Carbonara

eve_max - you can only apply from one address, the address that is your child's permanent residence. This is generally defined as the address that you pay council tax for and / or the address that the child's Child Benefit goes to. It is definitely your address and not your parents' address. Childcare is not taken into account as a deciding factor on distance for admissions. The LA do many spot checks to ascertain that people are using their correct address. Also,unless your school is a feeder school, the admissions distance is done from your home address and the school your child attends is irrelevant. You may find that you are as close to some Lambeth schools as Southwark - it doesn't matter what borough schools are in, you can apply to all with an equal chance of getting a place, dependent on their admissions criteria. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can help with the questions of distance to Charter.

EMC, sorry you had such a disappointing outcome. Did you list schools you thought you had a realistic chance of getting? DO NOT DECLINE THE PLACE. Accepting the place is no disadvantage to getting waiting list places, or appeal places. The waiting lists do move, and you may have grounds for appeal. But if you decline the place you risk ending up with no place at all. P

I have three friends with 4 daughters between them at the school and they are all extremely pleased with it. As it happens two of those (these friends don't know each other) took their daughters out of a nearby private school due to bullying and lack of understanding of diversity, and all are well settled at Sydenham. They comment on the ethos, the opportunities and the academic standards.

Have you been and visited the schools? As well as other local schools? Just wondering how you hit on these two, especially as Graveney is two boroughs away. Most people I know are very happy with Graveney. It gets its very high results because it has so many selective places. I think it is 70 now (not sure how they were allowed to increase them?). Prendergast, like Kingsdale, does music aptitude tests, so it is on potential rather than grade exams.

"There's no point putting a first choice you are far off target for. And only apply for ones you really want to go to. You don't have to use all your choices available on the form." Jools: sorry, this is terrible, terrible advice. It is really important that anyone starting out on schools admission studies the schools Admission Code and understands it. there are many myths flying around, like this advice from Jools. The Schools Admissions Code is law and it applies to all LAs in England. 1. Your list is a list of 'preferences'. They don't HAVE to give you a school on your list. You will only be offered a place where you fulfil the entry criteria. 2. List all your schools in your genuine order of preference. Every school will assess your application against their published entry criteria, and will tell the LA whether or not they can offer you a place. They do not prioritise applicants who have put them first, the schools do not know where on the list the applicant has placed them. 3. the LA looks at all the offers that the schools on your list has made, and pass on to you the offer from the school that is highest on your list of preferences. if you do not get a place in your highest school, you automatically get put on the waiting list for all schools higher up the list that the one you have been offered. 4. if none of the schools you have applied to can offer you a place you will be offered a place at any school, which has space after all the other allocations have been made. That is why it is important to continue listing preferences until you have one that you are certain you will get - because of a sibling rule or you live right on the doorstep, for example, even if you don't rate it much. Because if you don't list that, you might get offered something even less attractive, and further away.

Julian's has expanded, and other new / expanded schools round the edge of the catchment have decreased pressure. The secondary options are also good - depending on which bit of W Norwood you can be in catchment for Elmgreen and Dunraven and the Lottery chance at Kingsdale. More good choices for Catholics. I really like the new Antic pub, Beamish and McGlue, lots of good cafes and independent shops, as well as 'local' Tesco, Sainsbury's and Co-op. If they are looking for good but cheaper-than-ED options, Streatham Hill is good - great transport, excellent school choices, good community feel in the so-called 'ABCD' and surrounding roads. Granted, the High St is terrible (it is the A23) but it does have excellent shops, restaurants and cafes.

