Any experience of Kings Maths School vs LAE for 6th form?

It's quite selfish and silly to request thread deletion in a fit of pique when a lot of info here is likely to be useful to others.

@JusteanBiscuits Except I never asserted that. Get your posters straight before making accusations.

Happy for disadvantaged kids to get extra support. But the school admissions policy expressly discriminates against boys because they are boys. Seems pretty sexist to me.

As a survivor of CSA I am acutely aware of what grooming is. Having people in positions of authority speak to minors about explicit sex acts, without the knowledge or consent of their parents, definitely ticks a box, as does breaking down a young person's natural reticence around sexual matters. Encouraging "secrets" between an adult and a child is another red flag. If what they're doing is fine, why don't they inform parents?

If you are happy with all this then that's your prerogative. But you asked for opinions of the school, and you got them.

He came out fairly happy having tackled almost all the questions - did say he enjoyed it 🤣 crazy lad! Not sure if nearly finishing is a good sign or not…. 🤣 Just glad it’s all over and we can do no more - we apparently find out “late December”. Esp as DS announced last night that it was possibly his top choice having done not very much prep 🙄 had I known I might have tried to make him focus. Ho hum… will be repeatedly checking my email in the last week before Xmas break!! Good luck to your DS!

@JusteanBiscuits There are extremely valid reasons to take issue with "woke" sex Ed, and it would be a real shame to remove an informative thread just because you don't like people disagreeing with your personal opinion.

Does anybody know how many students sit the entrance test and how many places are available next year?
Good luck to all!

They’re in the PD lessons, personal development. In the first term they have 2 a week. There’s also assemblies, etc.

@PilarT thanks for this. A lot to think about there! And useful to know before signing up as you say.

@KnottyAuty I am not talking about ethnic diversity - I am an ethnic minority myself, I am not white, I am female and my father is an immigrant and my parents were low income. So when I say it’s very woke that’s not what I mean.

They have a strong woke agenda, I can give some examples.
They teach sex positivity: class discussions on sex include things like whether you should spit or swallow when someone ejaculates in your mouth, what sexual activities you would like to try and what you are going to do about it. They say they want to break down the taboo about sex and make it so nothing is inappropriate to discuss with them, eg. BDSM.
They also have classes to challenge the norms of monogamy and being in a relationship at all.
They teach gender theory, that gender is fluid and you can explore and decide what gender you are. They seem to not be doing this now, I assume because of the government guidance issued on it earlier this year, but 2 years ago they were sending out an email to students in the first term asking if they want to change their pronouns, with an online form to fill in asking what pronoun and name you would like used at school and what pronouns and names you would like the school to use with your parents, so that your parents don’t find out.
In one lesson, the boys and girls were separated and the boys were given a lesson on how to be less assertive so that they don’t make girls uncomfortable. An example of things they shouldn’t do is write too high on the white board because it might upset girls. Personally, I think boys can be shy and can need to learn to be more assertive so I find this gender stereotyping very unpleasant.
There is a lot about racism from a critical race theory angle. How it’s not enough to not be racist, how you must be antiracist, etc. Classes on how it’s racist that maths used Pythagoras theorem a lot, for example, because that’s European.
When the teachers went on strike a couple of years ago, an email was sent out explaining the motive behind the strike from the viewpoint of Marxist philosophy. That term was literally used, so at least some of the teachers must think of themselves as Marxist.
I have loads of documents showing all this and more. These are just a few examples.
All this is fine if it aligns with the parents values, but if it doesn’t then the aggressive pushing of it is unpleasant, and it is not made clear to parents that that is what they are doing, particularly not before joining. I do not agree at all that this is typical of most sixth forms, I think this is much more extreme, the school seems to me have a strong political motivation.

Wow that is a lot of extra study!

How is it going with practice for Saturday?

Not great here as there are 2 end of unit tests this week which have eaten time. But he did manage a couple of UKMT sample papers. Some of those questions have fiendish wording don’t they?!

Early afternoon. 11.45 arrival. What sort of score do you think they need? DS trialled a UKMT maths paper today and got 78% but I’m thinking that’s maybe not enough if we don’t meet any of the enhanced criteria?

Ooh thanks. That all sounds good. Sniggering about intelligence and being keen is bad form in my book too.