house move best London state secondaries for boys

[happyhippo82]

Just that really. We need to move house and the main factor is trying to find the best secondary for DS. Cannot afford private or religious schools - and really not sure that he'd pass an exam for Grammar. So if you have to move (ideally zones 2-3) which one would you target? Our local comp is terrible and everything else around here is private. Most of our friends have moved out of London for schools, but we're very reticent to do so.....any suggestions???

My dc are in sought after state schools and I was a bit naive about the levels of tutoring that goes on. Tutoring really is a big thing in London state and private schools, even (or especially) the super-selective grammars!!! I've read it's approaching 40% of pupils in London who have been tutored. So the schools' results do reflect the extent to which parents fund bought-in tutoring as well as the quality of teaching.

Alexandra park school or fortismere would be my choices. You can get a small house for 1.2.

@happyhippo82 I think you'll be surprised at how Tooting has changed in twenty years. The housing stock hasn't changed but it's much more trendy, happening and affluent than it used to be.

In any good comprehensive school you will find that there are kids keen to study and being supported to do so.

You seem to have fallen prey to the idea that London comprehensives are full of feral menace kids.

And yet on average London comprehensives outperform others across the country.

Personally I would avoid the ‘boot camp’ style schools like Mossbourne or Michaela.

But if the schools I have seen recommended above, Charter, Dunraven, Graveney, Chestnut Grove, Elmgreen, they are all schools that seem to like young people, have great extra-curricula offers, good management of different levels of ability etc.

You need a comprehensive where children if all levels are supported.

The think about it not being cool to do well sounds outdated.

But you won’t get a London comprehensive that is free of a wide spectrum of behaviour and outlook. Part of growing up is about learning to live outside a bubble. There were horrendous going’s in amongst a very small minority of pupils at my D.C. S London comp: didn’t affect them at all.

Graveney has much hype around it: it is just a comp with 60 or 70 super-selective places.

I had kids at Dunraven and Graveney: very little between them, Graveney’s results are due to the super selective intake.

And Graveney is facing a huge challenge from its pupils in the wake of BLM. Twitter account locked....

It IS a good school, but not the holy grail it is made out to be.

But Tooting is a fine place to live, as us Streatham Hill.

The point is, if you have an idea of ‘The Best’ you maybe need to relax a little.

Charter N Dulwich sounds a good fit for you.

No-one has mentioned Glenthorne in Sutton, I'm surprised to see. That's a very good school ( see yesterday's article in The Times magazine section for more insights into what a forward thinking 'prepared to challenge its staff and pupils' school is like). You'd get a lot of house for your bucks in the borough too.

Thank you very much for the names -hopefully, come autumn schools will be running their open days and am really looking forward to visiting some of them.

@ComeBy - I think you are right that I do have quite an outdated view on schools - twenty years will do that, but it's also old fashioned in so far as I assume kids learn at school and there is no need for tutoring etc. Plus I also have my own prejudices regarding certain schools around London from when I was a kid so in part this is me trying to update myself. Good to hear that Graveney is now nice - because it wasn't in my day, they got their results and sort of still do, but nice wouldn't be a word to describe it, similarly South London grammars.......

I am also trying to figure out I guess best places for boys, because for some reason they do end up with much worse results unless private/grammar so it all feels a bit more uncertain. And I dont have as much experience there...

Dame Alice Owen - Potters Bar. Not in zone 2 /3, but they take 20 pupils from the borough of Islington every year.

Soma ... the Islington children still have to pass the exam. You can get
in on catchment if you are very close though.

If the South London super-selective grammars don't count as 'nice' schools, OP, what would? I think your expectations of the state sector are possibly unrealistic. Even private schools have their non-nice elements although they would all probably be considered 'naice' socially!

I think the OP is talking about the areas around them and not the schools NewModelArmy though I could be wrong and this is why I was bleating on about choosing what was important to you up thread.

It is very difficult to have it all in London unless you pay for it. You can have a lovely school in a less naice neighbourhood further out of town if you are prioritising schools or you can stay in town and have a less nice school.

I work in Hackney (nurse). I've heard of Mossbourne and am aware it's strict but gets good results. My experience is those that went there hated it for being strict, but parents who sent their kids there love it for being strict!

The area's odd, much of its been gentrified but some areas, e.g. Clapton, still have high crime rates and problems with gangs, drugs etc. A mixed bag, definitely.

@Chartsandgraphs

Alexandra park school or fortismere would be my choices. You can get a small house for 1.2.

