Best London state secondary school in your opinion?

[Simplegal]

I’m overwhelmed with school choices for a Year 10 entry for my DD into an Co-Ed state secondary school. We have a last minute, frantic move to London from abroad and looking for entry for my DD. Somewhere within 30-60 mins travel to Canary Wharf? Open to faith schools as she has been in a traditional catholic school previously. We haven’t even started the accommodation hunt just focusing on schools first! Please comment if you love your school! Thank you!

@PeckhamPam most of the parents I
know whose children go there do like the school and their children have done/are doing fine but they wouldn’t say it’s the most amazing school in London. It’s just a school.

Yep it is just a school, but my kids love it. They also had a recent Ofsted who upheld the Outstanding status. Not that Ofsted always get it right (!) but it’s one indicator and that’s recent. Of course we are lucky that there’s lots of other schools in the area too who probably offer similar provision. We also have friends whose children enjoy going to Charter North and Sydenham Girls.

@PeckhamPam I just get a bit irritated by Kingsdale’s lottery admissions which makes me have a (probably irrational) dislike of it.
I don’t think it’s fair that a child that lives miles away on the other side of London has an equal chance of a place than someone who lives next door. Parents apply for the school even though they live miles away because of it’s reputation meaning local children end up missing out and they in turn have to travel miles to get to a school. It’s all a bit daft.
I believe they are changing to having some local primary’s as feeder schools though - so things might change.

No I totally get that. It would frustrate me if I lived next door and didn’t get in. I’d heard they were going to close it down years ago when it wasn’t popular and gave them some time to turn it round so created the scholarships and made the catchment nonexistent to try and get numbers up and attract from further afield but local primary schools would be fairer now that it’s so popular.

Kingsdale’s expansion would have to be immense to leave Dunraven under-subscribed. Especially as Kingsdale’s intake isn’t geographically defined.

The frenzy for Kingsdale is because people who are not in catchment for a decent secondary are in with an equal chance at Kingsdale, and they could get two goes: Lottery and Scholarship. Families local to Dunraven, the Charter schools etc don’t need to join the frenzy (or swap a local walk for the meandering P13 bus). Some may put Kingsdale first as they do now if they have a particular interest in one of the scholarships or just prefer the school. But Dunraven has a fantastic music department anyway .

@TakenRoot my error it was a head from the Dunraven trust. But Lambeth is worried as 16 heads have signed a petition because Lambeth is heavily impacted by the falling rolls.

Kingsdale are being preemptive, they know they need to get more funding & attract a bigger % of pupils as there are less of them around.

schoolsweek.co.uk/heads-revolt-over-planned-expansion-of-london-school/

Interesting!
It makes send wrt Elmgreen (now run by Dunraven Trust) which always struggled being so close to Dunraven, which remained/s the go-to choice of most Streatham side families.

I can see Lambeth is concerned about falling rolls, they undertook a schools building programme over the last 12 years or so Evelyn Grace, City Heights, Woodmansterne, Trinity in Brixton sprang up, but Le Retraite, long-standing high achieving school, has been able to admit way down the admissions criteria. St Martin’s girls has closed.

Southwark have no LA run / community schools for secondary.

You’ve got Bow School not far away. Most schools in Newham are decent.