Postby betsyboop » Tue Dec 29, 2020 12:58 pm
Belleville parents here for many years.
I agree with the above post saying it's not as good as it once was, mostly because of its size that has diluted a lot of things.
current reception year is 5 form entry. that's 150 children spread over two sites ! the catchment is now massive and lots of families drive or use public transport to get to school.
the classes are big and there are a lot less of individualized support than before : for example, the teachers don't mark the work anymore, instead they give verbal "feedback" (when they can), the children mark a lot of their own work...
a lot of the staff has been moved to work at the trust level (like SENCO or learning), where they have, now, to look after 5 schools.
the lockdown remote learning has basically been left to parents to teach their children using materials provided by the school, it wasn't an engaging or inspiring to anyone due to the lack of feedback and real exchange with the teacher. they just dumped on parents lots of materials while other local state primary schools jumped on the bandwagon of online teaching their kids and live classes !!
the school's results are largely supported by the investment in time or money of the parents using tutors or maths learning centre for instance.
your wouldn't go totally wrong with Belleville, as the teaching and supporting staff is truly amazing, as are the families (music is good there, and English improving) but there are a range of smaller states schools (around Balham), which are incredibly more dynamic, proactive and bent themselves over backward more so, than the monstrously sized Belleville.