You obviously live near me. APS is my local school. I don't have kids so don't know too much about how they're performing but those 2 school as far as I'm aware have good reputations. Unfortunately Fortismeres good reputation is part of the reason why housing in Muswell Hill is so high. Also they don't wear uniforms which maybe a deciding factor.

Just to clarify - by nice I just mean a relaxed and supportive environment.....honestly, in my day Graveney/Tiffin were very competitive and intense hothouses which was completely unjustified considering their intake and I say this with an Oxbridge degree.

I probably am very unrealistic about schools in general - I really dont like that kids get split into private, religious, grammar schools because effectively it does mean that a lot of kids get creamed off and 'comprehensive' schools are that in name only. I would also agree that meeting different kinds of people is good for a kid however 'different' kinds of people seems to be a short hand for 'poor' kids - whereas I would literally say all kinds of people i.e. rich and poor ( and I would not classify myself as rich here).....mixed genders etc.

But obviously that would entail a complete system overhaul and is very idealistic

I think that's what's great about London, as the demographic at a lot of state schools is incredibly wide ranging, but schools vary hugely dependent on which little bit of London you live in. I know I was amazed by the range when my oldest moved from primary - we had a choice of 6 secondaries we were in the catchment for. We looked round all of them - all were very different. I'd say where we ended up is genuinely comprehensive though.

I noticed all the comments on tutoring, so went and asked my DS. He said only 1 of his friends (year 11) had a tutor and that was just for Spanish. I'm sure others are right and there is a lot of tutoring, but it's not everywhere - a lot of people couldn't afford it even if they thought their kids needed it!

Interestingly there is a lot of 'secret' tutoring. People don't brag about their kid needing extra support, teenagers want to look cool (what is cool about extra lessons at the weekend?) and parents don't want you booking their tutor either
So don't believe what your son tells you

London schools are also large enough that different kids will have very different experiences in the same school depending on who their friends are.

Also don't trust any reputation that's more than a couple years out of date (or any gossip at all without looking for yourself!) I'm in South London where traditionally Graveney and Dunraven have been what people wanted, but in the last few years word is that Graveney simply gets the results you'd expect from having a selective entry stream (and complaints those kids get the attention), and Dunraven didn't impress me or other parents at their open day - they were frankly trying to put off applicants. Other schools appear to be up-and-coming like Elmgreen, the already impressive Chestnut Grove, the Norwood School, and possibly the new Woodmansterne. But generally people have been happy with all the local primaries and that's feeding through to secondaries - cohorts of kids from families that want to do well. The only school nearby people want to avoid is actually a good school according to value-added and people I know in the council, but its catchment is mainly a housing estate with a bad reputation.

I agree @Smallinthesmoke. Most of the boys at DS's high-achieving school had tutors for GCSEs and A Levels. DS didn't do as well but as I did once comment to his HT, he did get his results all on his own (against tutoring in this house!). I think I said upthread that it is rife in London particularly where there are a lot of sharp-elbowed parents

Also, people are very cagey about such things. For one, it doesn't look quite so impressive to achieve brilliant exam results but with the help of a tutor. It looks way more impressive to claim that they did so without.

From your description of yourself I'd aim for Alexandra Park school. It is a proper London comp with a good chunk of a priveledged Muswell Hill family intake but is diverse thanks to the catchment extending into Bounds Green. Fortismere is a comp but the intake isn't as diverse and the housing is some of the most expensive in London. There is A LOT of tutoring at Fortismere as it takes lots of kids that would have gone private if they'd passed the exam. But there's a good chunk of tutoring everywhere - just ask the tutors! It's impossible to get a slot with the good ones.

Ashmole

Kingston, Sutton, Beckenham. All with good schools.

I bet tutoring is covert and rife, though having said that, I'm pretty sure my DS is right in saying that his friends don't have tutors. Tutoring is only available to those who can afford it. For large swathes of London kids it's just not an option.

Or what is worse (and why I personally can't forgive 11+ apologists) families who can't really afford to, feel they have to tutor, esp for exams like 11+ /Wandsworth test.
So they wreck a family's fragile finances (and a 10 year old's summer holidays) to save them from what they believe is the horror of a local comp. I knew at least one family like this - and yes, it was an absolute waste of stress and money! The child though bright and talented didn't make Graveney (the objective) but did at least get an aptitude place at another good school mentioned here.
Think it's partly influenced by parents coming from places where state education is a contradiction in terms; it's a given that you have to pay for any half-decent education at all.
So they are easily lead into believing no pain no gain, at least financially, and would go private if they possibly could.