redjam

Re. headteacher leaving Charter ED - he is going to become the head of the London Academy of Excellence in Stratford (such a daft name I can't even type it with a straight face, though it is a hugely successful school). He will be 'expanding LAE substantially and developing a network of like-minded schools', apparently. Re. the earlier question about staggered lunch breaks, yes, even Kingsdale do it for their 2,000+ pupils! My daughter in Year 11 is currently having her 'lunch' at 10.45am - she's not best pleased. Hopefully it won't continue like this once Covid restrictions are removed.

Jellybeanz - I've just posted on the School Places thread about this - new Charter ED and ND heads have just been announced. Agree with you about the size of the Tessa Jowell GP surgery car park - such a shame some of this couldn't have been used by the school. Seems quite retro to build a big car park these days, especially when it's so near a train station/bus routes etc. Though I believe there is a lot more outside space to be freed up for the school once the old 'chateau' has been converted - there will be space for outdoor tennis courts etc.

Re. head of Charter ED. We had a communication from the school about this yesterday, as follows: Dear parents/carers We are delighted to announce the appointment of two new Heads of School for The Charter School East Dulwich and The Charter School North Dulwich. Alison Harbottle will take up the position of Head of School at The Charter School East Dulwich, and Mark Pain will take up the role at The Charter School North Dulwich, both from September. The new appointees will report to Christian Hicks, current Headteacher at North Dulwich, who becomes Executive Headteacher from September across the two secondaries. Alison Harbottle will be joining the team at East Dulwich from the Aldridge Education Trust, where she is the Senior Trust Lead working with eleven schools and colleges across the country, supporting the CEO and Senior Leaders to develop and implement Trust-wide school improvement strategies. Alison was previously an Assistant Headteacher at The Charter School North Dulwich and went on to become Deputy Headteacher at the Prendergast Ladywell School. Alison will take up her role as Head of School for The Charter School East Dulwich as the new 6th Form welcomes its first intake of students, and as the school moves into its next phase of growth as a 11-18 school offering an inclusive and excellent education for up to 1700 pupils in our part of South East London. Mark Pain will step up into the position of Head of School at North Dulwich from his current role as Deputy Headteacher in charge of Curriculum and Assessment. Mark has been part of the Senior Leadership team at North Dulwich since joining as an Assistant Headteacher in 2014. He was previously a Director of Learning at Pegasus College, part of the Riddlesdown Collegiate. Mark will be responsible for ensuring The Charter School North Dulwich not only maintains its outstanding record of academic excellence but also continues to develop and improve for all our pupils. Both will also be focussed on ensuring that all pupils continue to access the education, support and interventions that they need as schools return to normality after the disruption caused by the pandemic. These are two excellent appointments. Both Alison and Mark are highly talented and experienced senior leaders who have the commitment and drive we need as we work together to improve our secondary schools still further. The new leadership structure marks an exciting step forward as we seek to continue to develop our schools as beacons of educational excellence both locally and nationally, providing greater opportunity for collaboration and co-operation that will enable us to offer an even more fantastic academic education for all our pupils alongside the wide-ranging cultural, artistic and sporting opportunities that we know are so important for their wider learning and development.

Good for Dillan - have donated.

It absolutely does not encourage people to loiter (in fact there are signs asking you not to) and I have seen no evidence of people 'meeting up for social light bites' at the market, certainly not since lockdown. There are no tables/chairs out on the streets or spaces where you're encouraged to linger. You might have to wait for some food to be prepared so maybe that adds to the impression of busyness but it's no worse than people waiting in a queue outside M&S. Agree with the earlier point that the more places are open where we can buy food, the more the risk is spread. If only supermarkets are open then we really will have a problem.

Blimey, from the way everyone's reacting it's as if North Cross Road Market is a heaving mass of bodies. It's not. It's no more than a dozen stalls that were well spaced last time I was there, with marshalls at either end asking people to wear masks. In recent weeks it hasn't been that busy and it's EXTREMELY easy to avoid if you don't want to go through it - either by taking a slightly different route to bypass that short stretch of road or, y'know, avoiding going through it between 11am and 3pm on a Saturday. Do you really think it's safer to go to M&S or Co-op to get your lunch ingredients rather than buying something in the open air? And I'd far rather support a local business through these hard times.

The whole of Peckham Rye seems really waterlogged at the moment, as are parts of Dulwich Park. Don't really understand why - I know it's been a bit rainy recently but not THAT rainy! Maybe I don't normally go to the parks so much in the depths of winter so I just haven't noticed it before. Makes it hard to keep your distance when everyone is crammed onto the path trying to navigate huge puddles. Quite nice to see the Peck free-flowing though - it's normally such a dispiriting little trickle. Wonder what the rationale is for clearing out all the vegetation. Hopefully it will discourage the rat problem round there!

Eh? What decade have you travelled in from, PP?! Stamps are 66 or 85p these days. It?s ?1.29 to send a large letter! For those of us who don?t have our post kindly put to one side by our mates, we?d quite like it to arrive in a timeframe of days rather than weeks after it was sent. Patrick DiPosta Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > let?s remember a stamp only costs 27p, what do you > have to complain about. You couldnt even by a > tomato from Franklin?s for that

Received 7 Christmas cards today! Just in time for twelfth night, nice.

Thanks legalalien. I knew you couldn't go east/west through the village with the blocking of Calton Avenue - didn't realise you couldn't go north/south either! Wow.

