Skinners Academy Hackney?

[Mrsfrumble]

Does anyone know anything or have any experience? DS is in y5 at an Islington primary. We live just over the border in Hackney. Our nearest secondary in Stoke Newington, but I don’t think we’re close enough to guarantee a place (0.6 miles). Next closest schools are Skinners and Highbury Grove. HG has a bad reputation and no one I know locally seems to know anything about Skinners. We definitely can’t afford private and although DS is very bright, we’re hesitant about pushing him for Latymer or Alice Owens as he has ASD and ADHD and might not cope with the pressure.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I don’t know Skinners’, but here are recent cutoffs for Hackney schools including both SNS and Skinners’ at pages 12-13:

education.hackney.gov.uk/sites/default/files/document/Applications_and_offers_at_Hackney_Secondary_Schools_2018-20.pdf#page13

AMSI (Arts & Media School Islington) may also be worth a look?

Looks like SNS would only be likely if DS was in band C or D (I’m guessing A is the band with the highest marks in the test?) There’s another thread running atm by an Islington parent with some interesting suggestions for undersubscribed but decent secondaries. I definitely need to stop the early panicking and start thinking outside the box; at DS’s primary it seems like most are going private or are fixing their sights on the selective, out of town options and it’s easy to get swept up in the competitive spirit (not that we’ve completely ruled that avenue out for DS, but I’m not sure it would be right for him). I was planning to go to some open days this year, but most of them have been virtual anyway.

Sorry, meant to say thanks for link @LarkDescending! How rude of me

You’re welcome. At least you have a year to think about this!

Yes A is the highest-scoring band. Obviously factors such as numbers of siblings can skew things from year to year, as the charts show.

I went to Stokey in its Mark Emerson/Ms Gammon days and I must say it's always been very hard to get in, but the neighbouring schools have improved massively. I went to Grazebrook and I remember loads of kids studying for Latymer and City, but most ended up going to Stokey with a few to Mossbourne. The intake has stayed pretty middle class so I'm assuming it's still the same level of competitive, aka crazy. I wouldn't discount Latymer, loads of people turn it down and last year they had to offer places outside the top 650. It's really not as pushy as most selectives once you're in.

Thanks. I don’t want to assume DS would be band A or B, but I’d hope so based on his current academic performance.

That’s interesting @foxesandsquirrels. We haven’t ruled out Latymer, but I think we’d need to find a tutor sooner rather than later if we were to go for it. Some of his classmates have already been tutored for ages!

@Mrsfrumble yup that's always been the case. They start Y4 in many cases. My younger brother was in a class with a whole group of boys like that, none of whom got it. A lot of parents chicken out at the end and go local, the area around Latymer scares them although the journey from stokey is quite good with the train.