Bishop Douglass / Christ College Finchley

[Silverfox2021]

Hello ,

New to this group. We are moving to East Finchley area. Looking for a non-selective state secondary school, Year 9 for my daughter . How is Bishop Douglass or Christ College ? Any insights are much appreciated.

Thanks

Bishop Douglass has improved massively. It used to have a bad rep in terms of behaviour but i think it is much better now and their results are very good. I think Christ College is also decent. It used to be a boys school but is now mixed.

Have you checked out The Archer Academy? It's in East Finchley, right next to the station (it has an upper and lower campus). It is a fairly new school but their grades are one of the best in the borough. I think it's the first choice for most parents living in the Finchley area but the catchment is tiny so you literally have to live right next to the school to get in.

I would rate Archer over Bishop Douglass and Christ College. It is also a smaller school than most secondaries (i think only 6 form classes in each year) so that might suit some children rather than a very big school.

Archer might not be an option though as it very oversubscribed.

@sammyvine

Archer might not be an option though as it very oversubscribed.

Thank you so much. When we emailed the council about the available places, they sent us a list and in that only Bishop Douglas, Christ College are near our address.List does not has Archer name. We are near to Archer also ( within 0.5 miles ) Our first preference would have been Archer but their website says there are no places available . As it would be a in- year admission we are not left with much choices.

Other schools mentioned in the list with available places are St Marys St Johns COFE , Copthall ( which are around 4 miles for us )

Ahh that’s annoying. You would have probably have gotten in if your child was applying for secondary school this year. It seems to a very good school. I’m guessing they didn’t offer you Compton School and Wren Academy which are both in North Finchley and are very good/ similar to Archer. Compton I think is in the top 1% in progress made…
With the choices you have I guess you should look at the league tables and read the Ofsted reports. Bishop Douglass is a catholic school and Copthall is a girls school so that is something to bare in mind in case you don’t want a faith school/single sex school. Schools have improved a lot from when I went. Did they offer you Totteridge Academy which is in Barnet. It’s not too far from you. It used to be a bad school, one of the worst in the borough but a new headteacher who went to Cambridge has transformed the school and its excellent especially for pastoral care…

@sammyvine

Ahh that’s annoying. You would have probably have gotten in if your child was applying for secondary school this year. It seems to a very good school. I’m guessing they didn’t offer you Compton School and Wren Academy which are both in North Finchley and are very good/ similar to Archer. Compton I think is in the top 1% in progress made… With the choices you have I guess you should look at the league tables and read the Ofsted reports. Bishop Douglass is a catholic school and Copthall is a girls school so that is something to bare in mind in case you don’t want a faith school/single sex school. Schools have improved a lot from when I went. Did they offer you Totteridge Academy which is in Barnet. It’s not too far from you. It used to be a bad school, one of the worst in the borough but a new headteacher who went to Cambridge has transformed the school and its excellent especially for pastoral care…

Yep that’s annoying . They didn’t offer Wren, Compton or Totteridge. Any idea about St Mary’s and St Johns COE school ?

My DD is an introvert and I am bit worried about BD . But looks like most likely we will be offered a place there as it is the closest in distance .

SMSJ is by all accounts a good school, I know some families with kids there who are happy with it. Think their results are good too but not sure if they've been reported yet, it's still quite a new school and not sure how many cohorts there have gone through public exams so far.

Barnet is over endowed with good schools and most are oversubscribed, so you're fortunate to have had decent schools come up with vacant places. There's no point hankering after schools that you haven't been offered, but you can always go on the waiting list on the off-chance, though only really worth it for ones that are very close to where you live. AFAIK Archer still has a postcode catchment, by the way, so you might want to check the admissions criteria on the school website.

Most the Barnet schools have improved a lot that were considered bad. I don't think you can go wrong with any of your choices tbh
Maybe Christ College will be better than Bishop Douglass...

Think given you're after a non selective and Bishop Douglas is a catholic school, Christ college would probably be preferable for you. We had put Archer 1st and Christ College 2nd.

Our dc got an offer from Archer but as we thought we had a 50/50 chance of being offered a place at Archer, we went to all the events at Christ College and thought it was v good with a v impressive headmaster.

It's recently gone co - ed and has a new head who changed the senior leadership team and we thought he was very clearly trying to "woo" the middle class parents at the events! The catchment is still large but the school is being turned around and my guess is , that like coldfall school where the new head turned it from satisfactory to outstanding in 3 years, in a couple of years it's likely to be oversubscribed!

Hey,

Has your daughter started Archer? If yes how do you find the school if i may ask? Similar to the OP my sister might be moving to East Finchley and will be hoping to send my niece and eventually nephew there if they can somehow get a place.

The school is very highly rated and i think it's results are better than Compton and Wren Academy which are close by and also great schools.