Thoughts on settling in - Dulwich Hamlet School

[zaczac]

Our 7yo son has been offered a place at Dulwich Hamlet Junior school to go into Y3. I know a number of kids in his class will have come from Dulwich Infants school. My son currently attends another Southwark school right now & won't know many in his class or year.

Has anyone else had experience - good or bad - of settling in at Dulwich Hamlet or other schools at that age?

[bornagain]

My child moved to Dulwich Hamlet in Yr 6. They are fantastic at making newbies feel welcome. I would say that they probably have a tried and tested system in place for settling in Y3s. It's a big school with 90 children in each year so there will be plenty of children from all sorts of schools.

[etta166]

This year (more so that most years if the mummy gossip is true) a lot of children currently at the Infant school have not been offered places at the Junior school. I expect that your son will be part of a large cohort of children that are coming from different schools so there shouldn't be a problem with feeling left out.

You could always ask the school if there's anyone else from his current school going to transfer at the same time.

[fapl]

Just out of interest, not relevant to me, where do the children from the infants school go if they don't get into Dulwich Hamlet?

[LVWT]

The hamlet (I think) gives you a form to fill in, where your child can choose the friends they'd like to have in their class, so if anyone else is moving up, that can help..though obviously isn't guaranteed.

They mix up all the new children coming in, so it's unlikely that your child will be the only one in the class that wasn't in the same infants class the year before.

[tadpole39]

in reply to you fapl, who knows where the children go who dont get places at the hamlet. This is our position and I expect what will probably happen is that we will be offered the places at the schools others have moved from that will not be our choice or convenient. I am at a loss as to why people would move their children mid schooling unless the4y werent happy with the school. I bear no feelings of ill will towards people who choose to move their children, just utter amazement that there is no automatic admission between the two schools. It is very difficult to explain to a seven year old why he cant join his friends and has to start all over again with a school that is in all probability a long way away. Many of the children are in this position and I think it is a disgrace that they are treated this way.

[zaczac]

bornagain - thanks that is very comforting to know.

LVWT - I'll look out for the form

etta166 - thanks for the info.

I'm sorry that there's disruption to the children at DVI applying for school places. Maybe they should look at preferential entry for children from the infants school. Are parents aware when their kids attend the infants school that they won't be given places at Dulwich Hamlet automatically?

[Growlybear]

There has never been an automatic right of entry to the Junior School for children at the Infant School - they are completely separate schools with different admission authorities. At the time my daughter went to Dulwich Hamlet, it had been made very clear to her friends who had attended the Infant School that there was no preferential admission to the Junior School. Dulwich Village Infants is a faith school, whereas the Junior School, at the time my daughter went there, was a community school (I think it is now an academy). It has always been the case that children from the Infant School are not offered places at the Junior School, due in part because it is a faith school with different admission criteria and therefore took children from a wider geographical area than Dulwich Hamlet.

In reply to the OP, my daughter was the only child from her Infant School to join Dulwich Hamlet in Year 3. The majority of the children came from two or three nearby schools, but there were a few other children who joined Year 3 without knowing anyone else. The school really couldn;t have done more to make her feel welcome and to help her to settle in quickly. Moving her from her previous school was the best thing we could have done as she had the sort of education at Dulwich Hamlet that I didn't think existed any more. It was a truly exceptional school that helped to equip her brilliantly for secondary school.

[vesti]

The infants is a church of England school, The Hamlet isn't; hence different catchment areas and why they can't amalgamate (Infants would have to loose church status or Hamlet acquire it). Of course parents know when they choose for their child to attend The Infants that The Hamlet has a different catchment area (unrelated to parish boundaries), The Infants admission info on front page of their website says, "Please note there is no automatic transfer at Year Three to Dulwich Hamlet Junior School"...I guess for some it's a gamble that just doesn't pay off.

Sorry Growlybear, must have been typing whilst you were posting. You said it all so much more eloquently than I!

[sillywoman]

Well yes, except that 50% of the admissions to the DVInfants are non-foundation (not church) places, and the criteria for those places is very similar (if not the same?) as the criteria for DHJS, i.e siblings, special needs, distance lived from school etc etc. Personally I really fail to see why children allocated those non-foundation (they used to be called 'community') places can't have automatic entry to the school next door? Yes, parents know the system & the risks when they apply for the (simply lovely) Infant school, but it doesn't make it any less heart-rending when the gamble doesn't pay off & it's your child being told they can't go to school with their friends anymore. I was told that if the Governors of both schools agreed, then it would be possible for there to be some kind of admission connection between the two? But maybe that's just playground gossip?

Incidentally I did read somewhere that the schools were linked way back in the dim & distant past when they were first built, but at some point along the way the church took over the Infant school whilst the Juniors stayed with the state. So I'm not sure it's right that there has "has never been an automatic right of entry to the Junior School for children at the Infant School" Growlybear? Maybe just not in your time?

P.S. I would echo what others have said; there's always a significant number of children from other schools starting in year 3, within a week or so you couldn't tell, or remember who was from where.