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Hi, I am hoping that my 11 year old son might qualify for braces on the NHS as he has an overbite and overcrowded teeth. Please can anyone recommend an orthodontist or the best way to get the process started? It sounds like we need to first see a dentist and ask for a referral? It seems that in the past Dulwich Orthidontic Centre had some mixed reviews and many felt that they were pressuring people into paying privately for the braces? Any recent experiences? Any other recommendations/advice? Anyone go to King's Dental Hospital? Many thanks in advance for any advice or information.

Hi, we used an agency called Smart au pairs.

Hi, We have an 18 year old German au pair joining our family in Herne Hill this Saturday for the next 6 months. If you have a new au pair arriving as well who would like to meet other new au pairs then please get in touch and we can exchange contact details. Many thanks!

Hi, We have an au pair from Germany with excellent English and we are trying to find an English class to suit her level of English. She plans to take the Cambridge English Exam at the end of her year here. She tried going to South Thames College but found it too easy. Our previous au pair found Lambeth College too easy as well. If anyone knows of more challenging English language courses or schools please could they let me know. Thanks.

Hi, Our 18 year old German au pair has just arrived to live with us and is interested in getting to know other newly arrived au pairs in the Herne Hill/Dulwich/Brixton area. Please PM me if you also have a new au pair who might be interested in meeting up. Many thanks!

I'll PM you, Thanks.

Hi, We have just had a lovely 20 year old girl from Germany arrive to look after our children as their au pair. She is keen to meet other au pairs new to this area. Please PM me if you have a new au pair who might like to meet up with her and we can exchange contact details. Also, can anyone recommend local English classes? Our previous au pairs went to South Thames College in Wandsworth but we wondered if Lambeth College or Southwark College might offer ESOL classes at the right level? Thanks.

Hi, I have PMd you. Thanks.

Hi, We have a lovely, outgoing 18 year old au pair who just arrived and is very keen to meet other au pairs of a similar age in our area. We live in Herne Hill. Please PM me if you also have a newly arrived au pair of a similar age living in this general area who would be interested in meeting up. Thanks!

Hi, I just wondered if anyone could recommend a good automatic car driving instructor in the East Dulwich/Herne Hill area who would be good with me (a tired mum with two young kids)? I want to get my UK license but will struggle to find time to do the lessons and may try to book in to an intensive driving course. Any suggestions/advice would be gratefully received. Thanks!

Hi Bella, Are you in Dulwich/Herne Hill too?

Hi, Our lovely 18 year old au pair has just arrived from Germany to live with us in the Herne Hill area for the next 11 months. She is keen to meet other local au pairs. Please PM me if you are or know of any au pairs who might be interested in meeting her. Many thanks!

One last attempt to get some really valuable advice from any current or past Rosemead parents please? We would really appreciate any info at all. Thanks in advance for any comments you can share.

I am also keen to hear from Rosemead parents as my daughter has been offered a place at both Herne Hill School and Rosemead for 3+. We are struggling to make the decision as I was impressed buy Herne Hill but don't relaly like the idea that she will have to change schools at 7 and go through the exma process. I was just reading through the ISI reports last night and Herne Hill's is really glowing while Rosemead gets lots of 'good' ratings but no 'outstanding's. It seems like there were concerns about the most able students not always being pushed enough and the assessments not really being put to good use in planning the work for the children. Does anyone know if this has improved, as the report was from 2010, I believe? Also, the pre-prep seemed rather dark and gloomy. Are there any plans to try to refurbish it further? We really liked Rosemead but had these concerns and I don't know any children at Rosemead so can't ask the opinion of anyone outside the EDF. I would be grateful for both positive and negative experiences/opinions through this message list or PM. Many thanks!

Thank you, that is very helpful. This is our first au pair so we are new to all of this! I have also been concerned that we may be underpaying our au pair in giving her ?80 a week. She does drop one child off at school every day and pick both or children up after school and looks after them until 6pm. Her household duties are relatively light as she is asked to tidy their rooms each morning and has most Friday afternoons off. However, I do worry that London is such an expensive city that ?80 a week is a difficult amount to live off of while still being able to enjoy a good social life/sight seeing. I would be grateful if anyone else was willing to share the amount that they pay their au pair for 20-25 hours of help a week as I think we may need to raise the amount so that she doesn't feel she is unfairly paid compared to other au pairs that she meets in this area of London. Many thanks!

