Charter East Dulwich - honest reviews, please

[Schooladvicewanted]

Any comments welcome, please, from current parents on atmosphere, expectations of high achievement for all, behaviour, SEN provision, bullying / handling of bullying? Considering for middling ability, socially shy DC but worried it’s not a good fit.

My shy dd is at the school in year 10 and another starting in September. We are happy with it, my dd started as a middling ability child but has thrived academically. We’ve mostly been happy with the quality of teaching and she has a great group of friends who are all local so they can meet up easily.

She does tell me stories of disruption and bad behaviour in class but nothing that has affected her learning. They can be quite strict but I believe this seems to be the same of pretty much all secondary schools. However I don’t think it’s behaviour policies feel like it’s stifling which would be a worry for me.

Haven’t personally had to deal with any bullying issues or experience of SEN. In regards to what I have heard, SEN provision some parents are happy and others not so. I have heard they do have a high number of SEN kids, but due to lack of funding and resources they find it difficult to cope. But this is not first hand experience so hopefully you may have had some PMs or others will come along and answer.

Have you tried asking on the East Dulwich forum or the East Dulwich Mums Facebook group?

Bumping as interested too

Thanks very much for bumping, @LondonCityMum77 .
Thanks for your really helpful reply from way back, @Peasinthefreezer .

I haven't tried a local forum as hard to do that anonymously (ED Forum, anyway), and I was hoping for info without outing myself or anyone else.

Any more insights from anyone else gladly received. I am hearing generally good things, so feel reassured about it as our local school.

Bumping again.. :)

From a parent with a SEN child currenlty at the school, Charter East seems a very pro SEN school, with a purposely built specialist autism centre. However the reality couldn’t of been further from the truth. The school’s marketing material is not necessarily reflective of it’s true offering to children with SEN.
The approach seems concerned and helpful at first, but quickly everything falls back into a cycle of detentions, exclusions, suspensions for children with additional needs. Most teachers are lovely but some are truly awful. My guess is that no real training is done for teaching staff regarding SEN. There should be consistency and guidance from the head to make things work at all levels, but each teacher has their own approach, resulting in many cases where teachers either don’t believe in or can’t be bothered to deal with neurodiverse children and just exclude them from class. The school is quite strict, so SEN children get punished a lot. The SEN department sadly either can't cope or does not communicate or follow-up with teachers.

I would also say that as a school it's ok. However I second what the last poster says about SEN. They are trying but are woefully under resourced. The SEN lead is great but then the messages don't always get through to the teaching staff.

I wanted them to apply for an EHCP but I was told to apply for my own as they were so busy.

In general I would say that the school will probably be good in a few years time when it's fully built but I find it quite dry. Lack of school trips, no subjects like food tech etc. one day I am sure it will be as good as North Charter but it suffers from its 'newness' and the delays in building works etc.

My friend's son goes there and is experiencing awful bullying that has not been addressed at all by the school.

The thing about the Charter schools is that they are both heavily filled with a middle-class intake (Charter North more so than East).

I don’t have experience with ED but I do with ND. I’m a bit disappointed but I wouldn’t say it’s bad, nor amazing either but they are definetely one of the better academies in Southwark and funding is at an all time low. People tend to have mixed views.

From my perspective, it caters well to the high achieving and middle-class children whilst the others are left to get on with things. Eg. some teachers expect the kid to get a C and won’t challenge them to achieve higher.

Teaching is a little weak in my opinion but there are some strong ones! I do feel that the background of the students massively make up for the results to school gets (ie. Tutoring)

Behaviour can be quite poor and I know was an issue before the pandemic by other parents. Daughter tells me that kids throw things around the classrooms and blatantly speak over others (she isn’t in the upper sets/streams). I’ve also noticed drugs are a massive problem at the school too and has been for a while.

My daughter hasn't been bullied but i know other children who have and it was quite malicious and the school were very slow to respond. I know a few other parents who have had issues with it and felt the same.

@Schooladvicewanted if your DC is a girl then check whether the toilets are unisex. I think one, if not both, Charter schools have unisex loos - happy to be corrected.

Along with all the usual things you would check when visiting schools, the current/future toilet situation is a new one to add to the list if you have a daughter and are considering co-ed.

