Huggers

Sorry I'm confused..so these best teachers were the teachers that went off to a private school when the comprehensive they were teaching in stopped creaming off the best kids in a selective process by any other name and started to stick to the proper rules of comprehensive admission?. Are you sure they were really the best teachers? Or just the teachers who only wanted to teach the best and screw the rest? The brilliant teachers Ive known in my life have been able to teach anyone. Perhaps the teachers who left didnt really believe in the principles of comprehensive education? After all they left a grammar that became comprehensive to go and teach in a grammar that went private....

Hi Emily, my children do enjoy the school and have made good friends. My son didnt seem to know who came from which primary but the new primary fed about forty children into his year, making up about just under a quarter. However, the premises of the new primary have burnt down and the entire primary school will be temporarily housed in portacabins on the main school premises carpark. for two years. (I hope Ive got this right) Perhaps that will affect your choice. I spose the question is, would your friends son have felt more/less confident at another school and if so which one? I think my children would have been happy at Askes, Kingsdale, Charter, Sydenham -but perhaps not at the Harris Academies. They are all big schools and a shock after the cosiness of primary school. re the gcse results- I think the school are horrified by the way. Theyve probably been far too smug in the past.

ladyofleisure, I have two children at Haberdashers, in year 8 and 9. One is very academic and finds the school stimulating and stretching and she is doing well. The younger one is not very academic, a bit of a dreamer, dyxlexic who was pidgeonholed in primary school as a bit silly and lazy- and he is doing well too. The school were very quick to move him up a set as soon as he made progress in maths which has done wonders for his self esteem. He also gets once weekly dyxlexia support. As other people have said on this thread, Haberdashers used to be selective even when it wasnt meant to be.It's taken a few years for the more comprehensive intake to work itself up the school. So there are children there now of lower abilities who might not have got in before. It's how well those children are doing that's the question- I think higher sets are still doing very well. So the question is, is the school failing the lower sets? or is it unrealistic for the government to expect every candidate to get 5 A-Cs including English and Maths? I have no idea, but this may help you make up your mind: linkhttp://www.hahc.org.uk/images/uploads/Admissions/Secondary_Transfer/Hatcham_College_Exam_Results_pdf.pdf which will match levels of candidates with their results. I think that's very informative - you can work out who's getting the A starred results and what's happening with everyone else?.

Some do Bob- depending on whether they have the back up.

Get someone to film show to put together showreel. Send showreel to agents. Use facebook to invite as many people as poss to show including agents. Put clips from show/showreel on facebook. Set up a website ditto. Print business cards as they are easy to hand out and for recipients to hang on to. Pictures are much cheaper to get done now it is all digital. Get them done and pay to put one in Spotlight.

The Dulwich Society ??owns two houses near Dulwich village where residents live fairly independently but with a resident housekeeper. Recently when a flatlet became available it was advertised in the south london press I think.

Askes (Hatcham), Prendergast, Graveney.

well if she's abusing them, she's hardly going to admit it.

there is a friday night youth club at amott road baptist church hall which is very popular, 7.30-9pm term time.

what was the ED quiz has now moved to the Hob opposite Forest Hill station. It has celebrity quiz masters including Stephen Frost. The comedy has also moved there into a purposely built room upstairs.

just wanted to voice my appreciation for beautiful display of flowers and plants in Peckham Rye Park at the moment. The oval looks gorgeous. The gardeners have done a wonderful job.

*lightbulb flashes above head*- a perfectly executed wind-up to draw out the self righteousness of us all as we go all judgemental on her judgementalness?

Just another moment of East DUlwich bourgoise smugness where we float around in an organic fug morally leglislating to all around us ignorantly unaware of the many tiny ways we are screwing up our own children. Every sanctimonious swipe at others raises the chances of anorexia and mental illness in your own children. fact.(not really, I made that bit up) Perhaps smokey lady had left a violent partner, given up heroin, taken all sorts of steps that radically protected her unborn child from previous circumstances in ways you cannot imagine. Perhaps she'd had some terrible news about her family or even about her baby. I think you should take your health mission down Rye lane saturday and talk to some of the mothers in waiting outside macdonalds. I'm sure you'd get more than 'speechlessness' and a livelier debate would ensue.

did you see Nuts in May last night and take the beardie bloke as your role model then?

