Graveney - Renting in catchment for admissions purposes

[StockwellLiving]

I am thinking about renting for a 12 month period or so from this summer to cover up to beginning of Y7 for DD in Sept 2013. And then moving back out.

I know (most people think) renting is wrong (and often discussed here). I actually also think its wrong, but I also know others do it (and not sure why we should be the only one not "playing the game", and I do want to avoid my local catchment school (have no religion, no money (for indies), average DD with no chance of her passing selection tests).

I am not starting this thread to get into the rights and wrongs of it - I only want to ask the very specific question: Do "renters" get caught and are places actually withdrawn?

I am asking about Graveney, not in general. I know from threads on MN that some LAs do try and look into short-term renting. But somehow I think that this particular school and this particular LA don't really care (happy to have aspirational middle classes moving into catchment) ...... so do they look into whether the rental is permanent or not, whether the renters have an owned (proper) home (rented out for a year)

Just wondering as it seems its increasingly popular to do this ....

Wow ? seem to have provoked a reaction there.

twoterrors - thanks, yes the views I?m expressing I think underlie a lot of aspirational parents (MNers) desires to get out of what they see as undesirable schools. Everyone knows results are more or less a product of intake. (Thanks for agreeing I didn?t disparage anyone or their children.)

animula (post of 11.34) not sure where I disparaged anyone. None intended. Certainly not your children who I clearly don?t know, but who I am clearly happy with my DCs to mix with if they got to Graveney. The (primary) school I was describing (very very mixed; MCs in a minority) was the excellent one my DCs go to and the secondary I describe is one I wish them to avoid. As do most MNers (evidence how often on these threads they are recommended )

twoterrors got it it right: I just don?t want my DCs to be in a versy small minority.

Shagmundfreud I just want my dd to go to a school which isn't disproportionately full of very disadvantaged teenagers

Exactly. And ?disproportionately? is the important word.

want them to be in schools where they ALSO have very bright and ambitious children from families who hugely value education.

Likewise agree. Point I?m trying to make ?

animula (post of 16:37) Wow. No, really WOW. I didn?t know I could insert so many sub-texts in something I wrote so quickly. I must have a very rich literary minds.

I won?t go to town: You focus on the social reasons (and of course skiing is not that important :)), but ignore that I first said educational reasons (in the text you quote).

Not frightened of anything : except child being in too small a minority socially (only child who DOES go skiing - or riding or whatever) or academically (only child ? or one of only a minority - who does have educational aspirations foisted upon them by DPs (perfectly accept that this is nothing to do with wealth, class or colour))

Thanks though for ?the compliment and the justice of reading? my post, and helping me understand myself. I never knew I was racist and classist. Or nasty.

animula - skiiing holidays may be expensive, but theatre need not be. Tickets for Antigone or Timon of Athens at the National Theatre are from £12 for adults and £5 for 16-25-year-olds. You can see the RSC's production of Twelfth Night at the Roundhouse for £12.

I agree animula. My very MC white British DCs go to a very non-MC very mixed primary school. They have heaps of friends with aspirational parents from all sorts of cultural backgrounds. Their aspirations are not expressed by going to theatre and ski trips, but they are expressed by going to libraries and free museums, and, in some cases, by doing a load of extra-curricular homework.

The genuine problem preventing us from choosing our (actually rather good) local comp is that all these aspirational local parents are avoiding it by whatever means necessary. Literally none of the parents whose values I share will be going there.

Money is a separate issue. I don't mind my DC being in a small ethnic minority at school as long as everyone else is in a small minority as well (local schools are a mix of roughly ten groups and they seem to make friends based on interests and personality not background). But when it comes to money, it can be uncomfortable being a long way outside the norm, and what is a minor social awkwardness at primary can lead to real problems at secondary (we don't go skiing, but things like living in a house with a garden, and speaking in a "posh" BBC accent are difficult to conceal). It's not the end of the world though, and on its own it wouldn't stop us choosing the local comp.

It's just that there are so many assumptions - and I am talking about MN broadly here..
Only one child in DS's class has, as far as I know, gone ski-ing, and he is from a black british working class family.
Race is not automatically conflatable with class or any level of advantage.
Neither is aspiration.
I talk with black parents who are terrified of what secondary school could bring, because of all the children who could be disadvantaged by not meeting their potential in secondary school or going off the rails black boys are maybe the most vulnerable. They are the group most likely to be victims of crime, most likely to be unemployed, most likely to under-achieve. And often most feared as classmates. Just by being listed as a statistic on the school roll - not because of who they are intrinsically.

DS is the only asian kid in his class, one of about 2 or 3 in the school - makes no difference because across every class and race in his class there are some kids doing well. And amongst the less focussed, less enagaged, troublesome quota there is also a wide diversity of background incl white mc.

I absolutely understand parents wanting there to be kids with the same educational values as thier own. And teachers who will support high achieving kids to do their thing whatever else everyone else is doing. Every other categorisation is pretty much irrelevant.

