westof

I don't know anything about Deptford Green, but I remember parents this time last year being given that choice, so I wonder if any took it up & could enlighten you. I know there are some Kingsdale kids from Deptford way - I think one parent may even have said that if Deptford Green had been as good as it is now, a few years ago, she would rather have sent her child there simply because it was closer. Would you be able to go & visit even though you've missed the open days? (& yes we had tears shed when it was our turn to go through this - we got our letter first thing in the morning & my child ended up locked in the bathroom in floods refusing to go to school & face friends who'd got their choices).

(cross-posting - I was replying to Metallic as well)

So if you are right, and the results of the exam boards enquiries have yet to be published, then perhaps that is why the school is unable to make any public comment to confirm or deny the allegations? In which case, frustrating as it is, perhaps we will just have to wait for the results to be published, and for the next inspection to take place and be published. And meanwhile it would be wrong to stifle honest speculation and discussion, frustrating as that may be for the school when it it isn't in a position to comment either way - but we could remember that is all just speculation. (And yes, my suggestion of a public meeting was facetious, but only because despite my nosiness, this kind of thing really is outside my sphere of experience).

Yes, check with the school - but if you have child benefit & bank statements in your name, to the same address the council tax bill is paid for, then that sounds promising towards proving it is your sole address. I expect they have put checks in place to stop people renting second homes in catchment, but I'm sure they wouldn't want to discriminate against people who genuinely do live where they say they do.

prickle Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Metallic said "The mere fact that so much is > unsubstantiated is a problem but it remains true, > as far as I can see, that claims of public exams > cheating have yet to be reported on by the exam > boards, after 8 months, and that as the school has > made no public statement whatsoever to confirm or > deny this has been looked in to by them at least, > they have created their own problem. A public > statement by the Head and the Governors > acknowledging this problem would have nipped the > rumours in the bud. " > > I think this is the nub of the issue. The silence > from the school and the attempts at gagging debate > on this forum only feeds speculation and the > feeling that they have something to hide. KD uses > PR to promote itself ruthlessly but has failed to > use it to deal with the negative stuff. I wonder if it is relevant that the Ofsted inspection makes absolutely no reference (positive or negative) to cheating or exam practices? Would that be something we should expect an OFSTED inspection to mention if they had concerns?

Metallic Wrote: > The group of teachers who are > seemingly hoping to bring this and other matters > in to the public domain have at least made their > side of the issue clear because otherwise I doubt > this inspection would have taken place. Ah - perhaps the big mystery of why the inspection was called... I certainly don't think you need to be a Kingsdale parent to have an interest - I would be just as concerned by all of this if I wasn't a parent, and much more so if I was a prospective parent. But it's hard to know what pressure parents can bring to the situation, let alone people who aren't (yet) connected to the school, other than to make it known that we have read the report and want some confirmation that the issues are being addressed, without taking it upon ourselves to interfere in things we don't neccessarily understand. (I'm only speaking for myself, but I have no background in education or management). And again, it's hard to know how the school could reassure the wider community that issues are or have been adequately addressed, without having some kind of public meeting where we can all ask individual teachers face to face to tell us in confidence if they feel adequately supported. Perhaps in that case, it might be best if there was another OFSTED inspection sooner rather than later, since the results of that would be made available to the general public and we could see if the issues raised in this inspection have been addressed? And this does indeed seem to be the opinion of OFSTED: "the timing of the school?s next inspection will be affected" so I think another inspection is to be welcomed rather than seen as a punishment, even if it is stressful to be inspected. If it provokes the school into fixing any weaknesses that may have developed, then surely that can only be a good thing.

intexasatthe moment Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As I've said before ,it will have taken a great > deal of effort ,concern and courage for staff to > voice criticisms of the school . > I think it is great credit to the teachers who > have concerns that they have remained ( and that > they have not allowed their views to affect the > smooth running of the school and their teaching of > pupils ) and that they are seeking an improvement > in the situation . It shows their commitment to > their profession . Broadly, I agree with this, and hope that even if some people have found that the only way they can make their concerns known is via unorthodox methods, they are still willing to see a positive outcome.

