redjam

Oh! As if the admissions office at Dunraven is monitoring the East Dulwich Forum minute by minute (perhaps they are?), I've just had the response from them! So in the interest of community spirit, I am sharing it with you: Thank you for your email enquiry and apologies for the delay in responding to you, but it is an extremely busy time of year for admissions. As an indication for the September 2015 Year 7 entry the furthest distance measurements in each of the 5 bands on National Offer Day were as follows: Band 1.1 - 0.687 miles Band 1.2 - 0.931 miles Band 2.1 - 0.971 miles Band 2.2 - 0.919 miles Band 3 - 0.892 miles I hope this information will assist you with your decision making. Haven't got my map out yet but I suspect that puts that one safely out the running for most East Dulwich kids. Ah well, another one crossed off the list.

Zedd - v useful, thank you. Another one I'd not heard of. And interesting that Elmgreen seems to be getting good word of mouth - it's one that keeps cropping up on the grapevine as being on the up, good new headmaster etc (though I had a look at their published exam results and it seems last year's were pretty poor so perhaps early days?). Katgod, yes, quite agree, but the trouble is where to draw the line. I've already been to half a dozen open days and at an average hour and a half for each one I can't afford to keep taking time off work to visit many more, particularly if realistically I don't think my daughter would stand a chance of getting in. Which is partly why I started this thread. This so-called 'choice' is ridiculously onerous on the parents. Anyone know if kids from ED ever get into Dunraven? It's meant to be a great school but I emailed them a couple of weeks ago to ask if they could tell me their furthest distance offered last year (can't find the info on the internet anywhere) and had no reply.

This is all really helpful, thank you. Interesting about Harris Crystal Palace - I hadn't got my head round their admissions criteria. I'd never even heard of the UAE or London Nautical. More research needed - aargh!

So, like many of us with Year 6 children I am busy doing the rounds of secondary schools at the moment. But I'm struggling to think how I'm going to fill the list with six 'realistic' schools (seven if you count Charter ED). There seem to be certain obvious local schools that everyone I know is putting down in whichever order: Charter 1 (we're well out of catchment but hey, I'll stick it down anyway), Charter ED, Kingsdale, Harris Girls/Harris Boys and Sydenham School for girls - for boys the equivalent is Forest Hill although I know that's harder to get into from ED. But then that leaves us with at least a couple more options to fill. So my question is, which are the realistic schools that we should be considering for those last couple of slots on the list? Or do people just put down schools they don't think they've got a chance of getting into just to fill the list? I've done a bit of research and these are the other options I've come up with, but if any ED parents out there can give me some advice on this, I'd be grateful. I've only looked at girls' schools but if any boys' parents want to chip in, please do. I also haven't considered any faith schools because I don't know where to start - I'm not averse to sending my daughter to a C of E school but we're not churchgoers so I've assumed we wouldn't stand a chance. Again, if anyone can correct me on this, please do. So here's my list: Harris Crystal Palace - too far? Elmgreen - too far? Deptford Green - too far? Prendergast Hilly Fields (girls) - but we'd only stand a chance if you get a music place? Haberdasher Aske's Hatcham - ditto Dunraven - too far? Grey Coats (girls) - only if you get a language place Graveney - only if your child does exceptionally well in the Wandsworth test Harris Peckham - too far? Any wise old Year 7/8/9 parents out there who can give me some advice? There was a useful thread on this a while back (http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,1547779,1553418#msg-1553418) but that actually made me think that it was even less likely to get into somewhere like e.g. Elmgreen from East Dulwich. Help! Edited to change Sydenham High (private) to Sydenham School (state) - my mistake.

Grok Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I've heard the old chinese takeaway is set to > become a fried chicken takeaway precisely because > the school is opening up. Supply and demand. Your > eyesore will be replaced with the odour of dirty > old frying oil and kids! > > Well, I'd be delighted if anything went there to replace that awful graffitied old Chinese takeaway. But where have you heard that it's going to change hands? I've not seen anything that suggests it's going to be done up. I'd also be very surprised if it changed to a fried chicken shop - the old police station is going to be a primary school, not a secondary school, so their target market would be all wrong.

That's very reassuring, bawdy-nan, and I certainly hope that will be the case for my own kids. I suppose I worry that this grammatical approach might be a massive turn-off for those kids who don't naturally enjoy reading in the first place. I guess we won't know if that's the case for several more years, until the 'Gove generation' has gone up through the education system. I also find the re-introduction of Imperial measures into the maths curriculum quite weird. On the other hand, I rather like the fact that primary school kids are now expected to be able to recite a poem - yes, it's an old-fashioned skill, but one I'm quite happy to see revived. Overall, though, I do pity the teachers trying to wade their way through all these reforms - must be a nightmare. And no one seems to have a very good idea of how these level-free Sats are going to work in reality... (Edited to add: Pickle, I've got an English degree and been a book editor for over twenty years and I had no idea what a fronted adverbial was either! Which is why in the end it seems like an utterly pointless thing to drum into an eight-year-old's head, but hey ho.)

