Rosendale/hotham/Brandelhow/Dundonald/grove Park schools

[wehappyfew]

We have narrowed down, but not very far, the areas in London we will move to. As our son is 3 school are a priority. If you know anything (good and bad) about these schools and the areas I would so appreciate a brain dump. We are finding it very hard to decide, especially because the least academically successful school, Rosendale, is nearer to friends... Thanks in advance

IMO the best of those 5 is Brandlehow. Results, Value Add, Ofsted are excellent, what's not to like? Not to mention it is part of the 100% Level 4's club this year, with 62%, Level 5's, one of the highest in London. This year's catchment was only 520m, so quite tight.

Wow! That is so impressive. I sometimes worry that a school with results that good are a hot house (not that they necessarily is a bad thing) but do they miss the nurture side of things?

Have you found the Ofsted data dashboard? If not it is useful.

Here

If you look at the 'Closing the Gap' tab you can see how 'disadvantaged' do compared to the less disadvantaged in the cohort. At Rosendale you can see that they actually do better in some subjects. The school wouldn't achieve this without meeting all pupils needs, be they learning or social/ emotional.

For some reason Brandlehow's 'closing the gap' data has not been submitted..

dashboard.ofsted.gov.uk/dash.php?urn=101001

As you can see, Brandlehow achieve their results even with the % of SEN/ School Action Plus pupils in the 2nd highest quintile, meaning something must be going right somewhere. Also the value added (actual teaching) score is much higher - 102.2 from Brandlehow, but only 101.1 from Rosendale, which IMO is the best figure to look at.