I think your boys are an ideal age. The 'tour' is self guided - you just go at your own pace round the studios, but they let you in at timed tickets so that they can control the crowdedness a little. I would definitely try and arrive as early as possible, you don't want to feel you are rushing. My boys tend to glance-and-rush, and it is worth having a really god look at some of the exhibits - a little patience and you see 'things happen'. A little patience and you realise things are inter-active. We did queue for the green-screen flying, but just to see it there and then: I didn't buy the DVD or photos. We bought one Butterbeer between us, in the souvenir glass - again for fun. It is overpriced and revolting. The gift shop is vast and has some outrageously expensive items, but some affordable, too. It is easy to get to by train to Watford (you can use your Oyster) and then a special HP bus from outside the station to the Studios. HP bores me rigid and I did the day as a parenting duty - but actually really enjoyed it. Very interesting.

What are your qs, Mividale? It may be that people here can answer some. To answer some FAQs: You will automatically be put on the waiting list for all schools higher in your preference list than the school you were allocated. Waiting lists are maintained in the same priority as the admissions criteria - you can go up or down a list, for example if someone who lives closer joins the list as a late applicant. There is no disadvantage in accepting the place you have been offered: it is important to accept unless you intend to Home Ed or go private. You may not be offered a place you prefer, and accepting the place does not disadvantage you on the waiting lists. You can go on waiting lists for schools you didn't originally apply for. There will be a flurry of new offers on waiting lists a couple of weeks after the acceptance deadline - as places become available from people who have moved since January , or accepted private places, or whatever. Waiting lists will continue to move throughout the summer.

You can try for a selective place at Graveney from anywhere: 60 places a year are allocated on the results of the Wandsworth test. (You don't have to live in Wandsworth to take the test). Bizarrely they have just re-introduced priority admission criteria for siblings of selective places. No wonder the catchment for distance places is so tiny.

What is your beef with people having a view on rising rents across an area? This is a neighbourhood discussion forum. The shop which was the original Moo Too that moved to Lordship Lane and is now a charity shop - they moved because Dulwich Estate rents went too high. Ditto the music shop that was on the corner. Staff in the shops told me these things at the time.

There is a long list of shops that have closed down due to much higher rents in the various parades of shops on Dulwich Estates - including the Croxted Rd / W Dulwich shops. I wasn't primarily thinking of Just W.

Is it vexatious to not want to see a family business or small useful shop disappear, only to be replaced by another high end hairdresser or Estate Agent? Is it vexatious to not want another wine bar with sky high prices demanded in order to meet the high rent? Is it vexatious to question the role of a massive (monopoly) landowner that ruins small established businesses in order to make money for the 'charity' that is the Dulwich private schools? (because this is where the money goes).

An upsetting and frustrating experience. I winder if the bell was working? Did you see the 'Bus Stopping' sign come on? I think you are brave, tackling the stairs with a 3 year old and scooter. Hope you feel better soon.

"Is it generally advisable to put the schools in a genuine list of preference (regardless of possibility of getting in)?" It is essential if you want to get the school you like best. You don't give yourself a disadvantage if you put your 'most likely' school last - it just means that if you don't get offered your other preferences from higher up the list you will be allocated your 'most likely' school if they are able to offer you a place. You seem to be in the excellent position of having your first choice as also your 'most likely' school. But do fill out all spaces if you can, and in the order in which you prefer them. Of all the schools on your list the LA will allocate you the one that can offer you a place and which is highest up your list.

Well thankfully the second child was released from hospital very quickly having suffered a 'superficial' injury. Best wishes to all who have been affected.

If the school has had a bulge class in the last few years that will increase the number of sibling applications. I doesn't harm your application to your first choice school to put down a full list of back up schools.

So sorry to hear your son had such a horrible experience, and glad we have people who look out for other people's kids.

The only way you can jeopardise a place in your closest school is if a school higher up your list of preferences gives you a place - win:win!

Coldharbour Lane between Brixton and LJ is now a permanent traffic jam. I wonder how the many residents on Coldharbour Lane enjoy that? What is the point of making traffic wait stationary in a traffc jam, rather than proceeding along wide, traffic calmed roads? And in the middle of the day today the jam was full of trade vans, mini-cabs, buses, accessible school minibuses etc, not exclusively private cars at all. This temporary experiment is, to my mind, highly dangerous, with scant and confusing signposting causing people to brake or make decisions too quickly when they see an unfamiliar sign, people doing U turns in roads, a mix of 'proper' road signs and temporary. I am a visiting health professional working across the area. None of my clients view the closures as a good thing, and see it as part of a scheme which will gentrify LJ.

