redjam

The story has also been picked up in the Guardian in an article which mentions East Dulwich (with a pic of the EDT): https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/22/royal-mail-hit-by-decade-high-of-more-than-1m-complaints-last-year And in the Times (behind a paywall): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ofcom-warns-royal-mail-over-month-long-post-delays-x6wc8l37w Good to see the petition getting us more coverage! Let's hope it embarrasses Royal Mail into some kind of action.

Excitingly I got two parcels today - one postmarked mid-December and the other 28 November! 48 days for a first-class parcel - is that a record?

Yes it's been very frustrating. There was an update that went out to parents recently from the CEO of the Charter Educational Trust - as it was a public letter I trust they won't have any objection if I reproduce it here (I've removed email addresses): Dear Staff, Students, Parents and Carers I am writing to give you an update on the completion of building works at The Charter School East Dulwich. I know what frustration and disappointment you have felt on seeing the empty building site over the past few months, and would like to reassure you about what we are doing to make sure we can all enjoy our new environment and spaces as soon as possible. The Charter Schools Educational Trust is working with Southwark Council and the Department for Education (DfE), who are paying for the new building. There have been quite a few challenges in the course of this project. The impact of the pandemic on companies in the building industry has severely delayed the development of the design, and costs for Phase 2 of the building programme during this time have risen dramatically. The higher costs mean we have had to re-think our designs to reduce cost, and then get the new designs and revised budget approved. This process hasn't yet finished, but the local authority and the DfE are doing all they can to make decisions as quickly as possible. As a Trust, we have continued to stress to the DfE and Southwark Council, how urgent this project is for our growing school, and how much our community needs the external space and access to specialist resources. We have worked alongside the DfE and the local authority to push the project on as fast as possible. The Trust has also contributed some of the shortfalls in funding to make sure that the quality of our school environment continues to be high despite needing to re-think our designs. So, where are we now? The demolition and the clearing of the site are complete, and the building of a multi-use games court has also been completed. Next year, Phase 2 of the project will begin. This will include: ➢Main school hall ➢Specialist Sixth Form workspace ➢Specialist music classrooms and instrumental studios ➢Drama studio ➢Main school library ➢Administration and support service offices ➢SEND resource base ➢Increased outdoor space with complete landscaping to the site, including outdoor seating. The Phase 2 works are planned to begin in February 2022 for completion during the 2022-23 Academic Year. We are working with the project managers to make sure spaces can be released for use quickly as they are completed, focusing on classrooms and workspaces for teachers. Our school will continue to provide a full curriculum, making careful use of our current buildings. Our main teaching block already provides over 85% of the total teaching space for the completed project, including all classrooms, state-of-the-art science labs, specialist Art and DT departments. We also benefit from our purpose-built Sports and Catering block. In September 2021, the school took ownership of our new purpose-built MUGA (Multi-Use Games Area), providing much-needed outdoor sports facilities, and this is already being used by pupils. As construction gets underway on the land adjacent to the current school site, there will inevitably be some disruption, but we know we can rely on our school community to be responsible, flexible and understanding. We will keep you fully informed of progress at every stage via our regular newsletters to you all. If you have any questions, please do get in touch with Justine Brennan, the school's Director of Operations, or with me personally - we will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Do you have any better suggestions? This has been going on a lot longer than the recent Covid spike.

I've signed. We got two more Christmas cards today (!) but still no sign of three parcels (one of which was a birthday present for the beginning of December) that have been missing for weeks. I complained online but got a standard response which amounted to 'suck it up, it's Covid'. There seems to be no accountability whatsoever.

We?ve had no post for over a week. We?re missing Christmas presents for the kids and a birthday present for my daughter which was posted at the end of November! It?s an absolute disgrace.

I don't have direct experience of the sixth form as my daughter chose to move elsewhere at that point (through no 'fault' of Kingsdale - it was a really, really tough decision). But I would echo what Soylent Green says above. It can be a bit chaotic and the open days can be quite bonkers (I remember Mr Morrison's speeches, jeez...) but honestly it's a great school, particularly good for the arts and sport, but that's not to say it doesn't get excellent results academically too. They were brilliant during the pandemic - I don't know how they managed to pivot a school of that size to remote learning but they did it incredibly quickly and it felt like my daughter didn't miss a beat. Obviously like any school it's not perfect (the science teaching was v. hit-and-miss pre GCSE) but overall I am a vocal supporter and my daughter was very happy there.

Oh that's good news. I was just moaning about this the other day. It still looks very empty inside though.

