West London state school options

[MintyIguana]

Struggling to decide on order of preference when we apply for secondary school for DD this autumn. Realistic options are Chiswick, Christ's in Richmond, Green School for Girls, Twyford - and then Lady Margaret as an outside chance. Many of the Ofsted inspections were years ago. Does anyone have any current or recent experience of any of these? I would say DD is average all round ability, hardworking and somewhat lacking in confidence. She has no preference for all girls or mixed and not overly concerned about going with a cohort of friends. She makes friends quite easily.

I know very very families at Chiswick - it had a bad time with The science dep but the new head seems to be dealing with that now. I wish I had chosen it at yr 7 when we went for WLFS which did not work well for us- we found the curriculum very backward looking and very much about just memorising fact - there is no IcT or any use of digital or computers which I felt is really not thinking about the kinds of jobs our kids will be doing in the future. The teachers are very nice but there is an arrogance about the school which in my view stops it from developing and growing... the music is however amazing.

Yeah the lack of digital focus is our only gripe about WLFS. But we feel the teaching, emphasis on pupil behaviour, music and knowledge based curriculum works very well for our kid.

@nottosure44 did you move to another local school? How did it compare?

My second child has to go through all these choices next year. The whole process sucks. I went to school in the US and everyone just went to their nearest But high School, no religious segregation, no gaming the system with renting near schools, no single sex schools. I miss the simplicity.