SW London schools: info on Graveney, Chestnut, Hurlingham etc

[PForParent]

I would like to get some thoughts on secondary state schools in the Wandsworth area.

We are ruling out single-sex schools, and super-strict schools like Ashcroft.
Private schools or moving to another area are not realistic options, for a multitude of reasons.

Our priority is to find a reasonable balance between a school which is reasonably rigorous, but not to the point that it crushes kids' spirit with petty, capricious, unnecessary rules and punishments. Eg think of the scandals at Holland Park School or Mossbourne, with well-documented cases of emotional abuse.

Our impressions so far:

Graveney: seems great if we can get in with the test (we appreciate it's not easy).

Chestnut in Balham: seems less academic than Graveney but still a reasonable balance.

Ashcroft: never ever ever. Detentions for cycling to school? Please. And the supposed "catch up" if you miss a day is bs: they simply put you in a detention room, there is no teaching. Way too much homework: the kids we know who go there have given up all their other activities, have stopped reading, that's really extreme.

Hurlingham Academy in Fulham: Impressions were good. Seemed a reasonable balance. Some doubts about the school not having sixth form.

Saint Cecilia: we know many families whose children are happy there. But it seems one of the least academic, and with very little homework (the opposite problem to Ashcroft)

Harris Wimbledon: very mixed feedback. Some say it's a very good and very academic school, some say it's far too strict.

Harris Battersea: very mixed feedback, but in the opposite sense to Harris Wimbledon: some say it's good, some say it's not academic enough.

Southfields Academy: terrible impressions. The kids seemed feral. It seemed the least academic of the whole list.

When sharing your thoughts, please:

• respect our preferences. If Ashcroft or a single-sex works well for your kids, I am very happy for you, but don't try to convince me to send my kids there. If someone asks for a Chinese restaurant you don't tell them that Indian food is better :)
• please try to take into account not just your personal experience, but how someone else's experience might differ. Eg our kids are reasonably happy at their primary, but I'll be the first to say it's one of those "my way or the highway" type of schools, and it's not a good choice for anyone with any kind of special needs

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! Thanks a lot!

@PatientVesta , @spoodlesee
The Daily Mail is notoriously unreliable and prone to fake news and sensationalism.
A parent who starts a live-streaming of the incident doesn't seem like the most reasonable and balanced individual.

However, from the article it isn't clear what incident triggered this drama.
Allegedly, a 13-year old mislaid her blazer and was forced to wear her year-7 jacket.

Does this mean that she accidentally packed the wrong jacket, from when she was younger, which no longer fits her, and a teacher forced her to wear an ill-fitting, too tight jacket?

Is this true? An unstable parent craving attention could well fabricate or embellish the story.

But, equally, I can totally imagine schools like Micaela, Mossbourne, the old Holland Park etc doing something like this

As with everything the truth will be somewhere in the middle.

Harris Academies are notorious for the strict behaviour rules, it's not the 1st ime they've been in the news for uniform infractions and others.

I personally don't mind strict schools (catholic education here) but know they can be marmite.

The long thread on Mossbourne has many examples.
Some people don't like any kind of strict.
I am for strict but reasonable.

Punishing a child who hasn't done their homework is strict but reasonable.
Shouting at kids, Mossbourne style, or giving them detentions if they cycle to school, Ashcroft style, is not reasonable. It's a huge red flag that the school may be run by the kind of repressed bullies who'd fail a psychological test to get into the police.

There was also a story about an academy in Manchester giving a detention to a girl wearing the cheaper, but 99% identical, Asda skirt.

In the hypothetical situation where a child is placed in a school because they have a sibling already attending, and at the start of Year 7, they are placed in a different classroom from the 70 kids who passed the Wandsworth test:

• If my child performs very well academically by the middle of Year 7, will they be moved to the class with the most advanced students (those with the highest Wandsworth test scores)?
• Conversely, if some children who originally passed the Wandsworth test struggle to keep up academically, will they be moved to a class with less advanced students?

1. Frequency of Class Changes

• How often do these academic reallocations happen during the school year?
• Is there a fixed review period (e.g., termly or halfway through the year), or are adjustments made on a case-by-case basis?

1. Subject-Specific Performance

• If a child excels in core subjects like Maths and English but underperforms in Geography, would they still be considered for the top academic group, or could they be "downgraded" due to weaker performance in one subject?
• Does the school focus more on overall ability or subject-by-subject performance when deciding class movements

Yes, but I now heard from parents I know from there and confirmed my suspicions. The mum is well known and it's not her first show. Every parent I spoke to is siding with the school on this one, so it's a typical DM non story.

RE Graveney sets incase helpful info: in my child’s year there are 4 ‘extension’ forms (out of 10 forms in total), with 30 or 31 kids in each, so around 120 out of 280 kids are in one of the extension classes. Getting one of the 70 Wandsworth test places isn’t the only route to being in an ‘extension’ class, the class has a mix of kids who got a Wandsworth test place, a sibling place or a proximity place, although all will have done ‘well’ on the test and SATS. This year 2 children were moved from the ‘extension’ class to the ‘enrichment’ set and 2 from ‘enrichment’ took their place after Feb half term, so maybe 16-20 kids were moved between these two sets in total. I think movement might happen once a year but not sure on that.

Thanks for your answer!! From your experience how bad is bullying in the school? and how the school deals with it? I have seen many coments around about it. Tks

No problem! My child is in year 7 so only been in the school 2 terms, no bullying that I’m aware of so far so not sure how the school would deal with it if it did happen. The kids in the class seem nice and seem to get on well as a group with no standout ‘popular’ or ‘unpopular’ kids, I guess each class is different though so I’m sure others might have different experiences. Good luck with your decision!

@11plusNewbie "n the private side, have you looked at LPS and Thames Christian ? they seem to have a different take, and some kids with SEN seem to be doing really well at both"

I had a look at LPS, Thames Christian is not for us, we do not belive in religion. Thanks though.

Bullying happens in all schools however it's important to know how the school deals with it. In our experience and others Graveney is not good to putting a stop to it, and some staff are inadecuate dealing with it. We know families in the extension classes, and they are treated a lot better than in the Enrichment or Endevour ones, it's another world, and it has been going on for years, it's not new. Some kids do experience bullying or know about it, they may tell their parents, others stay away of conflict. There is a lot of "pokcing the bear" situations particurlay with vulnerable/SEN children.

That's not the case for those schools, because they belong to big MAT, the brunt of the closing of schools is now affecting the ones supported by the LA, at the end if the current Gov doesn't stop it, we will end up with a semi-privatise education with Academies across England. Lucky Scotland didn't follow that route.

@77summers what about the Hall ?