admissions policy are quite alienating for others, and it doesn't seem to deliver things over and above other schools that don't shout from the rooftops in the same way.

I also don't know many parents, happy or not with the school, who haven't found the headteacher's attitude quite grating!

This is very much our experience.

They have also bent over backwards to help DD focus on her strengths and support what she wants to do (at considerable effort to the school - she has a bespoke timetable for example). There has also been a lot of thought when it comes to sets - SEN with a very spiky profile and high IQ.

For a huge school they very much cater to the individual. DD was offered a graphics scholarship in Y7 based on the teachers thinking she had talent... total surprise to us.

When looking at schools over 7 years ago I had some of the same feelings expressed on this thread. (too big, a bit shabby) My DD got into Kingsdale on the waiting list and she has loved been there. She really wanted a mixed school and we did not have too many options of where we lived as they were based on distance.
@Sleepthief you said you didn't know a kid who had got a musical scholarship without lessons, my DD did - she went in Y8 asked if she could have a singing scholarship, was asked to sing two songs and was awarded one - this entitled her to free music lessons all the way through school (even when she dropped music as a GSCE) They have supported her in taking her exams and she was awarded a distinction recently in Grade 7 signing!
Amazing opportunities to play in bands/orchestra's / steel pan bands/ extra dance etc.

The drama department is fantastic (as well as art and other creative subjects) frequent trips to see theatre often highly subsidised. Maths is brilliant and sport superb. For most of Y7/8/9 and 10 they had around 3 PE sessions weekly doing proper sport with a dedicated sports department.

My daughter entered Kingsdale doing average/well in Maths and left as an A* student - she had committed teachers, who answer emails, and are at hand.
yes, its big and chaotic, and the open days are about them saying how amazing they are - but for all the bluster, they are a decent caring school. The teachers and staff work very hard and I cannot praise them enough. They have issues like most schools, but for us it was the right choice for us. The one plus side of it been a big school is there is also room for everyone - no-one sticks out as been weird., or different as there are enough of everyone for students to find friends or people they click with!

They do do some UK trips. My child got left off a week-long one because owing to SEN they didn't sort out some paperwork we didn't know was needed. The maths scholarship trips though appear to be mostly to theme parks.

@HarrietBond I remember doing one of the Kingsdale tours and a member of staff was excitedly going on about the "amazing' trips they do - Japan, USA, Ski trips etc.
I asked "Do you do any trips that are in the UK?".
I got an awkward silence and tumbleweed 😂

The library at FH Boys is brilliant. They used to have an award winning librarian although sadly she has now gone (retired I think). There are some really interesting and innovative things going on in lots of the local schools. We went to a LOT of open evenings and I was really struck by the ones that put the kids front and centre rather than the head talking to the parents about university destinations.

Sydenham Girls, where both my daughters ended up. has a fabulous library, as does FH Boys - it is not that all the other local schools are cultural deserts. Syd has brilliant dance and art though has had a bit of a musical blip (hence DD2's move to a specialist school), but I'm sure it will be sorted for the new Year 7.

My friend's son should have got a brilliant GCSE in music - a Kingsdale full scholar with a bright future. He got a 7 - the same as my DD1 who finds music dull and had no teacher for a year of the course at Sydenham, which makes no song and dance about music.

Sixth form isn't guaranteed even for Kingsdale students - they cherrypick again locally. Given their very high selection criteria at that stage I think the results should be better.

Everything I was going to say has been mentioned already: the banding tests which ensures you knock out lots of kids even at the application stage; the insanely high proportion of high prior attainers (almost two thirds of the cohort vs 20-25% in an average comp), which means their results should be exceptional; the mediocre progress 8 (value added) score which has been underwhelming and mostly negative for years; the BS scholarship system (they are not alone in this in south london) and of course the hype around it, driven partly by the lottery system and the scholarships and the sense that you "win" or "earn" a place there.

There's also the school bus, which costs close to £1000 per year and ships kids in from across south east london (not sure about elsewhere): this is a great option, if you have a spare £1000 a year per child, many do not and again this will rule in some children and rule out others.

I know of children in years 9-11 whose parents are underwhelmed. I'm sure this is the case everywhere, of course. It's probably a perfectly fine comp with some great clubs and provision in arts etc, which you would expect in a school that size.

And yes progress 8 DOES matter, for high attaining kids as for everyone else. There are many great schools, grammars and comps, which do brilliantly by high attainers (and for comps - also middle, low, disadvantaged cohorts). It's simply not the case that a P8 score will be low because the kids are already doing well on entry. It's not the only thing that matters - but if you are going to fixate on the results it makes no sense to ignore the P8 score.

But I think it's a myth that they offer a broader education than other local schools. Norwood is an arts specialist school, FHB performing arts, Sydenham I think stem but with a brilliant arts offer and are national debating champions. I am not so sure about the Harris schools but they would certainly talk about a broad offer. Which schools don't have high expectations locally? They all have libraries! Kingsdale just have a better marketing department.

I don't think anyone serious about inclusive education is talking about a full lottery system. We have friends who live on the estate next to Kingsdale, literally the other side of the wall. If it's not ideology to say their kid can't go to the school he can see from his window, I don't know what is.