I got a warning in the post this morning - not a fine this time but saying I'd be charged ?130/?65 if I do it again. Trouble is, I don't understand what I did wrong. I was driving through the centre of Dulwich Village (from Gallery Road heading towards East Dulwich Grove). I didn't go up Pickwick Road. Are we not even allowed to drive through the village at all now? Where is the sign? I totally missed it.

Very happy to add my recommendation for Phil. He has just painted my daughter's room and put up some shelves and we are having him back in the new year to do some more for us as we are very happy with the standard of work. Phil was punctual, friendly, great at communicating and did a very professional job. ETA: Phil has just finished some more work for us and I really can't fault him - the paintwork on our stairwell and bathroom looks immaculate and he was super-helpful and nice to have around (he sorted out several other little DIY issues for us that had been piling up over lockdown). Big thumbs up from us.

Do report back and let us know what you did! I'd be tempted to print out a photo of the milk snatcher and leave it in the usual spot, along with a nice friendly handwritten note saying that you'll introduce yourself next time you meet in the street, now you know what he looks like.

Yes it does seem a bit OTT that Dulwich Library is STILL running such a limited service, given you can walk into any shop and pick things up and put them back on the shelves without the world ending. I don't know why they think books are higher risk than, say, a tin of beans? That said, I've found the online ordering system has worked fine - the trick is to order several books at once as some of them take ages to come in, so that way you get a steady trickle of new titles. Though when I went in to drop off a returned book the other day, I did think it was a bit nuts that I had to sign in for Track & Trace - I had to spend longer filling in the form (using a shared pen, hmmm) than I did just returning the book itself, which took all of ten seconds. There were heaps of staff; God knows what they were all doing given there were no customers.

Pro Beauty Clinic on Hindmans Road is very good.

Some great ideas here - thank you so much everyone (and for the private messages). I will follow up.

I have a load of brand-new kids' books (age 9+) I'd like to donate to a hospital, refuge or charity. I've just done some googling and it looks like the Maudsley is doing a Christmas gift appeal but just wanted to check there wasn't anywhere even more local?

Jesus. That image is going to haunt my dreams forever more.

I was recently able to make an appointment with both a dentist and an oral hygienist as normal at the practice on North Cross Road.

As Ginster says, the Reception year in school is nothing like formal school. It's generally completely separate (separate outdoor space etc) and very child-focused and play-based. I don't know anyone who deferred and my own August-born child came on leaps and bounds that year. Good luck with the move! Can't believe you're voluntarily coming from an Australian spring into a miserable British autumn/winter - can I swap with you please?!

My daughter can confirm it's very noisy! But I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a quiet secondary school, tbh... It's fine; your child will find their set of friends and they will hang out in their own group (Covid permitting, of course). It's hard to imagine how your child will cope when they're still a teeny Year 6 but they all do. And remember that the years are kept separate at lunchtime so they will only be with kids their age. Good luck with your choice!

Does anyone understand how the Kingsdale Sixth Form admission works? On their website it says places are allocated in this order: 1) kids in care 2) special needs 3) 'ranked by average point score for their best 5 qualifying subjects for the course they wish to study' 4) random lottery 1) and 2) make sense but I don't really understand what 3) means. How do you know what the 5 qualifying subjects are for each A-level? And by 'point scores' do they mean GCSE grades? Or predictions? And surely 3) and 4) are incompatible, anyway - it's either done on attainment or it's done by lottery; they're two different things! If anyone has been through this before and can enlighten me, I'd be grateful. My daughter is actually at Kingsdale now so you'd think I'd be better informed, but I can't make head or tail of these criteria...

DulwichFox Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > TFL are not there to assist people. > Their policy along with the policy of Mayor of > London Sadiq Khan is to make public Transport > as difficult as possible for people to use. > Especially the Elderly. > > The government's decision to restrict Early > morning use of the Elderly's Freedom Pass > has been welcomed by TFL along with The Mayor. > > Sadiq Khan is driven to work in ?300,000 > five-litre armoured Range Rover while commuters > endure packed Tube trains and drivers face new ?15 > congestion charge > > https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/05/15/15/2843024 > 6-8323259-He_was_whisked_to_City_Hall_in_a_luxury_ > Range_Rover_Discovery_as-m-37_1589554461359.jpg > > #Hypocrite > > DulwichFox What a ridiculous statement. Those changes to the Freedom Pass seem entirely sensible to me. Older people can still travel free after 9am for the rest of the day and all day at weekends and bank holidays. How many retired people really need to travel before 9am on weekdays? And let's face it, the reason we have all these social distancing measures is to ... protect older people. As for Sadiq Khan having a chauffeur and security, what did you expect? Do you really think the Mayor should queue for the bus? Do you think Boris Johnson did that when he was mayor? Anyway, back to the cinema bus stop - moving it to outside Mrs Robinson does seem sensible. I hope they will eventually put up one of those temporary bus stops there.

Ha, I?m an angry ED mum! But I was happy to sign their petition when they first posted and my daughter went down and skated there the other day. She loved it. I think it?s great - well done guys.

Very interesting post above from sheff and completely agree with Beefcheek that measures need to be relaxed - quickly. Landlords really need to do their bit and work with the shop-owners to enable them to continue trading - greedy landlords were a problem long before Covid so this worries me. Above all, we all need to do our bit and BUY LOCAL, supporting the shops and businesses as much as possible when they reopen. I'm an optimistic person and I think - and fervently hope - a lot of ED businesses may end up benefiting from more people working from home and shopping locally. But this only works if we all make the effort to shop on LL as opposed to ordering from Amazon and congratulating ourselves on saving two quid (I'm as guilty of this as the next person but really going to make an effort to change my ways). It's essentially up to us if we want to keep the character of LL.