village people Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I find it very disappointing though to see that > most of the negative and speculative comments > regarding Kingsdale come from people who have no > or little first had experience of the school but > rather a significant few who seem to have no > connection with the school at all. It's a little odd isn't it, all these people with friends in the school who mention things to them. I'm not surprised the head didn't go down the (apparently usual) route of passing on feedback to staff immediately after the inspection with a polite request to keep confidential until the actual report was published. Since there were clearly a minority (significant or otherwise) of people willing to drip feed the odd nugget on here if it suited them. I'm happy to discuss the issues now the full report is out - though (without wanting to stifle discussion) whether a very public foum is the best place to do this rather depends on your agenda. I'm very conscious of the fact that as a parent, I don't tell teachers how to teach - though of course I would want to know they are doing their job properly. Equally, I wouldn't presume to tell anyone how to run a school or a team of staff - though of course I would want to know this was being done properly as well. And I don't think it would be appropriate for parents to know who this 'significant minority' of unhappy teachers are, (unless they actually wanted to make themselves known of course) which does beg the problem of how parents would ever know if these issues have been resolved. Metallic, with your background in mediation, and your claim to have to no links to school other than as an interested outsider and no axe to grind, (correct me if I've muddled you with someone else), do you have any positive suggestions on resolving this?

Crescent, it would actually benefit you if more schools started to operate a lottery admission, at least then you would have a chance at those schools as well. If enough parents lobbied for that, I wonder if it could happen? There are many advantages in London to going to a school that isn't 200 yards down the road, yet is still only a 15 minute bus ride away (walkable on a snow day ;-) ) & with children from a wider area - not least meeting a variety of children from different backgrounds, different areas & a bit less obsessed with their own postcodes. I wish more not less children could have that opportunity, with London such a densely populated area distance criteria at secondary school level can lead to some very odd anomalies. It would be a shame to move out of London since there are such good schools here, but of course that is no consolation until you actually get into one of them. A lot can change in a few years - I have heard good things about Norwood School (south Lambeth but I think near to you) especially since it's gone co-ed.

Carbonara Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My friend was told that her child had been offered > a full sports scholarship for KD, but has now not > been offered a place. They have been offered a > place at a lower choice school. How can this > happen? We were in this position 2 years ago - I believe this because they are only permitted to select a maximum of 15% via the scholarships, but also offer the scholarships (i.e. free lessons or whatever) to children who get a place via the banded lottery. So (as with us) your friends son wasn't part of the 15% selected, and also hasn't received a place via the lottery. In our case, we went on the waiting list - in fact we on both the "Scholarship" waiting list, and the Main waiting list, and got regular emails to let know how our position on each list. It's very frustrating - but if you phone the school immediately, they may not know yet what position you are. IIRC it took a while, possibly even a few weeks? until all parents had accepted or rejected their offers, before they could quote the initial positions on the waiting lists. BUT your friend can & should still immediately request to be put on the waiting list (either by email or by phone - I emailed because I prefer to have the response in writing). Good Luck to your friend!

intexasatthe moment, I have friends who teach in secondary schools (for an academy chain but NOT in South London) who have mentioned similar - lack of support, sleepless nights, intense monitoring & pressure to improve results year on year to an impossible degree - that make me dread to think my child would taught by people facing that degree of stress and unhappiness. And these are people who genuinely enjoy their basic job of imparting knowledge to teenagers. This kind of pressure is definitely a bigger problem than just one school - that said I have no way of knowing how Kingsdale compares to other schools in this respect.

westof Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Metallic Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > The posts were deleted? Good grief. > > In some respects it was a shame those threads were > deleted - I read them at the time - as 1) there > was some genuinely interesting discussion, and 2) > some of the posts were so utterly fruitloop that > they would have left no-one reading them in doubt > that there was an element (however minor) of > maliciousness (poss. too strong a word, mischief > at the very least) to the original cheating > allegations. ...which doesn't mean I would want to see genuine issues dismissed - as this is a school (& teachers) well worth supporting.

Metallic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The posts were deleted? Good grief. In some respects it was a shame those threads were deleted - I read them at the time - as 1) there was some genuinely interesting discussion, and 2) some of the posts were so utterly fruitloop that they would have left no-one reading them in doubt that there was an element (however minor) of maliciousness (poss. too strong a word, mischief at the very least) to the original cheating allegations.

Well, I am very glad that they have published the report, and that it is mostly very positive - in time to reassure parents & children who are undergoing the very stressful secondary allocation period. I will read more fully, & pay particular attention to the paragraph above which should in no way be dismissed. HOWEVER - I would like to say that it is entirely to the school's credit (including any teachers who are unhappy with the school), that from a parents point of view, the school is still functioning exceptionally well, with children making progress & happy at school - to the extent that that paragraph was quite surprising. Whatever internal / external issues there are - and I certainly hope they are resolvable - at least they are not affecting the pupils or the quality of teaching and care they are receiving. If the timing of the next inspection is brought forward - although I sympathise inspections may be disruptive to the school, I think it would on balance be a good thing - whether to provide reassurance following the scrutiny the school has been under, or indeed to root out genuine issues which I would rather were fixed than swept under the carpet. Because this is a good school for children to attend, and I would want the school and the teachers to be supported. And - I don't think it is particularly hard to believe that the 'exams business' ( whatever that turns out actually to have entailed) could be linked to the paragraph above with teachers under pressure.