There's also longstanding local beef because there's been a huge gap in secondary provision for boys especially in Penge and surrounding areas up and around the edge of CP park. Kingsdale's policy means those children have had to travel a long way to school. Harris (of which I am not a fan either) have at least plugged some of that gap on the Bromley side.

I have been on a lot of tours for my Year 6 recently and the Kingsdale head and deputy impressed me. What I liked most about the school is, that whilst it is good at Maths/Science, there is a real focus on Music/Art/DT/Sports and that broad focus is lacking in many other schools. It is nice to have proper libraries too, for example. The teacher pupil ratio is great despite the size of the school and most of the teachers I heard speak were dedicated and impressive.
So they are providing a much broader education along the ethos of a lot of private schools by having high expectations. I think that is good.
I also overheard some parents speak about some local primaries becoming feeders.
It obviously is a very successful turnaround story. Some people have been calling for lottery systems and broader education for all so I am not sure why this school gets criticised for doing exactly what many ideologists have been demanding.

I don't think posters are saying that, they're saying the opposite. They're saying that local schools should serve their local community. Which Kingsdale don't. Like most London schools they are in an area which is incredibly mixed socially and economically but deliberately exclude many of those children.

On their website it says 'we are a school for aspirational families'. Was absolutely desperate to ask them to define 'aspirational' but sadly one is not allowed to ask any questions. Which families do they think are not aspirational for their kids I wonder?

I agree the heads' talk is the stuff of comedy legend locally! Imagine being that parent on the platform.

@HarrietBond how awful to not want to give children from the estate an education 🙄

And the lottery system was put in place to stop the school filling with the kids from the estate nearby, as the wealthier local kids were going private. It’s quite right to say it used to have a dreadful reputation and this is a massive turnaround over 15-odd years. But there are other very good local schools who don’t necessarily set out to attract the middle classes and still get the job done.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow to be honest a lot of the complaints I know are more about the lottery entrance system.
It's deeply unfair that a child could live literally next door and lose a place to some kid that's commuting from somewhere all the way in North London.
But as I said upthread I believe they are going to start giving priority to children from several nearby primaries.

Ha! Loads of middle class people are using state schools already, as I’m sure you know. I find those threads quite mystifying as I know an awful lot of middle class people, with fairly pointy elbows, and almost all of them are already in the state school system. I don’t think a greater percentage of them will be a magic bullet for the system as a whole, but their individual offspring tend to benefit from whatever system they’re in more than other children often do. Obviously I am one of those parents.

Mixed ability classes must be a new thing.

KFS set for all subjects for Y9-11, and in Y7 and Y8 set for English, Maths and Science. All other classes are with tutor groups (bar MFL as that is choice dependent). They may not say the tutor groups are set by ability, but DD's certainly was.

In terms of grades, I believe the latest Maths GCSE had over 50% get 7-9. English and Science had best results ever but I don't know percentages.

At the end of the day, you want to find a school that fits your child and their skill sets and ability level. If you have an academic clever child then attainment for that demographic is going to be more important to you than overall P8 scores.

I must admit that I find some of the comments here quite intriguing in light of the comments on some of the VAT threads about how brilliant it will be for schools if the sharp-elbowed middle-classes start using state schools. Doesn't seem as if it's quite so popular in practice?

Before the HT started the scholarships and lottery entry, KFS was the school people did everything to avoid. He wanted to target the middle-classes and did so very successfully - now everyone complains.

That Kingsdale open day speech is notorious. When we went they had a mad parent talking and saying that when her son got the letter of acceptance (I mean surely it's a portal login email thing) she felt that he had had an amazing marriage proposal.

See my later posts. I am not sure now about the reliability of my original source.

schoolopinion.co.uk/london/southwark/kingsdale-foundation-school-6320

We visited this school last week with high 'expectations' thinking it was going to be one of our top preferences, and.we left with a 'not even going on the list'. We absolutely disliked this school for so many reasons.

1. The speech didn't sound honest, and they're just extremely clever with their wording (if you look closely grades aren't that great compared to other local secondary schools).
2. I hated the idea of mixed ability classes, then what's the point of a banding test, and when on earth will the less able child ever catch up.

3.The buildings were claustrophobic, and we didn't even have 2000+ students walking past us, the thought of so many people walking past as an stampede over my daughter terrified me.
3.It's just so big, how do they handle lunches, enrichment classes, extra curriculum, pastoral care, bullying etc (they also have a 6th form by the way.

1. All teachers during the guide greet us with a 'sorry no questions' Seriously? on Open day?

5.It was extremely hot and humid, and it wasnt even hot outside, poor kids having lessons in such conditions. We felt bored and sleepy and really wanted to leave.

I might have missed the Wow factor that everybody raves about, but to us Kingsdale is just OVERRATED.

Yes exactly. Harris Bromley Girls even 2-tier their system so they do half the kids from within I think a mile of the school, then the second half of kids can be from any distance away. So they could take top banded children from 6 miles away.

Of course this applies to lower bands too, but there's evidence that the lowest achievers or those from chaotic families or kids with SEN might not manage to get to a banding test or are easily put off by one. So you might have 'fair banding' but that assumes all kids in a potential cohort have applied. There's a lot of research evidence that the more a school cultivates an air of 'exclusivity' (scholarships, 'grammar streams') the more poorer and lower achieving kids' families are put off. So the bands all skew upwards and that bottom 10 or 20% never even apply.