westof

Kingsdale has a new sixth form from this year - so has no reputation at all, as yet. If I'd had the OP's experiences I think that would make me nervous of it, for that fact alone. But - being the first or second cohort of any new venture has a lot to be said of it, as they have a lot to prove & tend to pull all the stops out. I recall another poster saying that Kingsdale had delayed opening their sixth form until they were absolutely sure they were ready for it. Maybe someone with children in the upper Kingsdale years could give you an idea of their pastoral care & the general atmosphere of the school? I noticed from their website that a bunch of their sixth form puils have a fact-finding trip to Harvard & Yale in November, so they sound aspirational at least ;)

I'm curious now to know how Limerick moved from being Stab City to (presumably) no longer Stab City? Was it just an increase in opportunities for young people, or something else? Do these things just go in phases?

The Kingsdale website says Kingsdale rejects 'old style' Academy status but considers 'new style' academy proposals "The school is committed to protecting the independence of the Governing Body and to maintaining high quality provision for students and staff. The proposals being investigated do not include a sponsor and the ultimate strategic authority would reside and remain with the Governing Body."

JAGS has a Saturday school for music which might have something suitable. [http://www.jags.org.uk/jacmc/music/] Lambeth has Lambeth Music Service which runs various ensembles for children [http://www.lambethmusic.co.uk/about_us/our_aims.asp] but I think you may have to live in Lambeth to access this - maybe Southwark has something similar though? I think the borough music services feed in to Morley which is London Centre for Young Musicians, so they may know about provision in Southwark.

I noticed on the latest newsletter (on the school website), some quoted entusiasm from pupils for the 'new lunches' - maybe they have changed? It was interesting to note on the report how the pupil demographic has changed - i.e. "The intake for September 2010 has more girls than boys and the largest ethnic group is White British. The number of looked after children, refugees and asylum seekers is declining" - in light of that the fact that some have claimed the school is now 'targetting the middle classes'. Or is it just that the school is now moving to a more balanced intake compared to what it had before? I really hope this is true, as I think the broad intake, & the ability to provide for it, is one of Kingsdale's strengths & was one of the things that attracted me to the school. It is a really excellent report though, they should be really proud of it!

Although you would be able to make a 'late application' for this September, I think - it's just that the 'in time' applications would be considered first.

I think if you don't make it into the 15%, you would then go into the random allocation/ banding category. Then if you were randomly allocated a place, I guess you would keep your scholarship. Presumably that is how there seem (as mentioned on another thread) to be more than 15% with scholarships attending the school. I think I understand now why there are 2 waiting lists!

Although their admissions criteria - whilst ranking music/sports scholars above siblings - do also say that a maximum of 15% of the intake can be there on scholarship grounds. (actually it says "the equivalent of 15%" so maybe having 'half-scholarships' is a way of being able to apply selection criteria to a greater number of pupils?). They also have a 'banding' waiting list & a 'scholarship' waiting list - I've no idea how that works but I'm not worrying about it since we are nowhere near the top of either! I think that generally in schools with a random allocation element, the waiting list is also randomly allocated so that would be the banding one. I don't know if the scholarship list is randomly allocated, or a subset of the other one, or something else entirely.

I have to say that the cynic in me did find the hard-sell aspect of the head's open day talk, & the streams of well-spoken children praising the school* a bit unnerving. But - Kingsdale may well be the local school of the moment amongst the chattering classes but it definitely still has it's 'old reputation' amongst people who grew up around here & who remember it from 10-15 years ago. Possibly much more so in the areas of Brixton & Peckham where much of the old intake came from, than in leafy East Dulwich... I had people expressing absolute shock that Kingsdale was even on our list, & telling my daughter she shouldn't put it first as it was a 'rubbish school'. I got the impression they were speaking from personal experience of some years ago, and had no idea how much it's changed. So I don't think the need for the hard sell is over by any means. *The children who showed us round the school were great btw, genuinely proud of their school & very helpful.

Hi Our experience hasn't been the same as yours, but was with music scholarship not sport, so perhaps they have been handled differently? At the open day we went to, the head explained pretty clearly that a scholarship offer didn't automatically mean an offer of a school place. He did indicate that if you were applying for a scholarship then you should put Kingsdale as 1st preference, but that this was because of the way the CAF application worked - i.e. that if you put another school 1st, & met this school's admission criteria, you would be offered a place at your 1st choice instead of Kingsdale. On the day of the musical aptitude tests, the teacher also explained this - admittedly they didn't explain it again when they phoned with the results, but then again, I didn't ask at that point, as I'd read the admissions policy on the website. The letter we received after Xmas, offering the scholarship does say "Hope to see you in September" which I suppose could be misconstrued - but to be honest, by that time we'd seen how many children were taking the aptitude tests, not to mention how many (in the 100s on just one day) turned up to take the banding tests in December - (& I think the banding tests were only for non-Southwark children?) - so we had a fair idea of just how many were applying & also that there were likely to be well over the 15% who'd passed the scholarship criteria. I did actually choose not to show my daughter the letter because I didn't want to get her hopes up too much - although I did tell her her she'd done well & been offered a scholarship but that didn't mean she'd end up going to the school. I do have sympathy, because it's hard for a 10 year old to understand that you can pass the scholarship test but that if lots of other children have also passed, only some of them will be offered a place at the school. I ended up saying that if you got the scholarship you'd then be eligible for the lottery for a place, which isn't exactly how it works but seemed close enough. We didn't get our place btw & daughter was very disappointed at first, but really had understood there was only ever a chance. (& luckily we got our 2nd choice which I'd spent plenty of time bigging up once I'd realised how many people were applying to Kingsdale).