Kingsdale School Ofsted?

[Debster99]

Metallic & Prickle

Modern day Starsky & Hutch , picking up fag ends and attempting to make headlines ?

No idea who you are but clearly haven't got a kid at the school you appear to follow with more than a normal parent interest ? If as you say you have primary sch kids and attempting to select a school then i would suggest you look elsewhere ?

Save yourself an ulcer over worrying about cheating , gangs , poor teachers etc ...Kingsdale will live without you ?

Lillian Baliss in Kennington or Stockwell Park have oodles of space ?

I find it so dull that this forum brings up same negativity from same names ? Yes i get your worries about getting the right school for your kids but you have 5 choices and if don't like Kingsdale then move on ....?

[Metallic]

No need to be like that Debster99.

I read the papers about things going on in the area where I live and work, about things that effect me and mine. Why would I not want to know what is going on with Kingsdale when there has been accusations of cheating, or why would I not want to know about the Charter School catchment issues, when they are going to affect me and my possible choices of where to look I want to know, like anyone would.

Shame your question mark key got stuck by the way Debster99?

[prickle]

Lol, can I be Starsky?

But seriously, although I am a parent with a yr 5 child for whom I will be looking for a secondary school, my concern like Metallic is because I too live and work here and have done for a long time. In fact, I have known about and have been taking an interest in the school from the rebuild as my brother worked on the project.

I am the last person to want the school to fail. I am thrilled that a previously disasterous school is now so fantastic - a real vindication for those doubters when the school was kickstarted through amazing architecture.

However, I am also critical of the total silence from the school about its current problems and the way it tried to gag debate on this forum. It is a state-funded school and the society at large should be entitled to take an interest.

I am suspicous also of the hype and media trickery and its downright confusing admissions policy of the school.

What astonishes me is how unconcerned or defensive the parents at KD are. Not sure if you are in deep denial and hope that if you speak, hear or see no evil it will all go away.

[intexasatthe moment]

5 choices - Debster why use the word " choice " ? You must be aware that no choice is involved .

And everything what prickle said .

Except I'll pass on Starsky .

[westof]

Prickle, perhaps Kingsdale parents seem relatively unconcerned because day to day they just see the reality of a normal, well-functioning school.

And they've learnt that if they do speak up to say that - they just run the risk of being called defensive - can't win either way!

Though if you have a Y5 child, I can completely sympathise with using this forum to try & find out everything you can about the school - I only found my way to the EDF myself a few years back because I was scouring threads with a fine tooth comb to try & read between the lines & work out what the schools were really like.

[FatherJack]

Debster999....You must be chuffed that the Southwark school Kingsdale welcomes applications from all over London

and not just Southwark residents.

Last year 42 Southwark children received NO offer of a school. This is NO offer, Southwark were unable to offer them a place at any school as there were no places available. So it irks somewhat when you hear that Kingsdale cater for children from far and wide when other boroughs do not offer Southwark kids the same unconditional opportunity. But them's the breaks and more relevantly the criteria!

[prickle]

"Prickle, perhaps Kingsdale parents seem relatively unconcerned because day to day they just see the reality of a normal, well-functioning school."

I'm sure that on a day to day basis everything is fine. But if I was a KD parent, in the light of all these allegations I would be keen find out more about what is really going on - on basis of no smoke without fire? After all secondary schools are quite different from primary as parents are unlikely to have day to day contact with the school. You have to rely on the scant info that your kids give you and the 'official' info from the school. You often don't even know many other parents as there is no school gate as such.

Maybe that's just me ?

[MGolden]

FatherJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Debster999....You must be chuffed that the

> Southwark school Kingsdale welcomes applications

> from all over London

> and not just Southwark residents.

>

> Last year 42 Southwark children received NO offer

> of a school. This is NO offer, Southwark were

> unable to offer them a place at any school as

> there were no places available. So it irks

> somewhat when you hear that Kingsdale cater for

> children from far and wide when other boroughs do

> not offer Southwark kids the same unconditional

> opportunity. But them's the breaks and more

> relevantly the criteria!

FatherJack - Kingsdale is at the very edges of Southwark and like many London schools participates in the pan London system of parents putting preferences. I live in the LB Croydon, as I have said on this forum before, my son goes from Croydon to Lambeth to Bromley to Southwark in his half hour journey to school. If he walks to school it takes him 25 minutes and he can avoid Bromley.

His friends live predominantly in Southwark with a fair few who live in Brixton (Lambeth) and Forest Hill (Lewisham). None of his friends travel for more than half an hour to get to school. This would suggest to me that Kingsdale offers places to children who live reasonably nearby although I acccept that extrapolating from the experience of my child and his friends is not necessairly a good statistical method.

As I am sure Fuschia will point out it would be illegal for Kingsdale to say they would only accept children from Southwark and (and I am not suggesting Fuschia would say this!) by not having a geographical catchment area Kingsdale does not run into the issue of people moving into areas in order to get their children into a school because of a restrictive catchment area and then pushing houseprices up.