...what... they thought the snake was your...now that's unfair. specially as it has spots.

it was deadly to those with wheat allergies.

It's been recaptured now. It was a corn snake. It was wedged behind a radiator so sadly it's Keep Fit regime had not been working.

There's a coral snake roaming around JAGS sports club. Or was yesterday. The pools open but everything else is closed. So he likes the treadmill, he likes pilates and he likes yoga but he doesnt like to get wet?

daves dairy 0208 299 4484

The fear of crime is greater than the experience of crime; fear of crime immobilizes people; telly 'specials' can indulge this, actually leading to an increase in fear and even an increase in crime. Every potential mugger who sees a tv interviewee saying how they just handed stuff over, how scared they were, is encouraged. Just as every news article reminding us about how hard it is to prosecute rapists encourages rapists.

One of the main problems of moving out is you will have to ferry your children everywhere unless you are moving to another town. I was very protective of my children when small and could never imagine a time when I would feel relaxed about them transporting themselves across south london- but they do and I am. Their access to all the wonderful things and different people of London is invaluable. There are huge parks for recreation if the garden is too small. They have been able to exercise sensible independence in a way my brothers children never were- they had to wait for their driving licences! I was at a party in stoke newington recently talking to a couple who had relocated to the wilds of Herefordshire. They were going on about nature, and quality of this and that and their organic hens, but after a couple of drinks the woman started saying she dreamt of Stokey every night, found the countryside stultifyingly boring, they were lonely and isolated from like minded people and everyone was white. They could never afford to move back into London because the gap in prices between countryside and town and she was positively grief stricken. I think they felt about Stoke Newington pretty much how we feel about our neck of the woods. Be careful what you think you are getting. Schools? My friends who have moved to Kent are lucky if their children get into the grammar schools because if they don't they go to secondary moderns. There is masses more demand than supply and it's a real argument for a mixed system. Another friend who moved to an idyllic village said it was two years before anyone spoke to her at the school gate- and she is a really bubbly outgoing person. I love it here and have no plans to go anywhere. We are building upwards so we dont have to leave our house. If I had to dig downwards I would do that too! There are some wonderful places to move to- they are the ones already full of Londoners- Whitstable, Broadstairs, Brighton....

-Steve T says he was attacked by a pitbull. They are by law required to be muzzled. It wasnt. So how would a law on muzzling have protected him? It was unaccompanied- that was the problem. -The dog that rushed out of the house and attacked the OPs dog would also not have been muzzled under any muzzling law, since it was in its own home from which it escaped. -no muzzle will protect you from a serioulsy aggressive dog- especially if unaccompanied. They can get them off, they can bite through them. -if you have a serious fear of something which is impeding your peaceful progress through the world then you need to address this perhaps with a cognitative behavioural therapist. A fear of lions may be evolutions way of making you sensible when walking through the savannah, but a fear of all dogs is just screwing your life. - lastly, the sight of quite a few muzzled dogs is misleading. Many dogs are muzzled periodically to stop them eating all the chicken bones.

edited for unwiseness.

and to add, dogs really do want to be like you-hoo and can easily turn into emotional amplifications of all their owners neurosis, prejudices, paranoas, hostilities and fears. Hence, so important for calm training...for both!

The point of the original incident is a dog- whatever breed- was out of control in the street without its owner- it had rushed out from its house. It sounds like a very territorial dog that probably guards its door. Knowing this, the owner was a fool to let it dash out and confront whatever it believed was 'on its land'. Whatever the breed, this would have been a very frightening experience. If the dog really had not teeth, and this was a one off, an apology and explanation might have assuaged her fears. Instead the man hurled frightening abuse. To me the most scarey thing is the man more than the dog, using horrible language to a woman and her child.