Hi, I just wanted to get a rough idea of how much people generally pay their au pair if they ask her to help with childcare during the school holidays? How much would people pay an au pair to look after a 6 year old boy for a full day? Also, would it change if she also looked after our 3 year old so at the same time some days too? We normally pay her ?80 per week for 20 hours a week. Is ?40 a day extra in addition to the ?80 a week she already gets reasonable? It would be additional hours from 9am-3pm so an extra 6 hours. Thanks for any advice or guidance.

Great! I'll send you a Personal Message with her contact details.

Hi, Our lovely German au pair has just joined us here in Herne Hill, SE24. She is keen to meet up with any other au pairs living locally. Please PM me if you are an au pair or know of an au pair who would be interested and we can exchange email addresses. Many thanks.

Is your au pair still interested in meeting other au pairs?

Hi, I have recently bought a pair of Laura Ashley curtains which are too long and too wide for the window. I would also like to add blackout lining to them. Can anyone recommend a place or person who might be able to help with these sort of alterations. Thanks.

Hi, I have recently bought some curtains in a sale which are too long and wide for my son's bedroom window. I would also like to get black out lining added to them. Please could anyone recommend a place where I can get this done? Many thanks.

Thanks so much to you both for taking the time to reply. I had a good feeling about the nursery when I went to visit and really liked the manager and staff I met. However, it is always reassuring to hear from parents who have actually had their children there. There aren't any more full day spaces in the Red Room for Sept 2014 so that is why my son has been offered a place in the Blue Room. He turns 3 in November so won't be too different from the others in the class age-wise, I was just a little concerned that the open space would be a bit overwhelming for him as he has never been to any nursery before. I would welcome more feedback from parents who have had children there through posts or personal messages. Thanks again for your time.

HI, I am thinking of sending my son full-time to the Half Moon Montessori Nursery in Sept 2014. He will be nearly 3 so they have offered us a place in the Blue Class. I don't know any other parents who have sent or are sending their children to this nursery so I would be very grateful for any info at all on how parents have found it. Are the staff caring and sensitive to the children's needs? Is there a risk of a child feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the open space in the Blue Room if they have never been to nursery before? Are there enough structured activities to keep the children from getting bored? When I visited it seemed to be mainly free play. Is there a high turnover of staff/ children? I would be grateful for any feedback either positive or negative. Many thanks!

Hi, My child was at Oakfield last year in the Lower Foundation but we decided to leave at the end of the year for several reasons. It was a hard decision because he had made lovely friends and we had also become close friends with many of the parents in his class. I think the parents and other children are very friendly at Oakfield which made us feel very sad to leave. I also think the school offers a very good education for the fees. We really appreciated the fact that they used the 15 hours of free government educational funding to be able to reduce the tuition for those who were under 5. We also liked the diversity within the student body. Our main reason for leaving was what was already mentioned, we were concerned about the relatively low numbers being offered places at the local more academically selective school. For example, there was only one place offered at Alleyns last year. Parents with older children at the school also reported that the quality of teachers varied widely especially after Year 2. We also felt that the school didn't value music, drama or sports in the same way as schools like Herne Hill or Dulwich Prep. The teacher my son had was also rather strict and didn't seem to understand the developmental differences between the 'summer babies' like my son who was born in August and the Sept born children. She also didn't seem to think much about the importance of the child being given time to settle in the school. He was anxious on the first day and I was horrified to learn that the school's settling in policy was just for the parents to leave them quickly. I was not allowed to walk him to the cloakroom or sit in the classroom the first day even for a few minutes which I knew would have helped tons. The assistant teacher pulled him off of me screaming, 'Mummy, I'm scared. Don't leave me!'He was also too afraid to ask to go to the toilet so had lots of accidents at the start of the year and even though I asked the teachers to take him regularly to the toilet, they ignored this request and said he needed to learn to ask to go when he needed to. I felt his teacher was pushing kids into being independent too quickly instead of giving them the extra support they needed to feel secure at the start. There was a feeling that the new Head was making the right changes to turn the school around and improve its academic reputation but we decided to change our son to a different school which was a feeder into the more academically selective local schools and placed more emphasis on the importance of being well rounded in terms of music, the arts and sports.We are now happy that we made that decision as we really love his current school but we still miss his friends at Oakfield and the parents we had met there. We really liked Oakfield at the end of the year and really hope the new Head sticks around to give the school stability and to change its academic reputation so children can get in to the more academically selective schools if they wish too.

Hi, When I went to visit the school last year I think they said it was from the middle of the playground area. It definitely wasn't from their front door. We were offered a place and I think we live approx 525 meters away on Croxted Rd. Good luck with it all!