Parkside or Chesterton College Secondary Schools in Cambridge

[leedeparis]

Help! We can't decide between Parkside College or Chesterton Community College for secondary school in Cambridge. Has anyone had kids go to either of them, especially Chesterton?
Parkside is our catchment and my son's friends are mostly going there - but we live pretty close to Chesterton.
It seems like the Parkside kids have to travel to other schools in the federation for their extracurricular activities & possibly even some classes, which is far for my ds to bike, whereas everything is onsite at Chesterton? He loves computers, music and maths.
I've heard some so-so reviews from Parkside parents but I don't know anyone at Chesterton.
Thanks so much for any insights!

I have 2 children at Parkside (yr 10 and yr7). I don't think my older one has ever had classes at a different site apart from when they did activity week (well three days) in the summer one year at Trumpington, one year at CAST. Also sports day was at Coleridge (I think - long time ago so hard to remember - obviously didn't happen this year!) I know the new head (started last September) was very keen not to have students travelling between sites if possible to avoid it but I think some of the current year 11 (possibly the ones doing PE) may still be travelling.

In terms of extracurricular they do use the theatre at Coleridge for performances and rehearsals. Also there may have been some joint clubs (choirs maybe? orchestras?) in the past but certainly not at the moment. My yr 10 certainly found enough clubs based at Parkside to keep busy, sadly not as many running at the moment because of Covid (though there are still some).

I have friends with children at Chesterton who seem reasonably happy. They are both good schools with good reputations for academics. Both have good results and progress 8 scores. Parkside is more keen on the Ebacc (French is compulsory to GCSE), that makes sense to feed into their sixth form which offers the IB. Chesterton is bigger, 180 in a year vs 120 (4 classes) at Parkside.

There is no such thing as a perfect school and you will find happy and unhappy parents everywhere. It must be very hard when you can't go and look around - it may be possible for you to book an appointment to visit out of school hours?

They have very different attitudes to setting/streaming, at least in non-Covid times, so that could be worth checking out, if you think you prefer one or the other. Parkside doesn't set much, if at all. (Some in GCSE maths years to split into F/H tiers). Parkside is also v keen on triple science. Not so many option spots left. I don't know if things have changed re. travelling. It used to be that many Parkside students cycled to Coleridge for options like Drama, PE, etc and some did the reverse journey. It was always at break/lunch so they had time to do it (only a 10 min cycle - they also did Cyclability training level 3 in Year 7 to make sure they were competent cyclists). I don't think they go to any of the other sites for lessons, but occasionally for special events. They use Parker's Piece for PE lessons, and at various ages, the pupils are (were) allowed out there or into town for break, lunch, etc, which they quite enjoy. (Probably not happening this year of course)

Chesterton does more setting, and even some sort of streaming I believe, with some Year 7s who need extra work on English and maths following a somewhat different timetable with fewer/different subjects and more English/maths. In other years, the classes are differentiated by the expected grades (e.g., a 7-9 class, a 6-9 class, etc). It's much much bigger and everything on site, including the sports centre, which they can join to be able to use the gym etc after school. They have quite a lot of facilities for music, and possibly the fact that they are bigger means more different ensembles. Both schools have offered additional maths courses for top GCSE students in the past, but I don't know if that has changed because of Covid.

Both seem to get v good results.

Oh yes it is very much mixed ability teaching at Parkside not really any setting before yr 10 when they start their GCSE courses (and I'm not sure there is much even then, those doing 2 languages are separate and probably maths higher/foundation). I was slightly nervous about this but actually it has been fine even for my talented mathematician.

Dear GrouchingTigger and CityCentre,
Thank you sooo much, this is really helpful!
We did look around the outsides of the buildings after hours but it wasn't very telling. Your maths comments are helpful too since my ds finds his current school maths lack challenge, and we already speak french at home. So that leaves us the excitement for science and music :)

Thank you Leedeparis for raising this topic, it was interesting to read the comments. We are in a similar situation. We intend on moving to Cambridge in the coming months but undecided whether to go in the catchment for Chesterton or Parkside. My son is very interested in Science so keen to know whether there is any difference of approach in science teaching between Chesterton and Parkside community college.

Mine are at Chesterton. Can confirm they set for lots of subjects, and top set maths gets split in Year 9 into a 'normal' top set and a super top set who do an extra qualification. There are a lot of very, very bright kids. That said I don't actually find it too pushy and wouldn't say my kids are over-burdened in terms of homework etc - just the right amount, usually. Triple science is only offered to those who 'qualify' in year 9, but there's a big range of subjects on offer and they don't enforce Gove's Ebacc (one of mine hasn't taken any humanities subject as he had other plans and that was fine). Teachers are mostly young, dynamic, responsive and ambitious for the kids. If your child likes drama the Chesterton provision is incredible - extremely high quality. My only gripe is that they make everyone do RS/ethics GCSE (although they only dedicate one lesson every 2 weeks to it) which I don't like given that it's meant to be a secular school. Chesterton also used to be unnecessarily and unhealthily obsessed with uniform rules but thankfully they have relaxed a bit, and these days I would say the pastoral side of things is really excellent.

Oh thanks Biscuits! It's really helpful to finally get an insider view! I did also think that was odd about the Religious Science - as my militantly atheist son would rather spend time on technology. Which is why he won't let me list St Bead's as an option...