Bessemer Grange - just had letter advising placement....

[sawyerphin]

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[toast]

Hi don't know the school but if it helps I have heard (from reliable source in childrens services) that although as yet unreleased their results this year were amazing. Sounds like Southwark has had a really good year. Bessimer and places like Iveydale seem to be benifiting from other ED families being sent there with no choice, hopefully there will be lots of bright kids there and it will be truly mixed rather than amy kind of sink school.

Would be interested to know where you live. There does seem to be an issue over families not getting into any of their nearest schools. Would love to know if you failed to get into your nearest school, as i think we may next year.

[sawyerphin]

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[minder]

There have been other threads about Bessemer Grange a while back. Type it in the search box.

[Wiz]

Hi

My daughter has also been offered a reception place at Bessemer Grange starting this September. We live in East Dulwich and are one of the families that didn't get any of our schools choices even though our first choice is only 400m from our house.

Saying that, I have been very impressed so far with Bessemer Grange. The communication from the school has been excellent and the visits very encouraging and informative. On our first visit, the head of early years spent an hour showing us round the school.

As yet, we don't know any other children from East Dulwich that will be attending the school. Unfortunately, we were on holiday when the school invited all the new parents and children to an induction day. This would have been an ideal opportunity to meet some other parents and children. If you are interested in meeting up before the term starts please PM me. It would be great for me and daughter to know at least one other starter.

[Sqiggles]

I think toast is right, the KS2 SATS results at Bessemer Grange this year were really good - at least 90% for maths, I think, and well over 80% for Engligh and Science. But is is also a pretty balanced and inclusive school - not just a SATS factory. They do lots of creative activities etc.

The early years is currently on a different site (across the road from trhe main school) but a new chlidren's centre is being built which will enable everyone to be on the same site - and have a great children's centre as well, which brings with it extra resources generally.

The early years has had a great reputation for a few years, and the head of the early years seems to be very popular. Because Dulwich Hamlet only takes children from year 3, some children do move on to DH at year 3 - most of the children at Year 6 move onto the charter school.

The new head took over last September (she had been deputy head and then acting head for a while before) and she seems to be doing great things. The school seems to have great staff who have worked very hard to produce the reuslts they have.

And the location is lovely - overlooking playing fields. It is not that far from ED - there is a path from Sainsburys or you walk down Greendale (opposite the end of Townley Road).

[hoipolloi]

Hi

We live very near to St John's and were offered Bessemer Grange which we hadn't put on our form. I'd never heard of it when we were offered it but when I looked round I was very pleasantly surprised. In the end we decided not to send our children there purely because of the journey but if it had been nearer I'm sure we would have gone for it. As others have said, the early years co-ordinator is really excellent.

HP