North London Sixth Forms recommendations please

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Looking for suggestions and recommendations please - son is in his last year of secondary school and is looking at different options for his A Levels.
He will keep his application in his current school as they have a sixth form to continue but he would love a change to be honest.
Also, his current school is more less average and he is quite academic with 8s and 9s predicted in his GCSEs so he's hoping to maybe get into a higher achieving school. His subject choices are History, Computer Science and Music (if he passes grade 5 as it seems to be the qualifying factor - if not he is happy to go with Physics).
We have looked at the list of schools in the area but to be honest it is little overwhelming trying to narrow these down to couple of good and suitable choices. Currently considering oversubscribed Woodhouse as we know quite a few kids who attended it and were very happy with it, but would love to hear what other schools people think are worth looking into in North / Central London?

hmmm Dd wants to Maths at least which I'm sure is popular. Not sure what else, possibly economics & English. We're Walthamstow so assume it's too far.

Woodhouse you just go for your first lesson. My friend's kid starts at 10 or 11 some days

Yes, my oldest is at Marylebone and has to be in for the morning start one way or another.

What did people think of CSG on Tuesday? I had the same feeling as when we looked for Y7. DD liked it then but wasn't keen this time.

We didn't go but two of Dd's friends came away raving about it and deciding to go. Which was interest as their current schools results are quite hard to beat!

Did they give some intel about what grades they get? They don't have the highest requirements - 6s rather 7s at GCSE so wondering what the outcomes are like.

They put some info up in the presentation, but I think the same info is in the prospectus which you can find on their website.
I had mixed feelings from the open evening but can't really put my finger on why, results are great. Lots of kids I met were privately educated prior to joining at sixth form, which did make me wonder if their GCSE results were significantly higher than the minimum requirements for entry. The kids I spoke to seemed happy. Labs looked a little unloved to me and whilst that shouldn't matter to quality of teaching, it just felt like perhaps the school didn't really care about that corner of the building.
Regarding distance, I couldn't get any answers out of them, other than "you should apply and just see".

They went on quite a bit about the number of Oxbridge entrants they have. There were a lot of ex private school kids there. We met others from St Marylebone, Stoke Newington and Mary Mags.
I just can't warm to it and I didn't find the teachers that enthusiastic. I just don't think it's right for DD.

Did anyone go to La Swap this evening? We couldn't as it clashed with Dd's school play. I'm particularly interested to hear about modern languages.

Yes, I went with DS. We were both quite impressed, although we didn't visit any of the language depts. The curriculums in the other subjects seemed pretty comprehensive.

It's huge - 1,200 students - but they told us the pastoral care is excellent. Great location (close to overground and Hampstead heath), and DS liked the fact that your classes are in different schools, giving it that campus feel.

I couldn’t due to work, but DS went with a friend’s family. He said it seemed a bit disorganised, but then these open evenings often are! I still don’t quite understand how it works being based over four schools. DS is very anti going to a school sixth form so I don’t think it’s likely to be for him - his top choices so far are LAET or Woodhouse.

I should add that all the staff I spoke to were knowledgeable and articulate, and friendly!

We did too. Dd is at a LaSwap school so is already familiar with it all. @zaxxon I agree about the staff. I thought it was done well, a lot better than CSG.
DD still likes Woodhouse best but I think LaSwap is the best fit for her. It is a good halfway between a school and a college.
@Wincher all students have a base school for pastoral care, form etc Three schools are really close, Parli and Ellis are next door to each other, LSU is over the road then Burghley is 5/10 mins walk. Any change in site for teaching would be over a break.
There is a recorded version of the talk available

Bear in mind with La Swap, they can change sites/departments for subjects at the last minute. This happened to a friend's son - one subject at one of the four schools appealed to him enormously, but when he arrived on this first day this autumn he was told that subject was now being run at a different school.

It might not matter much in the long run, but that didn't feel great to him or the parents who made choices based on what he'd be doing where!

My understanding is that if you chose a subject, you can express a preference as to which school you want, but there is no guarantee. So you have to bear that in mind.

My ds was at Habs and went to Brampton College for 6th form. Did really well , loved it and the people too.

Has anyone looked at Mary Magdalene? Would be interested in thoughts as it's one that does German.

We have gone for Fortismere and Woodhouse, would quite like another option other than present school but DS won’t compromise with me on anything and is adamant he won’t stay where he is. I’m thinking of applying somewhere else as a back up without telling him just as a back up. Predicted grades are mainly 7’s, an 8 and 2 x 6. He’s applying for a couple of less popular subjects and sociology so hoping one of them offers. He is working hard but may exceed the grades. I’m slightly irritated with him as he didn’t pull his finger out and predicted grades mean that when he started twittering about UCS and City in September his predictions simply aren’t good enough and they could have been if he had taken year 10 seriously

Surely at sixth form, schools and colleges expect applications to come from students.

How are predictions in subjects he wants to do?

It might be worth applying to colleges that are a bit of a stretch, - not impossible, but achievable with effort - I'm not sure how the current year 11 compares with last year, now year 12, but the drop in numbers of students is now hitting secondary schools quite hard, and even in larger cohorts there may be room for negotiation on results day, as colleges will be keen to get actual student numbers as close as possible to planned places - this is very important to school and college funding/finances.

I’m perfectly happy with where he has applied and they’re brilliant places no question. He wouldn’t have stood a chance for the private schools I mentioned simply because realistically they don’t look at students without mainly 8/9 predictions, I’m not personally bothered, it was my son who suddenly thought he might fancy them after doing minimal work in year 10. They’ve now had their exams and made offers

For 6th form I still expect parents to take the lead in applications so no, personally I’m not leaving it up to a 15 year old who expresses their preferences but until they leave school it’s a parent responsibility and I certainly don’t know parents who would do differently University is different

I know too many families who left 6th form choices and application up to their 15 year olds. For some it had long lasting consequences. They didn’t get the specific grades they needed for their subjects or 6th forms of choice so there was a last minute scrabble for places and courses that weren’t a preference.

I do think the schools and colleges did expect the children to apply themselves, that’s how the applications were set out, at least. I think it’s wrong.

The Woodhouse one was set out for the student to apply. The school ones weren’t but there’s no way I’m having a 15 year old sending off school applications without me having a very clear oversight. To add to this, the current school have been very slow to send in predictions and references and I have had to chase them with the school. If I had left it to my 15 year old, it wouldn’t have been chased and even if it had been the current school would have told him the parent needs to check up.

I understand feeling that you can't just leave it to your kids totally, though mine did actually sort out their own applications (and I was surprised by how well they got it together, actually). But I'm not sure how you would make a secret application for your child "behind his back" as the post as I was responding to suggested.

DS is planning to do his applications over the holidays - though he’s already applied to Harris Westminster and Latymer as they had early deadlines. Neither of those asked for his CAGs (predictions) though. We were meant to get reports and CAGs yesterday but due to an IT issue we aren’t getting them until January now. Does anyone know whether the ones like Woodhouse, LAET, LaSwap need predicted grades in hand to apply? He can take a good guess at them based on his mocks results but they aren’t the official ones!

Woodhouse write to the school asking for them

Dd's school said to just use the grades on their report as they don't do mocks until January. But said all the schools will contact them anyway to check.

Woodhouse deadline is tomorrow if anyone is applying.

We spent 3 hours doing 7 applications yesterday 🤯. After all that, Dd will probably end up staying where she is but at least she now will have some back-ups.

We haven't managed to see most of them so are planning on using the taster days to decide which she likes and what subjects she wants - she's applied for 6 different ones at the moment!