Hampstead Garden Suburb-secondary state school advice please

[Aussiemumma10]

Hi Mums

New to Mumsnet and also the UK as our family has relocated from Australia and now living in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

Although we have a school relocation facilitator who will help set up meetings with the schools, I’m interested in your opinion about some schools we’re considering and if you have other suggestions.
Looking at state schools within 15-20 min bus ride + short walk to school from the
M & S on Finchley Rd (approx 900 Finchley Rd)
We have a son, 12 and daughter 15. Our daughter has light additional needs with her dyslexia. Our son enjoys coding and tech and daughter enjoys drama, music and photography.
We’re hoping for a school with good discipline, preferably a house leadership system and a wide variety of enrichment activities across the kids’ interests.

So far, Christ’s College and Hampstead School seem to tick the boxes.
What is your opinion in comparing the two?

At this stage, we’re not sure if they’ll be placed in the grade they’re due year 7 and year 10..or if the recommendation with be to hold them at year 6 and year 9 to accomodate the late entry into the school year.

Ive noticed Archer Academy too, which seems good. I realise they would be attending different campuses due to year levels but the bus is one line so would be doable.

Thanks for any advice or recommendations. We are loving the UK and settling in nicely to such a dynamic way of life.

Cheers

Hi Aussiemumma10, glad to hear you're settling into HGS well!

You may struggle to find Hampstead School parents on here as it's not one of those schools people on Mumsnet start threads about! But I live close enough to the school to know lots of families with children there and they are all very happy with it. The Headteacher is extremely impressive, highly experienced and passionate about driving the school forward. It's very strong on enrichment (drama, sport etc). There's an annual writing prize sponsored and presented by old girl Zadie Smith. They have just benefited from a re-building programme which has upgraded the facilities, and it has its own swimming pool (extremely rare in the state sector around here). The sixth form in particular gets very good results, but its intake is significantly more mixed than a lot of the schools in Finchley like Archer.

I don't know Christ's College at all, or many of the other schools up there very well, though Archer and Wren (which is a faith school) are highly-regarded. FWIW the only family I know well with a child at Archer are broadly happy but not ecstatic about it. But equally I know families who have moved house especially to be in catchment for it! You will have no shortage of opinions here on Finchley area schools I'm sure.

There is no substitute for going to visit the schools themselves as it sounds like you appreciate already; visit on a normal school day, that will give you a really good idea of the vibe.

Lastly on your years of entry: state schools here are pretty strict on keeping to the allocated year. If your younger child was born between 01/09/2006-31/08/2007 they will be in year 7, likewise your older child would be put into the equivalent year according to their birthday. You will find strong opinions on Mumsnet about holding children back a year. Your best bet would be to talk to the schools about your older child as they GCSE syllabus will start in Year 10. It would be a mistake I think to hold the younger one into year 6 as that would mean another move almost immediately into year 7 AND would be more difficult to do as all these schools are oversubscribed for the beginning of year 7 but you should be able to get an "in-year" (ie irregular entry point) place.

Talk to your council schools admission department ASAP to establish the position on the Barnet schools, and do the same with Camden re Hampstead. But do this NOW, because Friday at 5.00pm is when the Year 7 admissions offers are made and for the next two weeks the admissions offices will be swamped by primary school parents asking about waiting lists!

Good luck with it all.

Great post from @zinnia.
I echo her post to phone the councils ASAP.

By the way, are you also looking at private schools? A school relocation facilitator won't be able to help with the state system as the schools and councils will only deal with parents, and all the knowledge in the world won't stop admissions rules from being applied. If you're paying for the service and are only looking at the state system, I'd call a halt and spend your money elsewhere!

Cheers @FanDabbyFloozy! And very good point re the relocation facilitator

@Aussiemumma10 a correction to what I said above! Here's the link to the Barnet in-year applications page; Camden's website says schools administer in-year applications directly. I would still get on to them ASAP before Friday as this is a madly busy time of year for school admissions staff as well.

You are applying for in year entry, you won’t get a choice which school they go to but will be offered a school with a place and you can request to stay on waiting lists of preferred schools but will be expected to attend the ones you’re given.
Younger one will be completely fine, the older one will be too but it’ll be tougher, especially if they’re one of the many schools that now start the gcse syllabus in year 9.

The admissions team can’t do anything unless the kids are already here and you have an address. Of course, you can say they’re already here, they don’t check that but you do need to have an address and proof of it.
This address is irrelevant to what school you want as I said before, you’ll get the place that’s available.
With y7 entry, if you call before Friday they may be able to do something if you’re extremely lucky and already have an address but you will get whatever is left as you’re a late applicant.

In this instance- if the younger one gets a y7 place this week- The older one will get priority admission to that school too, as they are a sibling. Bear in mind this is a big bulge year so places are tight anyway. Barnet schools are all great, whatever they get they’ll be fine.

Thanks everyone for your advice, I’m taking it all in.
It’s been a crazy timeline to get here for my husband’s start of work which was 12th February.
The school search facilitator service is provided by his company (we don’t pay) and we can only look at State schools as the private school option isn’t feasible for us.
I can see the councils have the last word with admissions and appeals and I understand our facilitator can’t change that.

I heard back today from the facilitator after she has spoken to the Barnet council and apparently the only school with places for both kids is Bishop Douglass and Christ’s College only has a place for my younger one (Yr 7)

We will probably apply for both for both kids and see what happens. I can also see that there are school holidays approaching so my kids will probably only be integrated into school life when school returns in April.

Onward we go...

Out of curiosity...what is the general opinion of HGS? It seems quiet, family oriented with little crime.

Cheers

Bischop Douglass is an excellent school! they have a well above average progress 8 score at 0.77! thats really high and it just measures how much progress kids make from starting points. The average is 0.0.

I don't think you will hear a bad word about HGS and you have the house prices to match.

Fantastic on both accounts
Thank u xx