Camden Secondary School Admissions distances 2019

[BHStowel]

@BananaDaiquiri
@JC4PMPLZ
@Zinnia

Camden’s website has been recently revamped and it’s now almost impossible to find information on it. Most of this information was available. I only have information about Parliament Hill and Acland Burghley. I will add what I know about Camden School for girls too, although that is readily available on their website already.

Please add other distances you have found out from Camden Admissions. Having all the information available here n one place will hopefully save the Camden admissions team some time and help local parents. I’m sure eventually Camden will sort out it’s website too!

Acland Burghley-miles

2019 0.71
2018 0.99
2017 2.66
2016 all applicants accepted
2015 all applicants accepted
2014 all applicants accepted
2013 1.44
2012 1.09
2011 0.72
2010 0.86
2009 0.76
2008 0.72

Parliament Hill School-again miles

2019 1.2
2018 1.52
2017 ?
2016 1.57
2015 1.32
2014 1.26

Camden School for Girls-miles

2019
( A is highest achievers ...)
A 0.82
B 0.49
C 0.31
D 0.54

Now unhelpfully I’ve misplaced a lot of information but I’m sure it’s on CSG website.

2013

A 0.67
B 0.4
C 0.5
D 0.28

2012

A 0.37
B 0.32
C 0.36
D 0.25

If you call the admissions team they'll give you all the information you want on distances. I work for Camden, in another service but one that works closely with them around this time of year. Genuinely out of all the LAs I have worked for, the Camden admissions team has been the most impressive in terms of willingness to help with information.
As a Camden employee who is receiving so many more calls than usual as residents cannot find the information they need, the transition period between our old website and our new one is frustrating for us too, everything is on the new one and is working but the pathways need ironing out. If you let teams know you can't find certain information you need we can log it with IT and get it resolved but as people not using the website ourselves we aren't necessarily noticing that things are not as easy to find until we are told.
Good luck with the information you need!

Also - appreciate your thought at trying to save the team time, that is very thoughtful, but they might not know what isn't easy to find. I'll also pass a message onto that team myself.

Thanks so much BHStowell and also the friendly Camden Council employee! I suppose Regent High accepts all takers. Would love to know how many named it on lists. That info cones through in time with the new booklet. Nice to see PHS is pretty popular.

thanks BHS!
@JC4PMPLZ I believe Regent High and Haverstock are both undersubscribed, but I can't remember how I found that out! I think a neighbouring borough might have had a "schools with spaces" list for their own and nearby boroughs but I can't remember which one (Westminster?)

Thanks Changedname12. Camden Admissions are lovely! I really like Camden as a council. Compared to the council I used to live in it’s Utopian Borough

some of the info I had was from the FOI Web pages rather than the admissions pages.

Thank you @changedname12 you've confirmed my opinion of Camden's admissions team! And thanks @BHStowel for collating this info.

Data-wise:
Parliament Hill:
2016: 1.60 miles
2017: 1.57

Only have last 3yrs' figures to hand..

William Ellis:
2016: 1.95
2017: 1.35
2018: 1.10

Hampstead:
2016: 1.36
2017: 1.93
2018: 0.96

UCL has been 0.72-0.76 last 3 years

Yes Regent High and Haverstock both undersubscribed currently and for the last few years. Personally I think there are different reasons behind these - I can't pretend to know Regent High at all but Haverstock has undoubtedly suffered from UCL opening down the road. I only hear good things about the new Head at Haverstock and how hard they are working to turn things around there.

Yikes! Those cut offs have shrunk-here's hoping they grow again in a couple of years. We live in a neighbouring borough to Camden but had hoped on a chance with at least a couple of those schools. CSG always being unlikely.

The distances do fluctuate year to year as these historic figures show - and (as has been much discussed on this forum) the birth rate variations play a part obviously, as do schools' reputations, Ofsteds etc etc.

The really interesting figures would be the last distance actually admitted for each year (as opposed to the offers on 1st March) as that seems more relevant to me. Also find the London Schools Atlas useful as that maps where pupils live (though the data is a couple of years behind, so as with all these things serves only as a rough guide).

yes, I agree - would love to know the actual distances in the shakedown. I guess that is for ever moving though - given in-year transitions, which I am already looking into. Ho hum.

I can help with one aspect of that - last year I think that the Band A for CSG stopped roughly at 0.8 miles and ended up offering to 1.2 miles. Or something like that according to my rough calculations and juggling my poor abilities with imperial measurements.

In other words the final distance offered is 50% more than the original one. It might be that Band A is more likely to have people turning it down due to going private or waiting for grammar places.

My knowledge of Camden Girls is that they live all over the place, really nowhere near the cutoffs you'd expect. Partly historical renting/cheating, also the fact that sibling places operate for sisters of those in the Sixth Form, also musical aptitude.

