St Dunstans?

[CAZZERANT]

My daughter is in Y6 and looking at local secondary options. Wondering if anyone has experience of St Dunstans and what your views were?

You might want to say which Dt Dunstan's you are interested in.

I'm aware of two, in very different parts of the country, and there are probably others!

Apologies for not being clear. This is St Dunstans in Catford. Thanks for any feedback !

In that case I have nothing to offer I'm afraid!

My DD went there and I know a number of parents who sent there DC there. Personally we love the headmaster. He hadnt long started when my DD started, he has made some positive changes to the school and the new STEM building looks fantastic. They have great pastoral care and the extra curricular is great. My DD sadly had to move at sixth form as her dad was ill but the headmaster and school were very supportive during this time. I cant fault it...

Happy for you to PM me for more specific questions

Have a Year 9 child there and think it's a really good place to spend the tricky pre-teen/teenage years. Relaxed atmosphere, able to attract very good teachers, strong pastoral and co-curricular offering, a broader range of academic ability than some nearby schools (e.g. in Dulwich), but this can be helpful for the atmosphere, and they have a strong interest in making it stimulating for the very able. It's very much an inner SE London school with an intake that is local and as diverse as you're likely to find at a private school. They've been excellent during the pandemic both at online school and at offering as much as possible safely now the kids are back (except the school lunches have unfortunately gone down hill). When our son started there, we found it disorganised, but this is much improved. Happy to be pm'd for further thoughts. Their new build will be a big improvement to already pretty good facilities, and they've just won a national award for being Co-Ed Independent School of the Year, so it feels as though they are all in all on the way up. Only real reservation is about the sixth form - I'm not sure it's currently big enough to be exciting or to offer a sufficiently wide range of subjects, but that may change with the new sixth form centre opening.

I have friends whose DC are there and are very happy with it. In my observation as a local and a teacher the kids who go there seem very 'normal', and if I didn't know the uniform I would assume they were state school kids, which to me is a plus.

Does anyone know how ‘hard’ it is to get in at senior school level?

I think it might be getting somewhat harder to get in as it gets a bit more popular, but still no hothouse, fortunately - my sense is that kids who are above average but not necessarily by a really long way are in with a decent chance of getting in. A very good thing is that for several years they have used an MCQ format for the entrance exam that is pretty hard to tutor people for, plus an interview, so that many of the kids get in with little or no specific preparation, a far cry from many London private or grammar schools. Apart from those staying on from the fairly small junior school, a high proportion of the new entrants at 11+ seem to be from primary schools around neighbouring parts of SE London, so it's not surprising they seem pretty "normal", which I agree is a really good thing.

Thanks for your comments. My daughter goes to a normal local primary school and like many, has had no teaching for six months. The level of the test she’s been told to practice on is so high, it’s really daunting, so I hope what you say is true!

Very useful advice.Thanks for sharing.