Finchley Catholic High

[sonandmum]

Hello There,
Can anyone tell me if they have any knowledge of Finchley Catholic High secondary school in Woodside Park. I am basically in turmoil at the moment as living in WEst Hampstead and actually love it but my son is due to start secondary school next Sept and can't find a decent school in this area (Camden borough). Seriously thinking about moving to borough of Barnet as schools seem to be better and can see FCH received good reviews but just don't know anyone that has children or know of children that attend. Any advice would be much :) :)

[NL3]

Yes I do. I really liked her, very warm and enthusiastic, relaxed, and appears competant. Lots of other parents I know were also impressed and only went to the open evening to have a look at her (all have other DCs at the school). The feedback from the students is good too - she has spoken at their assemblies I think - she seems very "human" apparently. Obviously the proof of the pudding will be in her performance but the first impressions are good.

[quintet]

Great - thanks for the feedback NL3!
My DS needs a little pushing iyknwim and so the focus on academics that the previous head had was quite important to us. Hopefully we'll have a net gain if she keeps the focus but has a more "human" approach.

[NL3]

Definitely a "more of the same approach" - the only difference for the new intake appears to be that they will move classes at the end of the Autumn term (not sure what is in place at the moment - DS is further ahead in the school and missed out on the CAT testing in Y7 - although he has benefited from the early GCSE start in Science, Maths and English). She also focussed on the children who are not getting 5A*-C and seems to be very interested in attendance and punctuality.

[sonandmum]

Patymum,I too loved FCH!!

Not quite sure where above information has been taken from but FCH GCSE results were fantastic, if you check out the league they came almost top in Barnet (apart from QE and Mill Hill County) and if you are judging by academic success they also had better results than Fortismere!!!

I'm not too sure about the ethos etc for Fortismere, but from friends who have children in the school have heard very mixed reviews.

FCH whilst is traditional in many senses ie uniform, traditional values, the school is extremely modern. You only have to look at the performing arts side or the music, or sports. I'm a writer, so obviously creativity is very important to me, as well as academic results and personally i think the school looks great.

The children are respectful and appear to have very nice, honest relationships with the teachers and the kids appear buzzing with energy and seem really happy which to me is half the battle.

As for location, that is taken into account if they are over subscribed but i would imagine 2 miles should be okay (i hope)! Going by what you said you should be fine.

I would advise to defo go and see Fortismere to compare, i'm visiting several schools to make sure i make the right choice but good luck!

[norflondoner]

Be very careful when comparing schools GCSE results.
Has anyone asked FCH what their pure GCSE results are? ie after stripping out all the BTEC equivalents.

Also, look at the list of GCSE subjects that boys study there and compare very carefully with the other schools you are looking at. Are they traditional and academic subjects or do they include subjects such as Construction, Media Studies etc....

[sonandmum]

All of this i checked out some time ago. I looked into how they defined overall grades etc and received single GCSE results for English, Maths, science etc and made sure that results weren't BTEC etc, hence being very pleased. They have a huge range of subjects to study one example of such is Astronomy!! As for media studies i thoughts most schools taught it now? FCH certainly does.

Northlondoner do you have personal experience with FCH. As i'm really confused as to where all of this information has come from, especially as most of it has been negative. I'm just wondering....it's a stressful time finding a suitable school and need to know what's what etc Thanks

[NL3]

Sonandmum
2/3 of the boys do business studies
2/3 of the boys do ICT
1/3 of the boys do PE
All of the boys do RS

Regardless of whether they are BTEC or not (and unless you've specifically checked with the school on this point you will not be able to tell from their published results as they do not separate them out) these are hardly the most challenging or well-received GCSEs available. With a bit of a push on maths and english it's not difficult to see how they are achieving such high scores.

That is not to say it is a bad school, because it's not but norflondoner's point checking the results closely is well made and applies to all schools - not just FCH.

[norflondoner]

Hi sonandmum, I hope I don't come over as negative about fch. Its a good school and I think I said that before. I have friends with DS there and they are all happy
However I do have direct experience (in a professional capacity) with the ways in which schools manipulate their exam results to show themselves in the best light. This is understandable but its not transparent to parents and results in comparisons being made which are not on a like for like basis. I do have a problem with that.

[sonandmum]

Hi there, thank you for the above replies and it's really shocking that many schools use this form of manipulation. However from what i understand neither of you have any reason to believe that FCH does any such thing? I talked at length with teachers at the school about individual subject results, which put my mind at rest.
NL3, i'm a little confused as to the above statistics and what they are supposed to be showing me? I am interested so if you could let me know that would be helpful, many thanks.