Shirley high croydon

[alisonmb7]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone can tell me what the entrance exam to Shirley high is like? And how competitive it is? Is it a series of exam papers... Verbal reasoning etc? My daughter is pretty bright, but hard to say really where she is on a national level.

I'm not massively keen on force feeding exams, I remember it from my youth, but am in that position that many people find themselves in where they want to do their best for their child.

I don't think I'm in the catchment for Shirley high and if get her in my son will follow automatically. Would she be happy in any other school? Probably, she's not inja great primary but she loves it, but I'm just looking for the big picture if anyone can supply it? Thank you!

Give me a break, sandyballs, by that reckoning all of the Catholic secondaries should be doing well!

Don't you know the Coloma trick about attaching a letter to your reference? It's always worth mentioning which primary your child is at.

But Sandy Balls is correct. Primary RC schools do very well as far as league results go. I don't know the trick about attaching a letter - Coloma's policy states baptism, mass attendance (verified by the parish priest). Allocated via points - a small proportion in what you and your DD does for the parish. They apparently have 137 feeder schools because they don't operate feeder schools within their policy.

Please point me to the evidence that RC primary schools in Croydon do much, much better than the rest.

They don't. Look at the league table results: all the schools are close together and faith and secular schools are mixed together, with none of the schools being all that far apart. Some RC schools have very good results, so do some secular schools. Others less so.

Downto - you're right - the schools that do the best are those in the more affluent south of the borough - no doubt secondary the same. Coloma has published their new admission policy for 2013. Baptism is divided into 2 parts - under 6 months and over 6 months so potentially someone could have their child baptised at the age of 10 which would probably ensure them a place in an outstanding school. I don't know how that works about commitment to the faith though!

In any case I am not criticising Coloma for its academic results - far from it!

I am questioning whether being very good at running a Catholic, all girls, academic school means you will automatically be great at running a mixed, secular, rough and troubled school.

She also runs a school in Uganda if we are talking about Mrs M