Holland Park school - any update

[doingwhatican]

Hi. We could get a place at Holland Park in 2023 but the news stories in the past year make me want to steer clear. Does anyone with children there know if there has been any culture change? Is the new management a continuation of old management or has there been a shift? Thanks.

[XelaM]

This may be very belated advice, but my daughter's best friend is at this school and what goes on there now is absolutely shocking. Riots, knife and acid attack incidents, police involved, total breakdown of discipline and communication with the parents and teachers threatening to quit (and telling pupils they intend to quit) over the whole academy trust issue. Her mother is my close friend and she wants to take her daughter out of there

[staringattheceiling]

You may be interested to read the outcome of the independent investigation into.Holland Park School
It just shows how little parents should rely on OFSTED reports .....

[doingwhatican]

Wow. I’m speechless.

[pkim123]

@doingwhatican

Hi. We could get a place at Holland Park in 2023 but the news stories in the past year make me want to steer clear. Does anyone with children there know if there has been any culture change? Is the new management a continuation of old management or has there been a shift? Thanks.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10769023/How-Londons-socialist-Eton-Holland-Park-School-descended-anarchy-GUY-ADAMS-investigates.html

[XelaM]

@pkim123

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10769023/How-Londons-socialist-Eton-Holland-Park-School-descended-anarchy-GUY-ADAMS-investigates.html

Apparently the article is very mild compared to what is happening there at the moment

[pkim123]

@XelaM

Apparently the article is very mild compared to what is happening there at the moment

Really? In what way specifically?

[XelaM]

@pkim123

Really? In what way specifically?

Apparently there are incidents every day that require police involvement. Pupils throwing things at the temporary Head; a girl threw acid into a boy's face (I think the article got the genders confused); a girl was threatening with a knife; teachers telling pupils they intend to quit; arrests; 100's of phones were confiscated from pupils for filming the riots and the school wouldn't return them for weeks despite parents pleading with the school that the kids require their phones to travel safely; no one is telling the parents what is going on etc. At least this is according the my friend whose daughter is there at the moment.

[Dynamicsloth]

One of my DC is a former pupil of the school. I was relieved to see the articles in the Times and Telegraph which supported what she and her contemporaries complained about for many years.

As a parent I was a serial complainer but seemed like a lone voice. I hope those who carried out the abuse and ruined young lives have a conscience.

[Dynamicsloth]

@doingwhatican

There is a new head but the deputy head is still there.

The current issues appear connected with the Governors’ views that the school should join a large Trust which manages other
schools nationwide. Certain parents have formed an action group which appears to think the school is so special it should not.

[Dynamicsloth]

This might be of interest to people considering the school. Personally I think it would benefit from being part of a large Trust but my DC left some years ago…

www.hollandparkschoolparents.co.uk

[pkim123]

@XelaM

Apparently there are incidents every day that require police involvement. Pupils throwing things at the temporary Head; a girl threw acid into a boy's face (I think the article got the genders confused); a girl was threatening with a knife; teachers telling pupils they intend to quit; arrests; 100's of phones were confiscated from pupils for filming the riots and the school wouldn't return them for weeks despite parents pleading with the school that the kids require their phones to travel safely; no one is telling the parents what is going on etc. At least this is according the my friend whose daughter is there at the moment.

Wait, you are saying that a current student is telling you that everyday the police have to come to the school?! It sounds very dangerous to require daily police intervention. My goodness, I feel so sorry for those students.

[SpindleInTheWind]

From what I read in the press last night, there are still ongoing issues with the disciplining of three members of staff, that could and should have been resolved a long time ago.

Makes you wonder what went wrong with the governing body.

[KittenKong]

They tarted it up - but the problems remained. I’m local so I see the kids - most are fine but there are definitely ‘high spirits’ locally at home time and on the buses.

A friend worked there a few years back and left because she just couldn’t understand why a level physics students were yelling at her and throwing chairs in class. The head just shrugged when she said that she was getting to the point where she was drinking to cope with the stress.

A colleague sent her kid there (she was very right on) and quickly moved her when she realised her kid was getting bullied and just not getting an education.

