Urgent-Latymer Upper vs Dulwich vs Alleyn’s

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Hello,

My DS got offers from Latymer, Dulwich and Alleyn’s and we need to decide in three days.

Would really appreciate if anyone can contribute insight on if their children are happy with the schools and teaching quality. Anyone encountered unfriendly or too competitive parents.

Is the academic pressure high, how much homework do they have?
Does school limit the number of students can be allowed to apply for top universities such as Oxbridge to pump up the rate accepted?
For the ones got good grades is it more school’s teaching or families and tutors effort?
Will the Latymer curriculum reform mean students have no chance to leave at 13+ or 16+ since they will have no GCSE results apart from English and math? We are waiting results from some boarding school 13+. Will they have a problem with the reformed Latymer curriculum. If we stay through, can we trust on the school’s own curriculum delivering results at A-level.

DS has been in both boys only and coed schools and doesn’t have any problems with either.

Thank you for helping!

You’re very late to be asking this sort of information now especially as the offers came out up to several weeks ago. If I were you I would base your decision on logistics and what you think your child’s day / week will be like, as well as the cocurriculars on off er and how they suit him. They’re all good schools. The parents and kids will differ by cohort, you just never know what you’ll get. As for homework, I don’t think there is really that much difference, you all have to do the same work to get the grades in the end.

No one can answer the question about curriculum reform, you need to speak to the school and understand what and why it is. Are you planning to go at Y7 then leave at Y9 if you get a boarding school place? It sounds like you haven’t even decided if he will stay where he is?

Put your child’s happiness first and not the prestige of the school. You’ve had a long time to find all this out and are blocking up the system for people who actually want to go and are wait listed.

Goodness LondonRidge what an angry response. Parents are entitled to take up to the deadline to make their decisions.

I do agree that journey and logistics are important factors and that the character of the parents/ cohort can’t be predicted, you’ll get a mix of types at any of these.

FWIW I very rarely see negative comments about any of these 3 schools on here.

I have a child at Alleyns and we are generally pretty happy with it but my one gripe is that they seem to be narrowing the curriculum a lot - current year 8s and beyond will only do 9 GCSEs and they now have to reduce their subjects a lot in year 9 (especially creative subjects) which I think is a shame and too early.

It’s hardly angry… about what? That would suggest I had skin in the game, I don’t. But I do think entitled is the right word to describe parents who don’t put the effort into finding these things out and informing themselves well ahead of a decision, then wait until the last possible moment and sit on all their offers until the deadlines. It’s also hard on the schools who put a huge amount of time into the process. By all means do what you need to make the right choice, when we made ours it was very difficult. But by this point we were asking very specific questions around timetables, transport, houses, extra curriculars etc - not the basics of how much homework and what are the parents like.

You should have done your homework to be completely confident in your choice by now, we’ve all had months and more to do so.

If schools wanted an earlier decision, surely they would set an earlier deadline?

Very happy with DC. My DS did not want Alleyns as he’s rugby obsessed and Alleyns don’t play rugby! Friends at Alleyns are all v happy. Ease of getting to school during the week and for Saturday sport would be main decision driver for me (and the reason we didn’t go to Trinity or Whitgift - both fantastic schools).

@LondonRidge

You’ve had a long time to find all this out and are blocking up the system for people who actually want to go and are wait listed.

Actually, OP is probably not blocking up the system. As has often been mentioned, pretty much all private schools over-offer, certainly those three, and it is not the situation that one person declining means the next person on the waiting list receives an offer immediately. In most cases, private schools don't go to waiting list until after the national secondary school offers are announced (after 17:00 in London). With these schools, it is almost certain that some of their offer holders will take the Tiffins or the Bromley grammars if they get those offers this afternoon, so it would be dangerous for the schools to go to wait list before tomorrow, which is probably their decision deadline anyway.

But yeah, OP probably would be able to make a better decision if they'd asked these questions earlier.

We had a similar choice last year between Alleyn's and Dulwich and chose Alleyn's and would make that choice again today. DS has continued to play rugby for his club outside of school. All are great schools, Go with the easier journey time and where most local friends will be

Go for the nearest/ easiest journey - LU and the others are a long way apart. All good schools.

DS is at LU and very happy. Academic wise he loves the classes, no pressure and does not seem like there is much homework. He still manages to do sports 7 days a week, watch tv etc. But he is in his first year and maybe the kick up the homework later?

Thank you so much for your reply! That was really helpful! We are closer to LU logistically, we live on the school bus route of DC, and Alleyn’s has been recommended to us by a teacher we know, also heard great things about the school from other parents. DS likes all three schools upon viewing and seems to be happy with them, hence we’re deciding between these (we have already politely refused other offers weeks ago as soon as we knew we won’t go there, sorry I didn’t mention those in the post as wanted to focus the question). We have viewed and went to all the offer holders events last week and tried to talk to the schools wherever the chance allows us to hence the final decision is this late. I really appreciate the comments on here that offers real life experience which sometimes could give a different insight from the official school announcements. The schools all seem not much difference but the curriculums and teaching and support do make a huge difference to DS’s life as we have been to school where they left teaching to parents and school that has the level of teaching that gives most support to its students so they don’t need to do much after school. DS is so much happier in a school that supports him well academically during the day and he can go to his favourite sports every day after school. I wanted to choose the right one for him. He is mainly sporty, academically doing well enough so far but I don’t think he’s the type that can be pressured into too much work and hammered into very specific grades, hence why I’m cautious about if the future environment will have parents and kids talking about grades and marks all day which I have heard some schools are like that( not heard that about the three schools here, so I wanted to know how any parents already having their children in these schools think about them).

Can you make your decision based on :
not having a range of GCSEs v single sex v mixed? Ie would you like him to have the option of moving schools at 6th form v does he like having girls in his class v he doesn’t much mind about either of those things?

My boys were both sporty and while bright I wouldn’t say were particularly swotty and academic. (Enjoyed lessons, got on with work and did well getting As and an A*). Teaching at DC was excellent. And the parents I knew mainly talked about sport not grades!

Thank you so much for your kind comment, this is very helpful