Animula, thank you for explaining exactly what you meant. I agree with where you and Blu are coming from, particularly Blu's last line, but I read that bit of the OP's post somewhat differently: SP doesn't want her child in a minority of one (she may be wrong to be worried about that, although it probably depends on the school, but I don't think that concern makes her racist); and, separately, she wants some aspiration and ambition around her child (again, she may be wrong that there is little in her local school but I don't think wanting some is unreasonable). I really don't think she was conflating race/class with aspiration.

And I agree: the most fearful parents I have met are black parents of boys.

I think Dunraven runs annual ski trips doesn't it? So doing its best to ensure diversity on the ski slopes too?

"My very MC white British DCs go to a very non-MC very mixed primary school."

And so do mine. (well, my kids aren't white, but whatever). Their school is 80% non-white and there are many disadvantaged children there.

However, there are also the children of university lecturers, teachers, lawyers, bankers at this school.

The problem is when you get to the year 4, and then in our area what happens is this.

Anyone who has money pays out shed loads for 11+ tutoring for the last two years of primary in hope of getting their children into the local grammars.

Or they remortgage the house and send them private for the last two years to improve their chance of getting into a selective school at the age of 11.

Or they up sticks and move to the south of the borough which is more expensive and where the intake for schools is much more m/c.

Or they apply for church schools. There are two or three fantastic church schools in the south of the borough and many children from my dc's schools go to these. As many of the (mostly African and West Indian) parents at the school are devout members of evangelical churches this is a viable option for them.

And those (like mine) who don't have the option of doing this go to the local comprehensive, whose intake is massively, disproportionately deprived, and where the social environment is incredibly tough and scary. There is a massive problem with gangs in my area and the school has not been immune from the problems these bring.

These schools are very, very hard places to learn and to teach. The children keep their heads down and try not to attract attention to themselves. My dd was sexually harrassed (verbally) in the most disgusting way within weeks of starting in year 7.

As a naturally articulate and reasonably bright middle class kid she was allowed to get away with MURDER academically and did no work through the whole of year 8. Because she was in class with her hand up and was able to talk her way out of trouble. But her written work was non-existent and nobody seemed particularly bothered by it. As long as she was there and joining in.......

Have a look at Stockwell Park's stats

More than half the intake are middle or high attainers , with middle attainers being the biggest group - although maybe this is always so statistically? And higherst attainers is the smallest group - but overall the stats for students achieving 5 or more A-C GCSE grades inc maths and english is between 68% and 70% every year for the last 3 years. Which I not bad at all, I think?

And yet it is, I would say, a school many Lambeth parents would put low on their list of choices and avoid if possible. I feel lucky and maybe complacent because I have what I consider to be a good choice, and there are schools I would feel much less happy about. Don''t know what I would do if Stockwell Park was my local school and none of my parent friends were choosing it - it does take a strong sense of objective detatchment to separate out reputation, peer influence and actual facts. The school has within it's catchment some of the most difficult areas for gang actiity - but of course those are the young people who are not AT school, or who have been removed to PRUs etc, usually!

It has 58% on FSM .

That is fascinating - but its reputation has improved greatly in the last five years, despite I think taking a bit of a fall when the stats including English and Maths were published, and people are much more likely to consider it now if they have (or think they have) a choice. I have heard really good things about it.

The stats are good - but if I have read rightly, out of 94 high and middle attainers, only 9 entered the subjects that would make up the ebacc (none from the low attainer group but maybe that is to be expected). Now I know it is an arbitrary measure - but 9 (5%) in an entire year group doing english, maths, science, a language and a humanity (albeit arbitrarily defined) - what were the others all doing? Preumably not all RS - does this say something about the aspirations of the school?

I don't know - I think schools have been slow to catch up on measuring / doing the EB? I haven't got to grips with this EB business yet!

I had a look at Lilian Baylis - even their GCSE A-C inc Eng and Maths are only 0.1% below the national average, and that is a school derided publicly by some government minister, if I remember rightly.

All Lambeth schools seem to do v well aganst national averages, and from what I have seen the behaviour in schools has improved no end. My secondary school teacher friend says that schools where chaos reined in the 1980s just wouldn't happen now - a superhead would be put in etc. The new schools in Lambeth have stringent discipline structures, some have compulsory long days with extra curricular activities and homework until 5pm, etc.

Reputation lingers a long time.

I too have heard that Stockwell Park has been improving like mad.

Dunraven had a v bad reputation a generation ago.

Mmmm, schools don't measure the EB though or "do it" - it is just a measure of the children doing those subjects from those five academic groups. Yes, I am sure they will change their policies, but I do wonder where such low figures are coming from. If they are taking so many bright and average kids, why are almost none doing a fairly standard combination of academic subjects (after all GCSEs are not meant to be the preserve of the brightest - they replaced O levels and CSEs)?