I can’t believe that behaviours is so bad (well I can but all the hoo ha about ‘improving the school’).

[Dynamicsloth]

My DC spent 5 years at the school and went to another local school with a much more ‘deprived’ intake for Sixth Form. She was surprised that the teachers at the second school were able to keep order without shouting and humiliation.

As HP staff decided to keep order by shouting, threats and humiliation; I imagine it will take a while for cultural change to permeate through the staff and students.

The press and students themselves love to exaggerate and overdramatise. From what I can see the behaviour in the streets and on public transport is the same as other local schools.

[Beefcurtains79]

Wasn’t the film Kidulthood based on Holland Park school? 🙁

[Dynamicsloth]

No, I don’t think so. Noel Clarke went to another local school, Burlington Danes I believe.

[Dynamicsloth]

I must say that when my DC was there, she experienced generally good teaching from very committed young teachers who were treated like shit by the SLT.

The chair throwing incident sounds bizarre and while some children were silly, nothing like that happened, to my knowledge. 99 per cent of the kids were nice.

She and most of her friends have graduated (a medical student friend is still studying) and have done well, despite everything.

What went wrong was the bizarre personality cult around Hall with no effective control from RBKC or later the Governors.

There was almost a cult around Perfect Tense and creepily enough certain students. The SLT was aggressive and instilled fear into the pupils. Children were told they would starve on the street unless they got straight As. Children were lined up according to parental job in one assembly and those with manual worker parents humiliated.

When I went with my DC to our GP to ask for a CAHMS referral for anxiety she remarked she had referred a number of pupils from the school. My DC had panic attacks for years because of the wretched school and only at Uni did she recover and has started her professional career with more confidence.

[doorkeeper]

The school can't improve until it addresses the abuses of the (very recent) past. There's some newer parents, generally well-heeled types who would have done well under the old regime anyway, who are desperate to brush everything under the carpet, but that won't wash.

[OutlookStalking]

Why on earth are people still paying to send kids here then??

[BananaBlue]

@OutlookStalking

Why on earth are people still paying to send kids here then??

Why do you think people pay to send their DC HP?

[OutlookStalking]

Completely assumed it was a private school - have had a google and realised it isnt.

Gosh lots going on. Tbf I think the whole trend for huge academy trusts governed remotely doesn't help.

[Eucalyptusbee]

Wow. Just wow. sounds like the absolute pits. Why would you send your children there .

Don't do it OP!

[doorkeeper]

Why would you send your children there

A few years ago it was the only option for the local area, unless you were a practicing Catholic who could get into one of the local Catholic schools. And the Ofsted reports were fiddled, so from the outside it looked marvellous, this glittering spaceship surrounded by parkland, with an "outstanding" rating, so at the beginning you felt lucky if your kid got in there. The upselling of the school was so successful, that if you raised a problem with with the school, you were made to feel that you were the problem. This is how the senior leadership team worked - bullying teachers, students and parents alike. The only parents who were listened to were the likes of Bercow and Gove, and a small number of other well-heeled, well-connected parents. Famous, and/or rich and white? Your kids would do fine. Anyone else? Watch out.

[Dynamicsloth]

@doorkeeper is right.

Before Aldridge opened and HP decided to change the admission criteria to effectively bar the North Kensington ‘scum’ like me, it was the only option.

Kudos to those teachers and students past and present who gave evidence and finally exposed the school for what it was. All glitter and little substance. Just a vanity project for Mr Hall and his disciples.

[SW1Mummy]

OMG, I had no idea at all till I saw it in the news yesterday.

I live in Westminster and for the last 10yrs or so, if anyone asked where would they send their DS for senior school locally, I would say if you cannot get into the notoriously hard to get into Cardinal Vaughn or Oratory, you must go to HP ( I don't live far from Pimlico Academy, and am not happy with my encounter with the students). I don't know much about Paddington/Westminster Academy nor Marylebone Boys and St Thomas More. It's all looking grim for senior schools around here. Where do people send their DS.

In our case my DC are private, but I am still curious about local schools, as far as I know the primaries are doing very well, but where do people go from there?