Help, need advice about Yerbury Primary

[SID2821]

Hi I have a 4 year old about to start primary in September. We have been offered a place at the much sought after Yerbury Primary School but I am having real second thoughts due to some very bad feedback I am getting about current problems with the change in head teacher and key members of staff leaving.

I am also concerned about the vibe I am getting with regards to the intake, is it all yummy mummies/daddies? Seems quite old fashioned?Will my child be the only one who goes to a local state school in Year 6?

My husband and I work in the technology sector and we see how important it is for employees to intersect with people from all backgrounds - the internet has torn down many social barriers and the people that flounder in our industry are the ones who can't cope socially with people from varying backgrounds. To succeed in our field you have got to be able to mix it up with all kinds of people. Unlike the more traditional professions like law, medicine or finance my contemporaries send their kids state - because it seems kind of retrograde to do otherwise. So top of my list for qualities in a primary school is diversity, I am not going to get that at Yerbury - am I?

I am hearing good things about Tufnell Park Primary and although I haven't visited it seems to be a very happy school with a much more diverse intake from what I can see from the school gates and web site.

Don't think we stand a hope in hell of getting into Grafton - it was my first choice and we are low down on the wait list.

Can anyone suggest any other schools?

In these times of insufficient school funding and lack of places I think I am being very socially responsible using an Independent school place.

Mwahahaha.

Fear not OP. Your child will be fine in your local school regardless of your perceived fears about the social class of his/her peers! My DH is a Primary HT in Islington and showed me the "Watchsted" data on Islington recently. Check it out on the Watchsted website, it is very encouraging and shows that schools with a high % of FSM and PP are performing really well.

Believe me CharlesRyder I think I speak for many when I say we are grateful to you for taking up a place in the independent sector.

Mrsgirond - you are preaching to the converted!

Yet I do a far more socially responsible job than you, teaching the children with the most complex social and emotional needs in a specialist class within in a deprived school, working my guts out to give every child a chance, because I genuinely believe in being part of the solution.

As far as I am concerned you are just talking the talk.

Well good for you - but what do you say to the parents of the children you teach that the institution that pays your salary is okay for their kids but not for yours?

Good, think its something like 94% of Islington primaries are good or outstanding. Go for it and follow your instinct.

I don't think it's ok for theirs. If I could half the class sizes, make time for properly coached sport every day, make sure wonderfully creative curriculum ideas didn't have to be abandoned because of lack of funds, build science labs, language labs, DT suites and staff them with specialists I would.

I can't do that, or the raft of other things that really could be better, all by myself, but I'm in there doing every damn thing I can.

What are you doing apart from gracing the school you have the social mobility to be able to choose with your child's presence?

Oh please. Please don't patronise me in that I "don't know the area". My post was simply saying there are many "socially representative" schools in very close vicinity, which you can easily get to, so instead of slagging off a school which happens to be advantaged (yet still above the UK average of children with FSM), just don't send your kids there maybe? (For the record, I do think Grafton is better than the Yerbury, I just find it a bit disingenuous that you are suggesting a school is somehow second class just because of its demographic. Maybe you should look at other figures, like the value add, which tell you how well the school is teaching their pupils).

CharlesRyder. Both of my daughters are in KS2 in a state Primary in Inner London. They have 2 hours of properly coached sport daily, play netball and tag Rugby competitively within the borough. My daughter competes at county level in athletics (all encouraged through school coach, not privately). They are both in very mixed classes of 30 in a crumbly Victorian school building but have outstanding teachers who have consistently inspired them with their learning across all subjects. A shiny new science lab means nothing if the teaching is dry and requires improvement. I am a DHT in a State Primary school by the way. By all means go private but don't berate the state system for those using it.

Gosh. 171 (now 144) in Islington with no offer at all?

That's seriously high in comparison to other LAs.

So only people who work in the state sector with the deprived can discuss why they believe it is right and desirable to live in a society that educates it's children together because that would be a good way of getting all the things you desire for the children you teach.

But really I don't think you have anything more useful to tell me about specific schools in Islington and their intake. In fact not sure why you added to thread rather than put down some irritating person (me) who dared to ask some questions about the desirability of more exclusive schools so you could reassure yourself about the value of a private education in an ever changing world and job market.

Don't worry Charles take a look at the Sutton Trust and you will see that all the top jobs in law, politics, medicine are still overly represented by privately educated white men & sleep easy.