They have gender specific toilets as well as unisex toilets on 3 floors. They're marked very clearly. When the building opened a parent made a lot of unnecessary noise about "gender neutral toilets", but this isn't the case.

I appreciate this is a late reply to the original question but try to go for an open day in September if you really want to see what the building is like.

I have a middling ability child who is leaning towards more artistic subjects. We visited the school on one of the open days last year. As a parent of a mixed race child, I was a bit worried by the lack of diversity, the majority of kids seemed to be white middle class. I was wondering whether anyone had heard of racism at Charter East? It would also be good to know more about the bullying that was experienced there and how the school dealt with it. We found it hard to get a sense of the school and local community too. We were hoping for a supportive parent community with lots of camaraderie. If anyone has any insight that would be much appreciated.

As stated up thread my eldest I would have described as middling ability when they started has thrived at Charter East she is doing really well academically and I feel she really has been pushed to achieve her best. She is not artistic but they have a very good art department and once the new building is finished I’m sure the drama & music departments will really thrive in their new home.

In terms of diversity, the school is pretty diverse but I do think the school may becoming more middle class white year on year. This however is reflective of the local make-up of the area and those who have moved into the area around the school over the past 5-10 years. However my son started this year and from his primary only 2 kids that started at Charter East were what you would class as ‘white middle class’ out of 20-30.

I can tell you there is a very supportive parent community - with an active PTA. There are what’s app groups for each year for parents to join if they wish set-up by the PTA. The PTA organise a year7 welcome picnic to meet other parents and also a programme of events throughout the year. You can also get involved at school with things like the landscaping, the school is often asking for volunteers for different things which would be another way of getting involved in the school community.

My SEN kid's mental health was destroyed by that school. It was great for a few years but post pandemic it went to shit. The current headteacher is a horrific woman who should not be in charge of SEN kids.

I would not put my black and/or mixed race children there. It is a very 'non diverse' school not just in terms of ethnicity and race but also socio economically. A friend of mine had a (white) daughter there who was permanently bullied for 'being poor' (charming...). The school did not deal with this satisfactorily.

My other friend whose son went there also suffered bullying that was so bad the GP burst into tears during their appointment. The school again, extremely slow to act and when they did it was too little too late. Both children are now thriving in other schools.

I am so sorry to hear this. Echos the experience my friends' with their children have had. I hope your child is now safe in a different school.

Sorry to hear that! May I ask if you found a more supportive school in the area and which school it was? I’m considering moving schools.

My kid is still out of education. People underestimate just how much damage a school can do to a kid; and how easily they can lie their way out of accepting any responsibility for it.

The chief executive of the Charter Trust appears to be a bit of a TRA and is pally with Jolyon Maugham whose Good Law Project is always crowd funding for these issues. x.com/T0MB0Y0/status/1927057859814023667?t=SRYEUnIeyVhIRyxNWfX6Pw&s=19

From my experience of this school, it’s a tale of 2 halves. Lots of my DDs friends have just got their A level results. All A*s and As and off to their first choice of Russell group unis.
For anyone with SEN it’s a complete battle. Woefully under resourced and not able to deal with volume of these young people unfortunately. It’s probably the same story up and down the country. But largely the success and happiness of your child depends on how academic your child is there and there does seem as if there is quite a divide there.

Also if you want your DC to go on school trips (be that to anywhere outside of London or Europe) then it’s not the school for you. I don’t think either of Mir ever went further than Kent for the day and even that was only once every couple of years.

We have one in Charter East Dulwich, and will have another joining soon. Very happy with the school, personally. Recent Ofsted report is very encouraging - https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50249504 - it basically says the school would have been graded as 'Outstanding', but it was not a 'graded inspection' so they are not officially allowed to say that. Obviously Ofsted has its limitations (!), but the text in this report is very complimentary.
And the recent GCSE and A level results are the best yet:
https://www.chartereastdulwich.org.uk/post/year-11-students-at-the-charter-school-east-dulwich-achieve-strongest-gcse-results-yet

https://www.chartereastdulwich.org.uk/post/sixth-form-students-at-charter-east-celebrate-best-ever-results