The Equal Preference System (i.e where the school does not even know where you put them on the list, and does not use the position on the list in their decision making) is part of the Admissions Code, and this is statutory - i.e law. Any 'mixed messages' and anecdote = MYTH. People fall prey to myths such as 'if you put 3 choices down they have to give you one of them' and 'if you only put down one school you will get it'. Some people put down 3 'preferred choices' and according to the admissions criteria, they do not stand a chance of getting a place there. So, all of the 3 schools say 'no sorry, we can't offer a place' and the council then allocates a place at a school, any school, that can offer a place, once all the admissions done from the lists have been done. Had she put her closest school on the list in last place, that school could well have offered her a place (if she lived close enough) and she would have been allocated it. There are some addresses that are between schools and not quite close enough to any, these areas are known on this board as 'black holes'. Do you think you live in a black hole? Yes, you can put down schools in other boroughs - just put them on your list and submit it on your CAF. Good luck!

RE Twang - do they hold lessons in their shop in Penge or travel to your house?

Yes, get a balance bike! They are less hard work for toddlers than pedalling along all askew on one stabiliser as they lean sideways, and balance bikes give them the skills to learn to ride a 'real' bike without stabilisers within minutes. Stabilisers actually impeded balancing skills by encouraging them to tip their balance the wrong way.

LondonMix - you are right, last distance does not include children who have been admitted under other criteria. Sorry for not being clear, what I was trying to say was that people (like a poster above) should be wary of assuming the extent of a catchment for a school based on the address of a child that they know goes there, because you don't always know the criteria that that child was admitted under, and it might well have been medical need, adopted form care, or got a place on appeal based on a talent for stamp collecting or whatever. "Should the Charter and Kingsdale take over every school in Southwark regardless of how well the existing schools are doing?" - LOL - there will still be the knotty issue of the social make up of the local catchment. This seems to feature large in people's response to a school, and beyond the hallowed environs of ED... ;)

"I don't see the point in putting down unrealistic choices or schools that are undersubscribed that I wouldn't let my child set foot in anyway!" and The opinion that you should not accept the school offered on National Offer Day. 1. Unless you are CERTAIN that you have 'dead certs' higher up your list, it really is worth having a school as a 'fall back'. It is a simple fact that not every child can fit into Charter or Kingsdale (for example). If you do not name a school that can offer you a place on your list of preferences, you will be allocated any place left over after everyone else's places have been allocated. So, after other people have been given their 'least favourite' you will be offered any places remaining. 2. Accepting a place at a less favoured school: Accepting a place on National Offer Day in no way disadvantages you in appealing, or in being on waiting lists. After March you can go in as many waiting lists as you like. However, if you turn down the original offer, the LA has met it's obligation to find you a place. They will, when school starts, need to ensure your child has a place, but it is their legal duty to find a school place, not THE place that you like best in an over-subscribed school. It is not in Renata's gift to alter the law that is the Schools Admissions Code. Also, sadly, it is not in Renata's gift to have much influence on local schools as Southwark have no 'community' secondary schools any more, and the government will not allow LAs to build them. If you are sure that you can get a place in a local school, you do not have to fill up every place. Other things to remember: The 'last distance' is that on National Offer Day, it spreads after the waiting lists start to move. And you can't always be sure of the criteria that someone got in on - SEN, adopted from care, or even fraudulent rental application.

Can you get your GP or consultant to refer you here http://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/our-services/community-orthotics/referrals.aspx ? Or here http://www.evelinalondon.nhs.uk/our-services/community/locations/mary-sheridan.aspx My nephew has talipes and is referred there. They are very good. I daresay there are also waiting lists but you can ask for a cancellation if you can go at short notice.