School Choice - in Bickley and in General

[TonyBlack2]

Straight in for my first post with quite a heavyweight question, sorry…

My wife and I have to make the decision tomorrow on which school to send our boy to in September.

We live in Chislehurst, and are choosing between Bickley Park Pre-prep private school and La Fontaine state primary school, and are absolutely stuck on how to choose.

My wife and I are both very academic, and both grew up where pretty much everyone went to state schools (as did we); me in the North East of England, and her in the South of France. In our case you just went to your local school.

We’ve gone in to do good degrees, and are now both senior management in banking, living in the “posh” commuter belt, and clueless about how to choose what’s best for our boy.

Any advice welcomed, both on the state / private choice, and on the particular schools. Both are walking distance, we liked both when we visited, and our boy has no special needs; he’s a normal, happy, relatively bright child who we want to be happy at school.

Just to add, we’ve not left it to the last minute to think about, we’ve been trying to decide for a while now.

How affordable is the private school for you? Any younger siblings to think about? Fee raises accounted for, extra curricular activities?

Do you have any plans for Secondary yet (looking at the Grammar schools, private, or how good the local comprehensive is for your address?)

What in particular attracts you to both schools?

The fees aren’t really an issue; we’re fortunate in that we’ve good careers in investment banking, so don’t have to make any economies to send him there.

He has a younger brother too who’ll likely follow him in two years.

From what we could gather from the visits both schools seem welcoming, with happy children and good facilities.

The prep school does have a few more sports facilities, including a pool, but both are similar. The state school has a French “flavour”, although the new head seems to have rowed back a little on the French side of things, which was one of the reasons that we were keen on it; my wife’s French and it seemed a good way to keep him in touch with that side of his culture.

I think that educationally the private school is the “safe” option, but I’m slightly hesitant because of the effect a top private school might have on him socially. The perfectly polite boy showing me around last week was asking me what I thought of the new Rolex Daytona, and telling me that his uncle has a McLaren. Neither of those are outrageous things to say round here, but it I’m honest it grated a bit. I’m not used to twelve year-olds who are familiar with these things.

Start in state and see how it goes. If you start in the private sector it is much harder to move into the state sector later.
If you don’t like the state school much, consider Eltham College at 7 plus (if you want to avoid the stress of 11 plus for your child).
If you like the state sector, then there are a lot of state grammars accessible from Chislehurst and there is the new Bullers Wood Boys School.

You say you both had a state education. Was is a selective or comprehensive state education? France is Lycee based so state grammar type? Are your expectations for your children that they should have an academic education? If so, are you prepared to tutor from Year 4/5 onwards?

There are some children who go to the state grammars after Bickley Park, but many will go to schools like Sevenoaks, Dulwich, Trinity, Tonbridge - independent secondary schools that they can catch the train to from Bickley/Chislehurst. Of course, bright state educated children can also go to these schools and are actually, increasingly doing so anyway. So I think state primary followed by strong independent secondary school is quite a thing now for high earners.

BTW my DS in state education is also obsessed with the recent increase in value of Rolex’s, sports cars, professional footballers as much as he is obsessed with Russian history currently, physics and coding - so I would not read too much into the child who showed you around. My DS is also really into chess and music and sports etc.

Hi TonyBlack2, we are also considering these schools wondering what choice you made and how it is going? Very interested to hear opinions on both schools from anyone else with experience. Thank you!

What is the situation with the change of head teacher at Bickley Park? They seem to have joint acting heads currently.

Bickley Park has a new head starting in September 2023
https://www.bickleyparkschool.co.uk/about-us/staff-governors/introduction-to-our-new-head

Hello, what was your decision then? We are considering La Fontaine or Bickley Primary School as well for our DS.