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Secondary education

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Original poster

Secondary schools in SE14/4 - Haberdashers or Prendergast?

9 replies

SarfEast1cated · 01/04/2016 18:20

Hi there, we have the option of two houses within the catchment areas of two good schools - one Haberdashers and one Prendergast Hilly FIelds.
The house by Prendergast is nicer, but most of DD's friends will probably go to Habadashers.
DD is 8 and we would keep her in the primary school she is at the moment which is closer to Haberdashers.
Anyone have any advice?

OP posts:
LBOCS2 · 01/04/2016 18:29

When you say that one of the houses is in catchment for HAHC, is that taking into consideration their banding via NVR? Their application process is extremely complex and they were oversubscribed to the tune of 1200 places in 2015...

clux73 · 01/04/2016 18:36

Catchment for Habs was apparently no more than 800m in any band this year

Original poster
SarfEast1cated · 01/04/2016 18:45

I thought they were getting rid of the bands and just going to proximity to the school? The two places are both within 500 metres of the schools. So hope we would be OK.

OP posts:
LBOCS2 · 01/04/2016 19:14

Band 9 (top set) was under 300m in 2015, according to their website.

Original poster
SarfEast1cated · 01/04/2016 20:11

Say for arguments sake we could be in the catchment for either school - which would you think would be friendliest and give a good all round education?

OP posts:
LBOCS2 · 01/04/2016 20:26

I'm biased because I went to one of them...

Original poster
SarfEast1cated · 02/04/2016 20:47

And were your experiences positive LBOCS4?

I went to a very academic exam factory and want DD to go to a school that offers a bit more creative scope.

OP posts:
LBOCS2 · 02/04/2016 20:56

Ish. The school I went to had an excellent extra curricular scheme, free music lessons, a lot of participation in extra events (orchestra, musicals, operetta, etc), but it was very much balanced by the fact that you were also expected to achieve academically. If you weren't able to keep up with that, or the traditional route (school/6th form/uni) wasn't for you then there wasn't a huge amount of additional support available - and you sort of slipped through the net as they didn't know what to do with you.

There has been a lot of change since I left though, including the whole structure of the school.

Original poster
SarfEast1cated · 03/04/2016 10:12

I'm hoping someone with children at either school might come and share their experiences...

OP posts:
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