Any grammar or good ind near Camden town

[Ib1234567]

HI

Trying to find good secondary schools around Camden town, I don't know the area so not sure if there is any grammar near it (commutable ) or a good independent school with a good bursary . Appreciate any help. Thanks

Definitely look at City of London School (girls or boys). Amazing schools.

.
There are no grammar schools in that part of London. Camden school for girls is very good though. And Dame Alice Owen is the nearest thing to a grammar as it has an exam entry system. Beyond that you've just got all the usual North London privates. They're all different and depends really on what else you're looking for. They do all have bursaries but they do vary, depends if you've got low income or just a purely academic bursary. If the latter unlikely you get full bursary.

Camden School for Girls beats plenty of state grammars.

Bear in mind that London state schools are some of the best in the country. Your local secondary may be great. Don’t discount it just because it’s not a grammar or independent school.

Parliament Hill Girls, Camden Girls both have very gold reputation and results on par with some grammars. Independents you have to travel so depends what line you live near but Highgate, Channing, FHRP are probably the closest independents. Lots of options if you have girls basically.

South Hampstead is a good private school but you don’t need to pay if you can get a place at Camden Girls.

If living in the London Borough of Camden, as opposed to just wanting to send their DC to school there or in the vicinity, the OP would need to have his / her DC in primary school in the London Borough of Islington to have anything other than zero chance of a place at Dame Alice Owen. The school will not permit anyone to register for the entrance test for its selective places unless they live in the defined local part of the catchment area or the DC live in / attend primary school in Islington.

@Ib1234567 for state schools, you need to look at the admissions policy for schools in which you are interested, plus the admission statistics for recent years. No point in getting your hopes up for e school with the Mumsnet Seal of Approval, only to find when the time comes that your DC isn't ranked anywhere near far enough up the list of oversubscription criteria for the relevant year of entry to be offered a place at any of them.

If your DC are still young enough, of course, you have time to move to to somewhere with the best chance of getting a place at a favoured state school by the deadline for that year's admissions. (Or any other deadline that the school sets - you need to check).

Indies, rather different; do well in the exam, don't be rude to anyone on interview day and pay the deposit, and you're in.

N.B. if you are asking because you need a place / places for DC who is / are secondary age now, where they can get a place immediately in the state sector will depend on where actually has a place in the year group(s) to offer.

appreciate all the help, I was asking as I was used to grammar where I live. But I looked at some the schools you told me about and looks that there is good ones.

Camden Girls If some one tell me how the bands work as I saw that child sit exam and then what happens as I didn't understand the banding ?

Where do boys go in that area? I know Camden is amazing but what's the equivalent?

Girls sit the fair banding test and are divided into four equal groups based on performance in the exam (top 25%, second 25% etc). Places are allocated equally from each band, so 25% of places go to girls in Band A, 25% in Band C etc. Thus the distances vary from one band to another. They also have 8 (I think) music places available.
Henrietta Barnet is Hampstead Garden Suburb is the closest grammar school, but it is a super selective so very difficult to get into.

Heard very mixed things about CSG up to GCSE lately, but still a good reputation for 6th form.

Acland Burghley has improved a lot under it current (no longer new) head.

CLS and CLSG are great schools academically, but used to be significantly cheaper than the other top indies and now they're not (£25k/year). Intake is from the whole of London not just North. Would need to be absolute genius level to get a bursary at either, far higher bar than just passing the entrance exam, which is already hard enough.

It's really bad for boys. I grew up in Camden and my and my siblings' experiences (of trying different state and private) we very bad.

So we were despairing looking for our DC, but we found Marylebone Boys' at the last minute, which, so far, has been lovely. It's very like an office block, no outdoor space, but makes up for that in being small and friendly. It teaches Latin and has a great range of after school clubs, which means it has some aspects of a private school although of course it's mixed ability intake, so not an academic hothouse.

Good point @MarchingFrogs about residence in LBI for DAO! I forgot about that

We live close to Camden Town tube and we are probably in catchment for CSG, but not PH (it varies year to year but I expect the last distance to get smaller due to VAT on private schools). They are both excellent schools but are not really private schools for free, so we are looking at selective indies as well.

Most grammar schools in London are in the outer boroughs so they are quite far, and some have a distance preference/criteria, so we haven't really considered them. Some girls we know have gone to HB but they live closer, and as others said it's extremely difficult to get in.

Independent schools that are popular with girls nearby are Francis Holland, South Hampstead, Queens College, City, Channing, Highgate. A few further away are St Paul's, Godolphin & Latymer, NLCS, Queenswood, Forest School. We are mainly focusing on the closer ones as we don't want DD to have a long journey, but I think perhaps the others have bus services which makes it feasible to attend. From Camden Town it's quick to get to Waterloo or London Bridge which could mean some of the south London independents are doable too.

St Mary Magdalene and St Marylebone are state schools with some selective places that are popular and easy to travel to.

The nearest grammar school from Camden are St Michael's and Henrietta Barnet.

@Ib1234567 to further clarify re the fair banding system (wherever it is used), within each band, the allocation is then according to the oversubscription criteria for the school as a whole, so LAC / PLAC, then siblings, then by distance, or whatever. One thing which the school absolutely cannot do is allocate within a band by the score the applicant got in the test.

St Michael's is a Catholic Grammar - so as well as the academic criteria, you'd need to be a baptised Catholic with a Certificate of Catholic Practice and have made a first Holy Communion.

Henrietta Barnett you get a higher priority if you live within 3 miles, and I don't think anywhere in Camden Town would be within that distance, though some parts of Kentish Town would be. But it has a very high number of applicants to places even for those who live near enough.

Apologies for the thread resurrection, but I wanted to ask almost exactly this question.

Most of the posts in this thread seem to be about girls rather than boys. Why do you prefer this school over some of the other local secondary schools such as Regent High, UCL, Acland Burghley and Haverstock? I'm not really sure where to start and the one you picked seems a reasonable distance away.

Also, for boys, presumably the only grammar option is Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet? And private options are those in Hampstead and Highgate?

If you look at the academic results (or even progress scores) for Regent High, Haverstock and UCL, they are pretty grim in comparison to the good local girls' schools. Acland Burghley is definitely the best of those for boys.

It's nice if Marylebone Boys provides another alternative as you may just prefer the culture or ethos or offering more - Acland Burghley has amazing music for example but is definitely not the kind of school to offer Latin.

If you are near the tube then you could consider private schools across London really because of tube and school bus networks - e.g. City, Mill Hill, Latymer Upper, Westminster, Wetherby, even Dulwich College could all be reached in under an hour from Camden Town tube.

Thanks for the reply and I haven't looked at this data yet; however, I did go to a talk (hosted by someone trying to promote local schools, so not independent) and she made the point that these figures need to be viewed in the context of the number of SEN children. She said that any schools that tried to discourage SEN children typically had much better academic scores overall and this distorted the figures. Therefore, it was important to look at the SEN figure as well, and on this basis, the local schools didn't do as badly as the results might otherwise indicate.

You're right, but the more layers of transport, the more ways it can fail, and I imagine that schools are not forgiving when the kids are late. Plus, two hours commuting is no fun for adults, so I can't imagine kids like it either. City would be an option though.

@londondragonite Acland Burghley does indeed offer Latin from Year 7 onwards and has a good size cohort taking both Latin and Classics GCSEs (In Year 10 and Year 11 respectively).

Oh I had no idea! Thanks for sharing.

The progress scores take this into account, though, as they measure the progress made since the end of Key Stage 2.

If you Google 'Compare school performance' it takes you to the government website where you can see the full details of pupil population and academic results for each school. It is definitely worth doing.