Mrsgirond, you're not reading the thread properly. No one is berating the state system and/or Islington primaries, they're amused bemused by the OP wanting to reject an outstanding school she's been offered because she considers the demographic too middle class, even though as has been pointed out several times it has a high proportion of FSM etc.

OP I am not deliberately antagonising you, but as I have already pointed out, the School Context Section on the Ofsted Data Dashboard for Yerbury dashboard.ofsted.gov.uk/dash.php?urn=100429 actually shows 25% of last year's Year 6 on the Pupil Premium - that is a quarter of the cohort, and is actually rather high, and the statistics for the whole school is in the average quintile compared to the rest of the UK.

Yes you did irritate me- by the tone of your OP. All those stuffy old lawyers and doctors send their kids to private schools- so retro. I'm rich enough to do that too, but in my industry we are all just way too cool. Can anyone help me find a really bohemian school so my friends will think I'm up with the zeitgeist?

You are right, other than holding a mirror up to how ridiculous that is I have nothing to add, so I will back out now.

I hope you find the school that is right for your child not your work friends.

Also, Ofsted don't give Outstandings because of the intake, they give them for inspiring teaching, excellent leadership and management, outcomes for students in relation to their starting points etc.

I was going to sum this thread up, but CharlesRyder already did it perfectly.

I think that last post has said way more about you than me Charles but thank you no one has ever called me hip before. And if hip means questioning the status quo & dreaming of a better less divisive education system then yes I stand accused.

Yes, probably wasn't paying too much attention (a bit distracted by the Arsenal!!). Will bow out. Just wanted to make the point that actually Islington primaries compare very favourably to the national picture and that schools on the whole in Islington do very well indeed with very mixed intakes. Good luck OP with whatever you decide.

This is the most hilarious thread I have seen on here since that one about is Westminster School the best school in the universe. Fwiw I know some people with children at the school and then not remotely "yummy ", or middle-class even though obviously they're a small number so not representative.

OP, maybe you should move to somewhere like Stonebridge Park, if you choose to live in middle-class catchment you are obviously going to be assigned a middle class school.

@meditrina

There is, in Islington, according to admissions, a place for every applicant NOW. 144 children do not know what that place will be yet, (and that is stressful) but they will get one.

Which schools currently have vacancies?

Of course all applicants must be found places. That is the law.

I think Islington must be using few weasel words. If they have places, (unless they are more than 45 mins or so travelling time), then they should be offered immediately to applicants who did not secure any of their preferences. Unless every school in which these current 144 vacancies are both all undersubscibed and all beyond a reasonable travelling time fom ll placeless applicants, then something is being misunderstood or misrepresented at some point.

If Islington is really sitting on vacancies when there are applicants with no places, then this might be territory for complaint to LGO.

@meditrina

Oh by all means complain to the LGO.

I can only tell you how Islington do it, which is they try to get people offers by the end of the process, for one of their preferences. And it is a process, because people for various reasons decline offers, allowing that place to be reoffered, or they get a second offer for a higher preference and decide to relinquish their first offer, or their circumstances change before September - a job move to another city that sort of thing. And indeed there are a small number who are on the waiting list for a private school, and who get that offer and relinquish the state school offers.

So for example, on offer day 60 places were offered at Yerbury. Some of those offers will be declined. Say, as Yerbury gets a lot of first preferences, and a lot of siblings, that it is two offers that are declined. They will be reoffered which means that all though Yerbury only has 60 places, there will have been at least 62 offers. in fact I know of an in demand primary last year where offers got down to number 13 on the waiting list, so that school, to fill 60 places made 73 offers BY THE END OF THE PROCESS.

I would have no locus for a complaint to the LGO. But any one of the parents with no place would have, because it is wrong to be holding back places which could be offered.

Yes, we all know it's a process and it takes time to manage the shake down. But that is not an excuse for what sounds like maladministration (not offering vacancies as soon as they are identified). And that is where I suspect a misunderstanding has crept in, for it is so very unlikely that they are withholding extant places.

It is much more likely that they do not have places right now and will be looking to create them - more bulge classes may well be the only option at this stage in the round as all LEAs are obliged to find places for all applicants. But that's the equivalent of 4 or 5 new classes. A heck of a lot as 144 is a very high shortfall.

The real solution has to be more schools.