Nope, I'm a parent - (well I was a sceptical prospective parent when I started posting here in 2010 - so to give you the benefit of the doubt, I do remember how that feels)

Metallic, I find your posts are beginning to write themselves - I can usually 'just imagine' exactly the nature of what you might have popped in to mention.

I don't know when this particular report will be published - but when my child was at primary, they had a monitoring inspection (i.e. not a full inspection, but the kind you get in between those ones if the school is coming out of special measures) and IIRC it was good 2 or 3 months before anything was published, and then it was in letter format. (I've just looked on OFSTED's website to remind me of the dates - the monitoring inspection for that school took 3 MONTHS to be published, whereas the full inspection report had taken less than a month which seems to be usual for those). So your guess is as good as mine - but it looks like, if anything, a non-standard inspection may take longer than usual to process? And good luck to all those waiting for places at whatever school...

Prickle, perhaps Kingsdale parents seem relatively unconcerned because day to day they just see the reality of a normal, well-functioning school. And they've learnt that if they do speak up to say that - they just run the risk of being called defensive - can't win either way! Though if you have a Y5 child, I can completely sympathise with using this forum to try & find out everything you can about the school - I only found my way to the EDF myself a few years back because I was scouring threads with a fine tooth comb to try & read between the lines & work out what the schools were really like.

> Westof....where you child goes to school is not > necessarily where you would choose to send you > child, as has been mentioned previously. True - there isn't usually a 'choice' when it comes down to it - & I expect having friends teaching at your child's school is one of the lesser worries in the grand sceme of things.

bluemusic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- >Two of the people I know > that teach there were expecting the results > yesterday but the Head Teacher said it was > 'confidential' at this point. Now...this is pretty > much unheard of... Is it really normal for teachers to get the results of an inspection on the day? Inspection results don't seem to become public until a month or so later, but perhaps I'm thinking of the bigger inspections. (Bit of an off-topic question) but would you really send your children to a school where you had friends teaching? My dad was friends with one of my least favourite teachers & I always found it annoying - even basing my O-level choices on avoiding that particular teacher - but perhaps that was just a personal quirk & it wouldn't bother most teenagers.

Thanks Ondine (& my apologies to Betterinthesun for sounding suspicious) mystery solved & I will wait for mine to bother telling me ;-)

Metallic Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Westhof, when your kid comes home saying the > inspectors are in, and you know there is trouble > about why wouldn't you ask for some info. I > really need to know what is going on in the school > as I don't want to choose a school that isn't > honest when it comes to it. Open days dont tell > you anything because it all looks perfect. I haven't said I wouldn't, but AFAIK no-one's kids have yet come home saying anything of the sort. At least, not that I could interpret from the post at the start of this thread. And I have already said that a No Notice inspection wouldn't particularly surprise me, given that the school could reasonably be said to fall under the criteria of 'concerns raised' (whether or not there was any truth to the concerns, or why & how they were raised, being a separate issue).

So that would be Kingsdale, Charter & another 150 or so 'Outstanding' schools in the country, now due to be re-examined under the new rules as their teaching was judged "Good"... (Though not Harris Boys as they do have an "Outstanding" for teaching :) ) From the Ofsted website: Ofsted announces "No Notice" inspections for schools "Ofsted already undertakes unannounced inspections in a number of circumstances, including where concerns are raised about a school and for some satisfactory schools that do not show enough capacity to improve." I expect a "No Notice" inspection could also come under the category "concerns are raised about a school" - given that concerns were certainly raised in the summer about their exam processes, then (speaking as a layman) it seems perfectly reasonable for a "No Notice" inspection to be on the cards. Either way, I doubt it means that anything new or exciting is happening regards the exam saga, or that the school is any less good than parent's own experience leads them to believe. Still mildly curious as to why Betterinthesun has posted this thread now though.

Well if they have been skewing the admissions towards Dulwich, maybe that explains why the proportion of pupils with English as a second language is so low (4% of the 2011 GCSE cohort compared to 38% at Harris Girls & 57% at Kingsdale for instance). To be fair, given their location, I would have expected the percentage to be pretty low in any case, but I was surprised at quite how low it is. And tbh I'm not even sure what English as a second language is meant to indicate at secondary level anyway.

If you are more on the West Dulwich side, there's the community greenhouses in Brockwell Park, also West Norwood Feast. Brockwell Greenhouses West Norwood Feast