I find the new emphasis on grammar in literacy rather depressing - and I'm actually an editor, so I do care about grammar! But when my 8-year-old daughter comes home talking about fronted adverbials and embedded clauses, it makes me want to weep. Mind you, she seems perfectly happy about it (she's a bit geeky), but I fear for the kids who are put off literacy for life as a result of all this clunky emphasis on the nuts and bolts of language. I do feel that at primary school the focus should be on getting kids to stretch their imagination and come up with wild and creative stories rather than ticking off a list of ploddy grammatical learning objectives in every bit of writing. I'm not knocking the school at all - I think they do a decent job of making it interesting - but the emphasis seems skew-whiff to me. Surely you want to get kids loving reading and writing for its own sake before you start on the deconstructing and labelling? As you might be able to tell, I'm a product of 1980s state education where we weren't taught grammar at all - I had to pick it up myself later when I was learning French and later still at uni studying English, which I admit brought its own problems. But overall I'm glad I came to it after I'd already established a love of reading. I worry that for some kids this change in the curriculum will have the opposite effect.

'Grotty South London high street'?!! How very dare they.

How about some attractive green planting or attractive fencing to screen the really ugly area behind the back of Londis (bins/electricity substation/barbed wire/metal fencing etc)? It's right at the entrance to North Cross Road market and I always think it looks so uninviting and grim. Also I don't know if this sort of thing would fall within the CGS remit but is there anything that can be done to improve the frontage of that derelict Chinese/fish and chip shop on the corner of Whateley Road and Landcroft Road (Golden City)? It's now covered in graffiti, some of it not particularly suitable for the primary school about to open opposite!

Wow, that is a big reduction for the first year. Guess Harris got what they wanted. From the new website it looks like the school will be opening in temporary accommodation at the hospital site itself, so I suppose they couldn't find anywhere else with more space. Simon, can you confirm that's correct and there's no chance of different accommodation still being found? Gosh, that reduced intake is going to make the shakedown process even more stressful this year for us Year 6 parents?

What a lovely post. Well done you and good luck - those mad new-baby months are so hard but you will get through them and come out the other side smiling!

Back on the subject of the North X Rd/Lordship Lane roadworks (can we keep the yellow lines debate on the other thread?)? Start date: 22 June Original end date: 7 August Revised end date: 24 August Revised revised end date: 7 September Um, anyone know when the revised revised revised end date is?

That pic with the washing line is a candidate for that Terrible Estate Agent Photos website. Though I fear an indoor rotary washing line isn't as much of a selling point as a horse: http://terriblerealestateagentphotos.com/post/62824754189

I think we may all be talking at cross-purposes here... The official policy as I understand it is either a plain white shirt (i.e. a 'proper' shirt, not a polo shirt) or a polo shirt with a logo. Not a logo-less polo shirt - though that said I've seen many kids wear them.

Well, I'm going by what their official policy is. Whether you follow it is of course up to you - I don't think they're massively strict about enforcing it unless someone's completely taking the mickey. The logo polo shirts are ?6.50 but they wash better than the (cheaper) plain Sainsbury's ones, I've found.

I think if it's a polo shirt it's meant to be one with a Heber logo on it (available from the school office). Details on their website.

I think devsdev gives good advice. We got a relatively small car because I was worried about parking on our busy road (I am, ahem, not the world's best reverse parker). But you do very quickly get used to a bigger car, e.g. whenever we've had a hire car abroad. And now every time I can't fit stuff in the boot I do curse our decision. We had thought that once we got rid of the buggy we wouldn't need much space, but then as the kids get older you want to put their bikes in the boot, or go on camping trips, or ferry all their mates around? So yeah, go as big as you dare/can afford.

If I were you I'd just get down to Boots and look at their No 7 range for eyeliner and eye shadow (though their mascara's not great - try Max Factor for a cheap alternative?). It's not going to win any prizes for trendy colours or exciting formulations, but it's reasonably priced and decent quality and would allow you to experiment without breaking the bank. It's also very wearable - quite neutral colours that suit most skin tones. For blue eyes, natural warm browny tones would look good. Avoid black eyeliner and any make up with sparkly bits in as they both add ten years! I'm not really a fan of beauty counters in John Lewis/Selfridges or wherever - the couple of times I've gone there for a 'free' makeover I've ended up looking like a cross between Pat Butcher and Grimaldi and felt quite pressurised by the sales pitch to boot (and I speak as someone who normally quite happily trowels on the slap so I'm not exactly a stranger to wasting money on lipsticks). Better - and more fun - to buy a palette of neutral colours and experiment in the privacy of your own home. That way you'll only scare your kids if it goes wrong, not the whole of Oxford Street.