It was Lilian Bayliss - but he was an idiot.

I know about the improvement in standards, and you can tell just from being out and about. It is striking. Lambeth - the polite borough.

Stockwell Park appears to be an excellent school in many years. But the more clued-up parents of black boys just want them out of the area, by whatever means necessary - they see it, with some reason, as a matter of life and death. And that fear spreads.

Durand primary, practically next door to SP, wants to build a weekly boarding school in Surrey in order to keep its boys away from SP.

Is that about the school, or the estate, do you think?
Evelyn Grace Academy is keeping kids in school til tea time to cut down the amount of time they may otherwise spend in the proximity of at-risk behaviour on nearby estates.

Really good people, good ordinary famlilies and fabulous young people make great communities on those estates, but they have all this to deal with.

Just to go back to Graveney for a moment- the school will be able to find out quite easily who moved house while they were in year 7 , and where from and to, so anyone who really wanted to find out how much of a problem this is could always ask them for numbers. Probably more reliable than the rumour mill. Could be massive, could be tiny- but it is knowable.

The new Registrar at Graveney used to be the Registrar at Sutton Grammar School and is very, very helpful so she would probably give you these figures if you ask her nicely!

Oh I'm sure it's the estates and the gangs, not the school Blu.

I'm betting ten jammy dodgers that she won't give out that information......

Well if you ask her precise information she might give it - she might give figures about who has moved out of Borough/catchment....and trends....

Shy bairns get nowt...you can but ask ;0

I think Stockwell Park and Lilian Bayliss are both massively on the up.:) I have worked obliquely with both quite recently and was very impressed. The staff I came into contact with were very caring and on the ball. Those results are great too. Better than some of the schools mentioned as desirable on this thread.

I am not at all surprised that Wandsworth BC seem to be the only authority (according to the experts up thread) with such wooly wording in their policies and who don't actually seem to care about this sort of practice. Having spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of years trying to work 'in partnership' with Wandsworth on a project in a disadvantaged, I can say with some confidence that this is not a council that prioritises these groups. Keeping the families in million pound homes (i.e. those also able to short-term rent in high-cost areas) happy to the detriment of everyone else is precisely their modus operandi. I hope someone from the Council reads this thread and begins to appreciate what the majority opinion about these practices is.

OP - Chestnut Grove is definitely worth looking at. I know some people (who meet all of your acceptability criteria ) who are very happy with it. It is a much improved school.

Lilian Bayliss has had a lot of help to improve, and from people who are really doing it with a desire just to see kids get a better education.

Go for it Twoterrors! I'd do it myself out of sheer curiosity but don't have a shred of a reason for enquiring-live far too far away to even think about considering it. Do know people with kids there though (legit!)

I'm glad to hear Stockwell Park is improving - DH (and most of my friends) went there in the 80's and frankly I don't think it could have got much worse. It was scary and bloody abysmal. Having said that, as Blu said, Dunraven had a similar (deserved as I understand) reputation at the time. My DSs are there now and I couldn't be happier.

Someone mentioned Skiing trips? They do do one every year (just under £800 for a week) and every year it gets spread out amongst a couple of year groups because they can't fill the places from just one -both DS1 (yr9) and DS2 (Yr7) could have gone together this year, if I'd sold DD to pay for it... It's way way out of our financial league.

The more I read this thread, the more I can't help wondering if in fact the real issue is actually one of race as opposed to wanting a better 'educational environment for your kids.

The huge number of stereotypes and assumptions littered throughout these posts, is simply astonishing.

Here are a few facts:

1. Overall, pupils of Indian and Chinese origin, out-performe both the average and the scores of white pupils.

1. Not all blacks are 'running for their lives' to avoid gang culture. Many, just like MC MNetters, simply want a decent education for their kids for decent educations sake. You only have to look at the intakes in private schools such as Whitgift and Trininty and something like 20% of the intake at Dulwich College as evidence of that.

1. The lowest academic achievers as we speak is amongst the white working classes.

1. Check out Nubian Ski and Ski Fest - two ski groups with predominately black members. Although, I doubt the OP had that knowledge when she made the comment. The assumption, I suspect was that is was a white MC pursuit only and the sheer mention of it makes me rather uncomfortable TBH. Is it that the OP really wants is a school where the majority intake is white MC as opposed to what I originally thought, which was simply an environment conducive with learning? I sincerely hope that I'm wrong however and that her true concern was indeed one of academic achievements, REGARDLESS, of the colour of one's skin.

1. Another sensitive area worth considering is that extensive research in Birmingham showed pupils at the starting age of 5, of African-Caribbean decent were doing better than the average white pupil. Heaven knows what is happening in the average state school that eventually impacts those figures.

Nonetheless, in all of this, I still respect the OP for her honesty in the first instance. More so in fact, for the other buried issues that have raised their ugly heads in the process.