Haberdashers

[Curly]

End of the world no. End of Askes as we know it...maybe.

[Huggers]

I know. Isnt it terrible. Letting in local children. Whatever next.

[jhl23]

@Curly: lol! I think there is a fair bit of snobbery about the effect the great unwashed will have on the Aske's brand! I'd be f****d off if I'd bought a house on telegraph hill and couldn't get my little angel into HA.

We just want to know if the infant's school is improving or not. We've got our kiddy in a Steiner kindergarten and this is pretty much paid for by nursery vouchers until he is 5. It's very nice there but we are not sure about it once the kids get older & anyhow we can't afford the fees. Chances of us getting offered a place at H.A. next year are pretty slim if we go back on the waiting list however! It's a nice dilemma to have...

[anapau]

I think Curly is right in asking whether the teachers going to be able to manage the challenging behaviour if they have not had to deal with it in the past. I think they will be able to manage but it may take the school a bit of time to adjust. I should know, when I got in it was still a selective school, and I was in about year 8 when it changed into an academy, thus changing the intake and making the sibling policy etc applicable. The following year group was really rowdy and I think we sensed that the teachers were initially thrown. But they adjusted, stricter rules were put into place and the teachers changed their tactics. So in that sense, the teachers have already had experience of quite a big intake change.

Also, if Askes do have to get a lot of new teachers in for September, they're bound to be really strict anyway - new teachers usually are!

[Keef]

End of the world no. End of Askes as we know it...maybe.

Aske's as I knew it is long gone.

So it's not a bastion of middle class privelege anymore.

Don't know where you get this idea from. Yes, it has always been very popular, and lots of middle classes would want their kids to go there, but it has always taken kids from various backgrounds.

[Curly]

Keef Wrote:

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> it

> has always taken kids from various backgrounds.

Yes but only if they passed the test and the interview....haha

[Huggers]

OK Keef, you are prob right but then maybe its the 'perception' of it being middle class- because otherwise I don't understand what the problem is meant to be. If it wasnt priveleged before( by having its pick of students)and it isnt now, then how can the idea of the ''intake'' changing cause so much hypothetical rumbling about how it's changed.

Looking back over this thread, it's full of 'teachers jumping ship'(eh...to teach privately), dilapidated standards, and I quote ''what effect the merger with Monson and altered entry criteria will have on the mix of children and standards'' kind of question, -

but our experience is that it is good. Someone somewhere at the beginning of this thread asked what it was like, and that's what I think.

[sillywoman]

Curly Wrote:re

"it has always taken kids from various backgrounds."

>

> Yes but only if they passed the test and the

> interview....haha

I know someone will put me right if I've got this wrong, but I was told years ago that HA's took 1/3 of it's kids from the top academic level, 1/3 from the middle & 1/3 from the bottom. So you could be thick as a plank and still get a place there. How does this tally with the 'test & interview' thing? Is it wrong? Shame if so, I thought it seemed such a great equaliser.

[Huggers]

9 bands equally divided,

[Dulwich_ Park_ Fairy]

9 bands equally divided,

Well I've been told that most schools that do their own independent test have various ways of getting around the "equally" part. For example, rigging it so that the top 7 bands apply to kids who get over say a 70% pass rate in the test. You can still have 20 kids in each band that way (so it is divided equally) but only the last 2 bands are at risk of including kids who aren't that academic. It a bit too much of a coincidence that the schools with independent tests seem to average about around 90%+ 5 A-C's whereas the best of the rest average around 50%. Its also strange that Haberdashers only brought in these tests when it was forced to be seen as more inclusive and the results began to drop, the tests soon sorted out that though. The taking over of a primary school instead of opening up to the wider community as a whole is just cynical beyond belief, schools such as Haberdashers have completely lost sight of the fact that they are meant to serve the local population.

[Ann]

Hi all,

I also thought it was 9 bands but with the top 15% or so from each band that got in. The posts saying the selection has changed has confused me. I found dulwich-park- fairies post interesting. I wasn't aware that some schools could set their own 'rules'. It seems to me a lot of parents over the years have been misled.

[Curly]

Two Monson parents separately told me a few years ago (about 8/9 years ago) that Monson children never got places at Askes. They were very disgruntled about it and both later moved out of London for better Secondary schools. One of the parents claimed that the test asked the children to describe where they went on holiday that year and if it was camping in Cornwall then you wouldn't get in, but of course skiing would be ok. She claimed parents had complained and Lewisham had to step in and stop the school from including the question in the test.

Additionally, at a time when they used to interview parents, a relative of mine didn't get his son into Askes. When he went for the interview a second time for his younger daughter he said he made sure he wore a suit and asked 'the right questions' such as what computer system they were running at the school - she got in.

