West London Free vs Hammersmith Academy vs Holland Park vs Chiswick

[PichmondRark]

Any views on these secondary schools? We could likely get into all but Holland Park where the art aptitude test is our best bet.

I see West London got by far the best GCSE results of the four this year but previously Holland Park has always been better. I’ve heard locally that Holland Park doesn’t do much to foster the social side of things: fewer trips, no year 7 residential and all clubs are drop-in so kids don’t build up a team spirit. This has put us off it a bit when it was our first choice.

West london has the fantastic GCSE results this year but is that a sign of the future or just one talented year? From what I can see they were better than even London Oratory and other religious schools we can’t go to but have always thought were the best. We liked the Headmistress a lot but we find the lack of outside space really sad.

Chiswick has amazing grounds but not great results.

Hammersmith Academy is more an unknown but we are visiting soon.

The results this year are deceptive because of the change in system from A*-C to the 9-1 system, which has made the information presented in the tables harder to interpret.

Holland Park actually performed considerably better than the other 3 mentioned in your list, but that doesn’t translate into the league tables...

Students at Holland Park take their language and humanities GCSE a year early and so for the data shown this year that grade would have been given according to the letter graded system. When data was captured, this information was not, which is why they appear to have dipped so dramatically from previous years. (Both for achievement and value add metrics).

However, back to your original question: the only one of the schools you have mentioned above that I personally wouldn’t consider is Chiswick.

WLFS doesn’t have a huge amount of outdoor space, but they do make excellent use of Ravenscourt Park for PE lessons and like you say, the new headteacher seems good.

Hammersmith academy seems very focused on nurturing the individual and also gets pretty decent results.

Holland Park has typically been less focused on the pastoral side of things, but I guess that’s your call to know how much support your child might need from the school. They have introduced a dedicated school counsellor where children are encouraged to come and discuss any issues they might have and have also increased their after school clubs offering to include more sports. There is also Saturday sports and access to the swimming pool.

Best of luck deciding!