Sydenham School & Prendergast Hilly Fields, SE London

[banhmi]

Hi, would be very grateful to hear from parents with recent experiences of these two schools. We are currently in the catchment for PHF but are considering moving towards Forest Hill / Sydenham. Have visited the schools - really liked both but marginally preferred Sydenham because it is all on one site - but can see why each is popular and well-regarded.

However I'd love to know why, with fairly similar catchments (from what I can tell), there does seem to be quite a significant difference in academic results - PHF seems a lot stronger than Sydenham here - at least on 2024 results, will check again soon for 2025. I have a fairly bright and academic daughter and don't want to disadvantage her by moving away from the school that might be a better fit. (Also not saying this is the be all and end all, by any means - just something I'd like to better understand).

Many thanks!

Didn't realise there were so many more posts on this thread, thanks so much to everyone who has shared their experience. So great to hear about the many strengths of both schools. At the moment I'm thinking Sydenham might marginally suit our daughter best, as she's pretty outgoing and socially capable so might benefit from a bigger intake, and into both sports and dance. She enjoys music but don't think it will develop into a particular passion/talent (who am I to predict this though!).

Final question - what are the smartphone policies at each and how are they enforced? I think from the open days they are both "see it, hear it lose it" but would love to know how this is enforced in practice.

The phone policy seemed to be that if it was seen or heard as the result of absentmindedness, a warning/reminder was given. If it happened again that lesson, or was a deliberate choice to have it out when it shouldn't be, the phone was taken and could be collected later. It wasn't something that was an issue with my DDs so I didn't hear much about it. As they got further up the school, they were sometimes allowed to use their phones to support their learning e.g choosing a sound effect for a GCSE drama piece, recording their composition ideas for music or for filming themselves doing their sport. That sort of thing happened with permission from the teachers though and wasn't a free for all.

Sydenham is if it is seen or heard it's confiscated for a week. It's stringently enforced.

There's a bit of app based homework but a lot.of it is old school in a paper booklet.

PHF might have tightened up their policy too, I think all the Lewisham heads tried to get consistency.

Hi, I'm very interested / encouraged to hear that at Prendergast there are 120 students split into 5 classes making it 24 students per class. I thought most schools had 30 per class in secondary? Does this start from Year 7 or is it only later when they start choosing their subjects?

@SELondonLondon split into five classes for maths only, with the smallest class being the girls who struggled the most with the subject.

@PrendergastParent that sounds great, especially as I have read further up this thread that the maths teaching is really good. Thank you so much for letting me know.