SPGS vs NLCS

[Sharonpae]

Hi all
If your daughtee got into both schools excluding location which one would you choose?

pasternak Top state schools like HBS will generally be attended by the children of many influential and pushy people who will want to avoid paying £20k+ annually per child for a private school. And so they would not tolerate it being underfunded.

Look to be fair, SPGS is generally a very good school. I want to sincerely apologise if I gave the impression I was doing it down with some of my comments, that were, on reflection, crude, unprofessional, and insensitive. I want to really apologise if I've offended anyone.

To be honest, if I had daughters, I wouldn't rule out SPGS. In my case, I live far closer to it than either HBS or Tiffin, in fact only 30 minutes by bus and then on foot. However, I wouldn't make it my first choice as £26k a year per daughter is a lot of money even for someone on a very good income.

Wayland, it's been extensively reported in the press that Henrietta Barnet has been underfunded and are struggling to the the extent that they have dropped A Levels and are begging parents for funds. They issued a public statement in March saying they could no longer maintain the school buildings.

Xiaoxiong

Could you provide me with a link to this report? I'd like to see it. Sorry to be of inconvenience.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/parents-asked-to-pay-for-teachers-salaries-and-school-repairs-x5mf0nhsj

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/may-betrays-beloved-grammar-schools-0c8j2bwjg

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/schools-ask-parents-money-staff-14090520

Statement from HBS about no longer maintaining the buildings quoted in the first Times and also in the Mirror article.

Xiaoxiong

It doesn't really surprise me that they had to stop A-levels, as a sixth form needs at least several hundred students to be viable. Probably SPGS expanding its sixth form a few years ago cherry-picked many of them out.

In addition, many institutions, both in the state and private sectors, have simply been incredibly badly run in the past ten years, as has the entire country by this government.

Haha, you literally have no idea what you are talking about, Wayland. But hey ho, as long as everything must be the fault of SPGS it's all good even if most of it is either deliberate lies or wilful ignorance.

Are you referring to the recent building expansion?

Glaciferous

Here is their new sixth form building:

www.8build.co.uk/project/brook-green-hammersmith/

And I was not blaming them for attracting students from other schools. The fact that girls from other schools want to go to SPGS shows that it's popular. This is a statement in the school's favour.

I said that probably SPGS expanding its sixth form a few years ago attracted students from other schools to go there. I did not make it a statement of fact.

You seem to be the one trying to troll me. If so, I've taken the bait.

You accuse me of lying. But I seem to remember that on another thread, you posted about how you were generally badly behaved at the school and how you weren't punished in any way for it.

This seems hard to believe given how strict SPGS generally is. May I ask when you were there?

The building was expanded, not the size of the sixth form. I find it really hard to believe that a new senior school common room and some humanities classrooms would attract so many students from HBS that their sixth form provision is adversely affected.

I don't think SPGS is at all strict, actually, compared to lots of other schools. On what do you base that assertion?

I mean, surely you can't tell how strict a school is from walking past a few times?!

OK, here are just some of the things you have said on this one thread (there are others containing just as many falsehoods promoted by you and disagreed with by parents across the boards which people can search for if they wish). Not one actual parent or Paulina so far has agreed with you and many have told you that you are wrong.

SPGS is just a comprehensive for rich girls nowadays. Not committed to academic rigour the way it used to be.
Demonstrably untrue and disagreed with by all the parents who have engaged with you.

it won't be possible for them to tailor their academic regime to only the very most able as they did in the past
Demonstrably untrue, given the type of work my daughter is bringing home and not borne out by results.

a school that has to cater to a wide range of abilities
It doesn’t. A school with a wide range of abilities would not be able to get the results it does, no matter the excellence of the teaching or pressure applied by either teachers or parents. If it was, lots of actual comprehensives teaching a wide range of abilities (many of which are excellent schools with excellent teachers) would be getting similar results.

I know more about the schools in question than most others
Demonstrably untrue given the ridiculous things you keep saying and the fact that parents at the school and people who went there keep disagreeing with you.

Probably SPGS expanding its sixth form a few years ago cherry-picked many of them out.
SPGS has not expanded its sixth form provision, only the building it is housed in.

Either you are deliberately lying or you have not availed yourself of any of the facts and so have decided to be wilfully ignorant and keep on making groundless assertions even when confronted with the truth. It is really quite unpleasant to see.

Oh yes and how strict SPGS generally is.
Not true in the past for me, and not true now for my daughter. It's always been a fairly liberal kind of place in my experience.

Plus, if you are doubting that I was there, @FlumePlume has a way of checking I am who I say I am if she wants to.

Glaciferous

Let me answer your points.

The building was expanded, not the size of the sixth form.

That is a new building that wasn't there before, not an expansion to an existing building. In addition to this new building, existing buildings, such as the Celia Johnson building, were expanded.

I find it really hard to believe that a new senior school common room and some humanities classrooms would attract so many students from HBS that their sixth form provision is adversely affected.