Tony just came round at short notice to look at a leak in our boiler, carried out a simple fix, gave us lots of advice to prevent it happening again, didn't laugh too much when we admitted we couldn't remember where our stopcock was despite living here 14 years, and then refused to take any payment! What a star. Will definitely use again.

Those built-out bits are definitely wider than an average car. And in fact there'll be less room for buses to pass because they used to be able to pull over at the entrances to Fellbrigg/Cyrena Road (as there were double yellow lines around the junction) but now the roads are built out there's actually less room to pull in than before unless they mount the kerb. Gonna be fun. I'm actually in favour of having a crossing there as there are two primary schools nearby and that road is always tricky to cross in the mornings. But the council is gaslighting us if they say they've considered the buses in their plans.

That's unbelievable. So irresponsible. Sorry to hear of your loss. Honestly, anti-vaxxers are nuts.

I'd push back on your builders, tbh, and get them to do it. If they're closing off the plumbing etc to knock everything down it doesn't make much difference for them to reroute it to a temp kitchen so they should be able to rig it up for you quite easily (for a price, I'm sure, but probably still cheaper than getting someone else out). We had a dishwasher, sink and a washing machine plumbed into the back of our living room when we were doing ours. We literally had a section of the old worktop blanced over the top of the freestanding appliances with the sink sitting in the gap in the middle - a bit precarious but it did the job. We bought a little mini electric oven which had two rings above it - it sat on top of the worksurface so I had to stand on a stool when I was cooking so I could see what I was doing! Ah, happy days. Top tip - buy a load of big plastic storage boxes with lids from AJ Farmer as all your food will get covered in dust otherwise! Good luck...

Nigello Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The shelter means the footpath width there is > narrowed by about a half so in the early days of > the pandemic the authorities thought it would > cause people to be too close to each other. The irony with this argument is that the next bus stop down by the Post Office is now extra crowded due to the closure of the previous stop, which is not helpful for social distancing given that there's always a queue of people waiting outside the Post Office. I absolutely agree with the OP - there's no reason for the Picturehouse bus stop to remain closed. In fact there was never a good reason to close it in the first place.

There's some info about the music scholarship on this thread: /forum/read.php?29,2207044,2209144#msg-2209144 Both the Maths and Music scholarships are excellent if your kid is lucky enough to get one, but as Gubodge says they make very little difference to the admission process (I think you have a slightly higher chance if you get a music scholarship as it effectively means you get two draws in the lottery, but there's no guarantee you'll get a place even if your child is awarded a full scholarship, mad as that sounds). The general admission exam they do is for banding purposes only so again there's no advantage in being in one of the higher academic bands as I believe they take the same number of kids from each band. It is - for good or ill - a genuinely random admissions system.

Agree - it's nuts that it's still closed. They have heaps of room. And the system there now when you have to fill in a form/use the test-and-trace app to just drop off a book in their big, empty, well-ventilated reception area (which takes all of ten seconds using the touchscreens) seems equally nuts. I spent longer navigating the form (with a shared pen) than I did dropping off the book, which didn't seem very Covid-friendly. And as you say, Pugwash, there seemed to be one librarian and two people employed to just sit there and watch you. Very strange. Still, I'm enjoying the free reservation service so every cloud...

You can absolutely get a music scholarship at Kingsdale with little or no formal music qualifications - my daughter knows several friends who got them just for singing well, with no previous lessons. Testing your innate musical 'ear' is part of the audition: my daughter remembers having to sing back a tune, clap a rhythm and answer a few basic questions about a piece of music they played on the piano, even though she was there to play guitar (she was slightly horrified at being made to sing as she hadn't expected it!). I think they are looking for kids who are keen and show promise above all - though obviously if a child can already demonstrate some technical ability on an instrument then that will help. It's a great programme if you can get onto it - my daughter has had free weekly one-to-one or two-to-one music lessons throughout her whole time at the school, plus the opportunity to join larger ensembles (and she only got a half scholarship). Kingsdale will arrange - and I think pay - for you to do the music grades through the school. They also run free lunchtime theory sessions if you want to do the theory exams. It's a really very strong music department and I can't fault them - my daughter's scholarship guitar lessons carried on through Zoom all through lockdown. She's just had her last one and is doing her music GCSE next week!

