Prendergast Hilly Fields or St. Dunstan's

[enyaheadress]

Hello, i am trying to choose between spending every last penny on St Dunstan's in Catford or sending my daughter to Prendergast Hilly Fields College. I am hoping my second daughter will go to one of the schools in two years time. I just wonder what the experience of other parents is of these two schools especially parents with dyslexic children. Any help or advice is appreciated.

Enya, it's been some years since my daughter attended Prendergast but it still has a very good reputation locally. They have a long record of supporting children with dyslexia, as I recall a friend of mine talking about how good they were with her daughter who was only diagnosed when she started there. The girl in question would be well up in her 20s now.

I must say, if I had a school as good as Prendergast that both my children could attend, I would need a very pressing reason indeed to pay fees instead.

Have you visited both of the schools and do you live in the Prendergast catchment area? If your dd's are musical and live out of catchment, they admit 10% on musical aptitude, but it is v competitive.

I agree with Mimsy. Prendergast Hilly Fields has very good results and certainly does not feel like your 'bog-standard' comprehensive. It's just had a lot of money spent on new buildings at the lower site and the top site has also been totally refurbished. It's a livery company school and the Leathersellers have been very generous with time and money.

St Dunstan's I don't really know about but it's not particularly high-ranking amongst the local independent schools.

If Prendergast is a realistic option for you, I'd jump at it.

Prendergast Hilly Fields is a great school - i know lots of happy, well achieving children there and consequently happy and satisfied parents.

I do wish people, who have no direct experience of them, would stop using "bog standard" to describe our comprehensive schools; Schools that many of our children attend. Schools that great outcomes with children from a variety of starting points. If bog standard means that all children are welcomed, valued and educated to reach their maximum potential - whether that is 12 A* or 1 - then long live the bog standard.

It really is an overused term in mumsnet land.

Thank you for all your replies. It was my first post on mumsnet and I am still getting the hang of it!! An update, she was given a place at both schools. My husband and I both went to private schools. He went to Dulwich and I went abroad. For me it is the broad education offered by St. D and the interference by Education Secretaries and cuts to education that have me worried...still not decided yet.

Congratulations.

Decide quickly...there's some poor family on the Hilly Fields waiting list biting their nails!

Of those two, I'd go for PHFC.

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Oops - meant to say, if you decide on St D then tell Lewisham ASAP so that your daughter's place can go to someone else.

Of those two options, PHFC. Prendergast has been providing a fantastic education for girls since 1890. I went there when it was a grammar and its reputation has, if anything, grown further in recent years.