I did not say they had attracted many students from HBS, only enough to possibly tip the balance for HBS's sixth form to be viable. And again, it was just a suggestion. I did not state this as a fact.

And SPGS haven't just built "a new senior school common room and some humanities classrooms". You claim to have a daughter at the school and yet you seem to be ignorant of the school's considerable expansion over the past twenty years. See the following report:

spgs.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/February-exhibition-boards.pdf

I don't think SPGS is at all strict, actually, compared to lots of other schools. On what do you base that assertion?

How can you qualify this? Did you go to any other schools?

I mean, surely you can't tell how strict a school is from walking past a few times?!

I knew girls who were at the school. From what they told me, I got the impression they were expected to be very disciplined about their work and that the school was very intolerant of any lazyness or disruptive behaviour. This seemed far stricter than any of the schools I had been to.

Look, I do admit that some of what I said earlier was an oversimplistic generalisation, such as my use of the term "comprehensive". Some will have found this confusing and so I take it back.

Also, I asked you when you went to the school. You haven't answered this question.

Why should I? However, it was under one of the better known former high mistresses whose name you misspelt on another thread.

Yes, I know it is a new building and there are some other new buildings since I was there too. I have actually seen them and been inside them, unlike you. The garden building contains a senior common room and (I think) humanities classrooms.

You clearly implied that SPGS were taking lots more girls at senior school (VII and VIII form which would be called sixth form in other schools) thus leading to the collapse at another school of their sixth form provision. This is clearly nuts on a number of levels, and also completely inaccurate.

Basically, you are talking utter nonsense and I am only engaging because I don't want anyone to find this thread in the future and believe your ridiculous and baseless assertions.

Glaciferous

This is just a pointless ramble and we're not getting anywhere.

You don't answer even my simplest of questions. You just drift into saying that I speak nonsense when I've provided links in my posts.

For example, how can you only think the new building contains humanities classrooms if you've actually been there. Wouldn't you know for sure? In fact, it's actually a Geography department with some history classrooms on the first floor.

@Wayland you sound really random. Your comments look like very smart borderline trolling. So is this your own way of saying that Glaciferous was right, or you are just being smug that you have more detail about this pointless piece of info, for all general intent and purposes of the conversation?

Apart from digging and picking up on random points and generating pointless and endless requests for clarification (all of this across different and current, live and old threads by the way) which actually digress for your original points or any point that anyone would like to make... and to paraphrase your words in your last post...

...please do tell us what do YOU actually know for sure?

What is your agenda? what is your story?

Or are you just having fun in this virtual world that allows you to express yourself and vent frustrations and life views more freely?

Geography and history are humanities. You sound a bit nuts, tbh. Pleased you have withdrawn some of your unfounded and unpleasant comments.

Hello, let me explain myself as best as I can:

I certainly didn't join this forum to get into feuds with people. I thought I could give some constructive suggestions regarding various topics. However, I tend to tell people how it is rather than what they want to hear. I try to manage people's expectations, and this has generally made me unpopular.

Undoubtedly, many of my own suggestions regarding various topics will have been based on anecdotes and hearsay, rather than on quantifiable facts or statistics. But then, who on this forum actually uses hard, verifiable statistics to back up their arguments?

I do admit that I have myself been unprofessional and even provocative at times. I've given descriptions are that oversimplistic, trying to explain something that is highly complicated with just one or two sentences. This has often been taken out of context and misinterpreted.

Some people on this forum are very sensitive and tend to take things rather personally.

This is particularly the case with private schools or tutoring. In particular, I think people don't like to be told they are wasting money on expensive private schools or tutoring for their children. When, for example, they've already spent £10,000s on a particular school, this is understandable.

I want to again apologise for any offence or misunderstanding I have caused.

Regards,

Wayland

I tend to tell people how it is

You have literally just told us a bunch of things that aren't true!

In particular, I think people don't like to be told they are wasting money on expensive private schools or tutoring for their children. When, for example, they've already spent £10,000s on a particular school, this is understandable.

But you don't know what they are spending the money on! For instance, one of the things that swung the decision for me was that I specifically wanted a particular curriculum feature that I knew my daughter would love and which is not available in the state sector even at schools like Tiffin (which my daughter got into so she might possibly have gone there if she'd been a different kind of person). There were a number of other things, of course, but you can't really know my motivations or anyone else's who has sent their daughters there as you haven't show any interest in anyone else's opinions or experiences.

I agree that tutoring is generally not a good idea unless for a specific and short-lived purpose.

Thanks for the apology but I think the best course of action would be to just stick to posting about things you actually do know about. That way people would likely be welcoming and friendly instead of cross and shouty.

*shown

Glaciferous

I've already apologised, admitting significant fault and error on my part. Why can't we just leave it now and move on? Although, I will take on board what you have said.

Do you enjoy discussions/arguments? If so, I'm happy to discuss schools and tutoring with you if you so wish. But could we please just avoid endless flaming and wrangling.

@wayland, funny you should ask to stop the flaming 🤣