Ronnijade Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Not trying to belittle > just asking if it?s worth donating money to a > place thats food is nasty Hmm, yes, totally not belittling there... As my mum always told me, if you can't say anything nice, why say anything at all?

rupert james Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I am sure many people will help this cafe but the > entitlement of some on this forum is summed up by > the above. > > But then that is ED. Seeing as that post seems to be aimed at me may I respectfully disagree? I don't think it's entitled to want to support a small independent business in what has clearly been a difficult time for them. As other posters have suggested, the first port of call in a situation like this should always be a quiet word with the owner, who seems like a nice chap from what others have told me (I don't know him personally), rather than going in all guns blazing with an official complaint to the council and a slagging-off on a public forum. As for mobility issues, I do have every sympathy. But it is a road with two pavements. If you have mobility issues you'd be better off using the other side of the road anyway, as it has no side roads running off it (the other has three lots of dropped kerbs to navigate). And even in the incident described in the OP, it sounds like the the dog and chairs were moved out the way when requested. Complaining to the council over having to wait for a minute for a couple of chairs to be moved out the way seems a wildly disproportionate response.

Very much agree with Rahrahrah's point about those temporary barriers to widen the pavement opposite the cinema - they look so ugly. That pavement either needs to be widened permanently or changed back to car parking spaces, preferably the former. Either way I don't understand why the bus stop outside the cinema is closed as the road is no narrower than before (though I realise this is probably a TFL decision not a council one). Also agree with other posters about litter being a big issue, especially after the market has closed. But I like the new layout of the market itself - seems much more sensible to have them all facing the same way, i.e. inwards.

nxjen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Come off it, while people in their sixties are > certainly older, you know full well that Garages > was referring to an older and possibly less mobile > demographic. People in their sixties are spring > chickens! Don't really understand the 'less mobile' argument. You're either mobile enough to travel along a pavement or you're not. If you are, then surely you can just walk on the other side of the road? The tables are not blocking both pavements. It's a quiet residential side street so not difficult to walk on the other side.

The Blue Brick Cafe is a lovely little local business who have been busy distributing free veggie meals to frontline workers at Kings during lockdown. Like all independent cafes they have suffered enormously over the last 12 months. Personally I'm just happy to see them open again and making a bit of money. Have a heart, people.

Hmm, according to the link you provide, Alleyn's offer 66 full bursary places. Out of 1,250 kids. There are many valid reasons to defend private schools (and I'm not rabidly anti-private, however I may come across on here!) but I don't think their accessibility to low-income students is the one I'd pick.

motorbird83 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- The local Dulwich > senior schools all offer generous bursaries and > various scholarships so an able child can attend > even if their parents can't afford to pay the > fees. Though this from The Times, day before yesterday: 'The study found that out of 176,000 pupils who received bursaries of some kind [of 142 private schools studied], only 6,118 received full scholarships. The average scholarship amounted to only ?1,000 a year, the researchers claimed. ?Given the levels of fees, the overwhelming majority of scholarship students still require very substantial family contributions,? [Dr Malcolm] James said. ?Many scholarships may, in practice, be awarded to middle or upper-class families. Scholarships may therefore do little to make schools genuinely more socially inclusive.?' So I'm happy to be corrected if the local schools are doing something substantially different, but I don't think it's generally the case that it's easy to gain entry to the private system if you're an able child from a poor family.

Yeah, we went there and ended up paying. In retrospect I wish I'd fought it or got a second opinion as I think our daughter should have qualified for NHS treatment. If I'd known they had a reputation for steering people down the private route then I definitely would have done! But other than that (though obviously that's quite a big 'but' as it cost a bleeding fortune!) I was pretty happy with the treatment there. ETA: I don't think King's do standard braces - it's more for dental emergencies, as I understand it.

I think it?s also a little simple to assume that state schools don?t offer the things you mention. My daughter has had (free) one-to-one music tuition throughout her whole time at her state secondary, ample opportunity to do competitive sport (do you really think they don?t do ?actual competitive sport? at state schools?!), and three of her subjects at GCSE level have fewer than 20 kids in her class. Extra-curricular activities on offer range from Debate/Model UN Club to Japanese to Engineering to Journalism. There are countless sports and clubs on offer ? my daughter even did a term of horseriding arranged by the school (again free). I?m not saying all this means all state schools are brilliant ? some clearly aren?t, the OP?s particular dilemma relates round the fact she?s not in the catchment area of a good one ? but it?s ignorant to suggest that no state schools offer good extra-curricular activities on-site. My point stands: I can see that private schools do offer more than state in terms of facilities and generally smaller class sizes. Is that worth forking out ?20k a year per child, even if you?re lucky enough to be able to scrape that kind of money together? Not personally convinced, sorry. Somerset Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think is is a little simple - it?s not about > fancy buildings. How can you compare class sizes > of 20 vs 30, endless facilities including early > teaching of languages, music and actual > competitive sport with a state school? And given > the majority of parents are working, ferrying kids > to extra curricular activities during the week is > impossible - a private school offers all the on > site. You can only cram so many clubs in on the > weekend... > >