Sydenham Girls and Forest Hill boys are both good and take lots of ED kids. But bear in mind that at the Charter 2 meeting the other night, they said - when pressed, with all the usual caveats that no one can predict accurately - that they expect their catchment to extend 1.5 to 2km. So most Goodrich parents have a very good shot of getting in. Plus of course Charter 1's catchment should increase once the new school opens.

intexasatthe moment Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > But .... I don't buy the implication that Harris > weren't aware of the consultation .Despite the > omission from the formal consultation of SOME > Harris schools it appears others were consulted . > Speaks volumes of the lack of community > involvement if the local schools all failed to be > aware . And why can't Harris now meet with Charter > until September unless their main concern is to > delay the process and call foul . > > And Harris seem to forget that Free Schools are to > offer choice ...people want an alternative to the > Harris ethos . > > Dear dear dear .What a waste of money ,time and > energy spent on fighting over who gets the > pupils/best pupils . And an argument against this > dreadful fragmented ,privatised education system . Agree with all this. And yes, I don't buy that Harris didn't know about it - from what I can gather, Charter contacted Harris Girls and Harris Boys but screwed up by omitting to separately contact the Harris Federation plus three other Harris schools including the one in Peckham. But surely if Harris Girls and Harris Boys were both contacted, you'd have thought the Federation would be aware of the consultation - do they not speak to each other? And how could they NOT know when it's been such a big thing locally? I'm so dismayed about this. The point is that many people don't want what Harris are offering locally for whatever reason (whether because it's single sex, or because they don't like Harris itself, or because they don't like the slightly sausage-factory feel of the schools - not saying they are, just my impression of people's objections). Charter is offering something that the local community overwhelmingly wants, and planning to cater for the projected shortfall of places once the bulge years hit, starting next year. Do Harris really have the power to scupper the 2016 opening at this stage? ETA: Cross-posted with Bonaome - agree with you about lack of co-ed schools round here. And yes, I did laugh at the bit where they criticised the Charter consultation in the light of their embarrassingly bad consultation for the ED primary school...

The full 90-page report of the survey findings etc can be found via the Charter website: http://www.charter.southwark.sch.uk/news/?pid=3&nid=6&storyid=168 I have had a skim read and personally am satisfied with the outcome and the process, though no doubt lots of people will still moan (sigh). I too am baffled why James thinks that by going with the majority outcome (and sticking to their original admissions criteria), they will incur planning problems. Surely it would be harder for them to get it through if they changed their original stated criteria and went with a minority opinion? The one thing that jumped out at me though is that the Harris Federation seem to have decided to take on the role of pantomime baddie, lobbying to have the opening of the school delayed for at least two more years and the number of places available reduced, saying (p.43) 'we will challenge any decisions to proceed with all the means available to us'. I actually have a slight sympathy for Harris because clearly the new school will affect their intake, but this smacks of serious sour grapes. Some of their stated objections are laughable (i.e. it shouldn't open for two years because otherwise it'll have to have a temporary site - er, what about Harris East Dulwich Primary, still waiting for its own permanent site after two years?). I'm really shocked that Harris wants to take up arms against such strong local support (98% of an extraordinary 1173 responses) for the new school to open. I know Lord Harris has a lot of influence with the DfE but I very much hope in this case he has overreached himself.

Flower press? Seed kit?

Did he come back with the part and a receipt? Was he charging by the hour for his time? I wouldn't normally expect to pay cash upfront if they need to buy a part though I've certainly had tradesmen disappear off to get something they need. But I would expect a receipt and to pay for it as part of the overall payment when the job was finished. And if it's a pay-by-the-hour agreement, I'd expect them to have the parts they need when they arrive. Hope this helps!

Yes, good for you evip. I've eaten at your stall several times and think it's delicious. And clearly other people think so too, judging by the queue of repeat customers whenever I've been there.

Mick Mack - there is a shortage of non-faith, co-ed school places in Camberwell. Do you think it's fair if a child in Camberwell loses out on a place to an East Dulwich child who lives further away? If your answer is 'Well, it was East Dulwich parents who first called for this school,' would an East Dulwich-biased admissions policy still be fair in ten years' time when all those founding parents' children have left the school? I live in East Dulwich, before you ask.