Yes I agree the actually admitted distances would be very helpful. You don't want to waste a space on the form if there's no chance but don't want to miss a school off if there is a chance of a space albeit after allocation day.
Our nearest secondary is undersubscribed and results are crap but from talking to parents those who visited liked it; that said none put it as their first choice.

@PatienceVirtue it's really striking from that radius thing they have on the CSG website when Camden (Borough) started cracking down on address fraud!

I wonder if Camden would give out last distance offered as of - say - 1st September or even 1st October 2018 for Y7 entries? Worth asking perhaps.

@Vinorosso74 to be fair the equal preference system mitigates against putting your local comp first choice; many people will put a whole wishlist of schools in places 1-5 on the form, on the basis that the one they will actually be allocated on 1st March will be the local (and that's the sensible ones who do actually put a banker option down!). Putting the dead cert in first place makes it essentially meaningless to list any other schools at all. Which is one reason why the first preference/offer stats for London are as low as they are, so many people are hedging their bets.

I don’t know who these band A, CSG children are? The girls I know who applied were also heavily-tutored-for-NW London indie girls and they were band B. I suppose that goes some way to explain the great results.

The year CSG radius expanded was I also I think the year the Schools Adjudicator made them amend their admissions criteria slightly. Banding test had to be put before admissions deadline do parents knew what band their daughter was in: amending the music places: something about banding only being indicative of intelligence of those who applied rather than that of local girls.

Ha BHStowel I know exactly what you mean re. Camden Girls' bands. The untutored/less tutored top table girls in their school were B and C bands. They are no way second or third quarter academically in the country. And they all the girls that took the test were v v middle class. One not-so-middle-class girl who lived right in catchment didn't even bother with it in favour of Holloway.

I think it's very self selecting and obviously high achieving. And it works for them - if you look at those taking GSCEs last year on www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/school/100054/the-camden-school-for-girls and their prior attainment (at ks2) it's 66 high achievers, 33 middle attainers and precisely zero low attainers. Hmmm very reflective of area/society as a whole.

There's an interesting discussion on another thread about banding tests; they don't in themselves predicate a more able cohort, but in practice the more barriers to entry you put up around these schools, the more socially selective they become. St Marylebone & Grey Coats have a similar entry system (+selective places + church, of course) and a similarly vanishingly tiny number of low prior attainers.

Personally I think it's iniquitous that the ability range is not benchmarked against that if the area as a whole rather than just those who apply. That leads to very able girls, as you say Patience, being classed in "B" or "C" bands. To be fair to CSG their progress figures are superb, but - not to take away due credit from the teachers, who must be very good at their jobs - it must be considerably easier to teach an able cohort.

I see Haverstock are offering modern music scholarship for THIS year. Clearly a way to try and fill up empty places and to create a buzz. I am a bit tempted to put DS forward, given how unhappy we are with our offer. @Zinnia I think you reckon it may be on a turnaround from its Requires Improvement. Anyone got any thoughts? I like that corner of town!

That’s for September 2019?! I read about it in the Camden New Journal, twice, it’s there as an advert an as a small news piece, but I didn’t register the dates.

I’d say what have you got to lose? Assuming it’s the same type of listening test as CSG holds? They say it can’t be trained for...although I don’t think that matters in your case as there won’t be lots of children going for it, not like at CSG.

Why don’t you put your child’s name down on the waiting list at Haverstock. They’ll probably get a place anyway. I’d imagine you could then apply for the scholarship anyway. I’d imagine that isn’t what Haversack had in mind but I dont see why not you wouldn’t do it.

Was Haverstock on your original list? There was a girl and mother from Haverstock at the Meet the Parents talk I went to. I seem to remember they were very happy with it.

If it's anything like our borough, where many go private and so waiting lists move a lot, the Sept 1st distances will be more useful than the March 1st distances. You might need to put in an FOI request for them though, as they're not usually published.

I have to be honest @JC4PMPLZ I didn't look at Haverstock as it's a pain of a journey from us, but people I know who did, or who already have kids there, were/are very positive about it. I do know from a friend who's very involved in the school they are trying extremely hard to turn it around. In your position I'd definitely go and look. Haven't heard about the music thing but will ask around

Has anyone heard if second round offers have gone out yet from Camden? Too depressed by DD's waiting list placing (which goes the wrong way every time I ask) to call the admissions office again...

Nope, but I know a family who are hanging onto their state place even though they will go private if their only acceptable state place doesn’t come up trumps.

It’s a long ( long!) “game”.

Thanks BHS. Ugh. I knew it would be a very, very long game but all the same it's a tough one!