Of course it's all hearsay but if you look at their latest Ofsted report it comments on the behaviour of the lower school being very different to the upper school, which ultimately is indicative of the change in their selection process in recent years. If teachers don't like the intake/changes then of course they may well leave (which my relative tells me is happening) and it's that that can change the face of the school. Since Askes, therefore, is undergoing a period of possible/likely transition I see it as a calculated risk to send my child there at this time since I can't see which way they are going.

I expect it will all be fine but that's the way I see it - especially since I met two parents at Kingsdale trying to get their younger children a place there even though they could have an automatic sibling place at Askes. Why??

[Huggers]

edited because.

[Keef]

Wow, they have 9 bands these days?

Back in my day (waaaaay back in '89) I remember them taking 3 band 3s from the year above me, then 3 band 1s from my year, from my primary school. There has always been a perception over the place because it was once a grammar school and all that, but relistically, it has always seemed to take a good mix of kids from all over.

People tell me I took an exam to get in, and I really really don't remember that. I remember the interview, but not a test.

When I went, it was still Haberdashers Aske's Hatchem Boy's School. Officially turned in to Hatchem College when I was about year 10 (which incidently, was also around the time we started being "year 10" instead of 4th years).

I personally like the idea that some places are set aside for musical kids. I guess the problem is, that more "middle class" kids will fall in to that category, and primary schools should do more music, so the "working class" kids can have a go. My parents never would have been able to afford lessons for me, but thankfully I got trumpet lessons at St John's (not that that made a difference getting in to Aske's in those days).

Still find it weird seeing girls on the train through New X Gate wearing "boys school ties". Doesn't seem right to an old fella (all of 30) like me.

[Curly]

Huggers - it's just an opinion. You should congratulate yourself on getting your child into a very good school. If your child is going there in Sept then please don't worry about speculation and conjecture.

[Dulwich_ Park_ Fairy]

Didn't read Huggers post but as Curly has said it's a good school and I'm sure your kid will do very well there. I would never criticise anybody for sending their children to Haberdashes, my issue is with the fact that the old grammar school system seems to be sneaking back in through the lack of regulations applied to academies, foundations schools, faith schools etc. If they were more open about it I wouldn't mind so much, but by hiding the fact they are selective they do other "community" schools a great disservice beacause, in today's results driven climate, they have a huge advantage. You just cannot get a 90% pass mark if you have an equal distribution of academic ability amongst the children. Silk purses etc

[Huggers]

thanks Curly, no worries, But my child has been there for a year, hence my support and praise for the school. My son follows her there this september.

Dulwich Park Fairy, there is no reason why most children cannot pass school exams/gcse's if the teaching is good unless they have particular special educational needs. Exams are not pitched towards the gifted but the average.

92 percent a-c's still means that 8 percent are not getting that level, and maybe they never would be able to for whatever reason.

I think its great that people are no longer obsessing about askes but sending their kids to all our local schools, making them reflect a better mix of abilities and therefore turning them into schools everyone can believe in.

[Dulwich_ Park_ Fairy]

Dulwich Park Fairy, there is no reason why most children cannot pass school exams/gcse's if the teaching is good unless they have particular special educational needs. Exams are not pitched towards the gifted but the average.

92 percent a-c's still means that 8 percent are not getting that level, and maybe they never would be able to for whatever reason.

Well traditionally they don't, and if they did, you would have to question the legitimacy of exams that put 92% of pupils (nationwide) up for A-levels. That kind of comment kind of sums up what I meant earlier about selective schools doing a disservice to community schools. The fact that Forest Hill Boys only achieves a 50% pass mark is because the teachers are shite, same with Charter, and lets not even go to the Peckham Academy.........

[Huggers]

Interesting points DPF. But the question to ask is not how many are passing but which ones. Who are the fifty per cent? are they the fifty per cent who would do well wherever they were? what's happening to the others? Who is teaching them and how? Is it a social failure or an educational failure? ? I have no idea.

The canker in the ear of our national education system (imo)is private education. Not because it creams off bright children- in fact it is mainly its enhancement of the mediocre who then go on to rule us with their lack of imagination that hurts- but because of the 'cop out clause' which means no one has to put up with the public system if they can get the dosh together,meaning their is a lack of 'investment' - and I mean social investment by an elite who guarantee the flow of law makers, governors, bankers come from/through its own system .

[Curly]

Dulwich_ Park_ Fairy Wrote:

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> The fact that

> Forest Hill Boys only achieves a 50% pass mark is

> because the teachers are shite, same with Charter,

> and lets not even go to the Peckham

> Academy.........

That's quite a statement. Have you thought about how a school can only do so much with children who arrive with poor academic skills? Which school would you recommend then?

[dulwichpetcarers]

I go to Haberdashers and it is an awful school. the teachers are really up themselves and rude, all the school cares about is looking good.

[dulwichpetcarers]

Yeah the whole geography department left and all the new year 7's and 8's are really rude.

[Curly]

I'm sorry you feel like that about your school dulwichpetcarers. You sound very unhappy. Have you thought about changing schools?