We didn't send our son to a Croydon school because we did not want to send him to an all boys school and we did not support the ethos of Harris Crystal Palace. Had we applied to send him to our nearest secondary school he would have gone to a school in Lambeth so not our local authority either.

Secondary school admission is a nightmare and I do feel sorry for those looking at schools now as there is clearly not enough provision for the growing population in London but Kingsdale are not the cause of children in Southwark not having a secondary school to go to.

ETA: to correct spelling!

[Metallic]

I understand several Langbourne children off the Kingswood estate did not get a place at a school which is a few yards from their homes - Kingsdale. So I agree it is a great fortune to people that Kingsdale are so generous in their catchment.

It does not get away from the fact that the school seems like a duck, calm above water and apparently paddling madly out of sight. We will soon see.

[Fuschia]

The problem with secondary school admissions is the lack of coordinated planning, the large no of faith schools and single sex schools

Charter admits by distance (very small catchment) and kingsdale operates a lottery within bands - ensuring a more comprehensive intake than they had as a struggling school, a decade ago

Charter assures the quality of its intake by virtue of house prices in the locality

Kingsdale lifted its average attainment because the banded lottery meant pupils in some of the bands could be admitted with further distances than straightforward distance criteria

Of course nowadays, if it admitted on distance it would be skewed towards ed children. When it was a failing school it was taking from

Brixton or Peckham

[Fuschia]

I think I am right it's a banded lottery

I had a good look st how its admissions criteria were operating, a few years ago, now

[FatherJack]

M Golden.....I'm only too aware of Kingsdale's location as is my friend who lives on the Kingsmead Est 10 minutes walk if that from the school, who son started at Haberdasher Askes last September....but like I said them's the breaks and the criteria. I certainly wasn't suggesting that the issue with Southwark last year was down to Kingsdale....more down to the fact that in Southwark no two schools seem to have the same criteria blah blah blah (boring myself now!)

I agree with you the whole secondary school process is a nightmare and fully appreciate your reasons for not supporting the ethos of Harris Academy. Sadly the worse it becomes parents may well have to ignore how they think or feel about a school whether it be for religious grounds, boys or girls only, academy etc because the places aren't available. And NO I don't think this is how it should be.

As there are obviously people on here living outside of Southwark I wonder are you aware of a school like Kingsdale (ie same criteria) in your borough that Southwark parents might apply for their child? Please feel free to PM with that info as I do not want to hijack this thread.

[MGolden]

FatherJack - short answer, no.

Longer answer - our criteria was a school that was nearby that we could send our son to. We wanted a mixed, comprehensive school with a sixth form that was ideally within half an hour of home. We were extraordinarily lucky, I now realise, to get that. However, none of the schools were in our LA (Croydon) as their availability for boys in the north of the borough is woeful but that's a subject for another forum!

I think we are probably in agreement really, London lacks sufficient secondary school places for the number of children who require education and whatever system individual schools use will advantage some and disadvantage others.

[Fuschia]

Fj:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8348725/The-councils-using-fair-banding-and-lottery-systems.html

[Fuschia]

http://www.dunraven.org.uk/news/?pid=6&nid=2&storyid=167

Is dunraven fair banding and distance or fair banding and lottery?

[Fuschia]

Distance ....

http://www.dunraven.org.uk/attachments/download.asp?file=538&type=pdf

[MGolden]

Fair banding and distance

ETA: crossed post!

[Metallic]

The inspection news will be out this week I guess.

[intexasatthe moment]

I wonder when the Ofsted report will be published .

Does anyone know ?

And sympathies to everyone on tenterhooks to hear result of secondary school allocation today .

[westof]

I don't know when this particular report will be published - but when my child was at primary, they had a monitoring inspection (i.e. not a full inspection, but the kind you get in between those ones if the school is coming out of special measures) and IIRC it was good 2 or 3 months before anything was published, and then it was in letter format.

(I've just looked on OFSTED's website to remind me of the dates - the monitoring inspection for that school took 3 MONTHS to be published, whereas the full inspection report had taken less than a month which seems to be usual for those).

So your guess is as good as mine - but it looks like, if anything, a non-standard inspection may take longer than usual to process?

And good luck to all those waiting for places at whatever school...

[Fuschia]

A section 8 inspection should be on the ofsted site within 3 weeks according to the guidance

[intexasatthe moment]

Yes ...and I expect the guidance says something like "usually/normally" .

It'll be there eventually I know .

Wonder if the school will put it up on their website before Ofsted put it on theirs ?

Sending good thoughts to all the poor people waiting for news this evening .

[Metallic]

Just imagine if you are one of the parents hoping for a school where this inspection type has happened since you applied for your child to go there. You get the good news that you have a place and the bad news the same week that it is going in to special measures. So hopefully the inspectors will have cleared up whatever has happened, and if not, by the time your child starts there, things will have been cleaned up.

[westof]

Metallic, I find your posts are beginning to write themselves - I can usually 'just imagine' exactly the nature of what you might have popped in to mention.

[Metallic]

Sorry? This is going to be me worrying next year so watch how you judge.