Tatler Top 100 State Schools Post Reply

[wasateacher]

The last results I had (which was 2011 or 2012) for KS2 results showed that it was at Falconbrook that pupils made the most progress of primary schools in Wandsworth, excluding private schools (I don't have that information).

[Pud1]

The list is concerning on so many levels. It implies that if, for some reason, you suddenly can't afford a private school, there are some schools that could be deemed 'acceptable'. Out of all the hundreds of schools, they single out ten. I hate to think what their criteria were: Average salary of the parents? Social status? Number of White, middle class children? It's just so narrow minded!!

Honeywell is indeed a lovely school, but so are many of our other local schools for many, many different reasons.

Not too keen on the comment about 'gentrification' either. I'm hoping it was said in jest........

[boonkoh]

Lists are just lists. Each one has different criteria. None of them are one size fits all.

A school might be top of one list but bottom of another.

[Zen-mum]

I think it's great that one of our local schools has been given such an accolade and been thrust into the national spotlight.

[Balhammom]

Despite the obvious irony of Tatler producing such a shortlist I have to agree, great to appear in it and a big thumbs up for the local area too.

[juliantenniscoach]

Why is it great to appear in it?

[Zen-mum]

Why is it NOT great?
Why so negative? This is such an odd response to something positive. Positive for the kids, the kitchen team, the teaching staff, the SENCO team, the heads & anyone associated with the school. Tatler obviously have a criteria of some sort.
Let's start the new year being positive!
I think it's great & I know a lot of people who do too.

[juliantenniscoach]

I've previously answered that local people and Ofsted would be a far better judge of the or any school. Not a aspirational lifestyle magazine which openly admits it normally wouldn't consider state schools. Why do you think that it? The premise is fatuous.

[livegreen]

Julian - if tattler or similar magazine produced a list of good tennis coaches for families, intermediates, beginners , social tennis etc would you want to be on it - or if you are deemed excellent near the top ? Or would u prefer that other local tennis coaches were praised and you were ignored? If u made the list would your customers be proud of you? Would clapham common be proud of you?
Additionally would it help people decide their choice of tennis coach?

[juliantenniscoach]

It's not like for like is it? It's a particulary random list based Nationally. So if they produced a parallel list for tennis and said say Telford Park was No.1 and say Foxhills was No. 2 and didn't mention me, then no I wouldn't feel affected by that.

If however if was comparing like for like on a local basis using criteria from the National Governing Body, then it would be completely different.

[wasateacher]

It is unfortunate that education really suffers because of ill informed judgements about schools, such as the Tatler list. No-one so far has produced any evidence that the schools on the list are good schools - many are at least partially selective.

It has nothing to do with the quality of the teaching or the learning in schools and everything to do with, effectively, narrow minded prejudice.

If you really want to know which schools are the best look up the intake, then look at the progress made by pupils (value added score). If you want your children to grow up in a socially selective bubble, then rent a house near one of the over subscribed "popular" schools but bear in mind that the success your child makes in school has more to do with the family s/he is born into that the school s/he attends.

One of the comments was sensible: visit schools and find out which one your child feels comfortable in.

[Pud1]

Well said wasateacher.

[headshrinker]

I can see the positives - more gentrification for the local area...

Not sure how much more gentrified that area could get. Houses start at £1.5million on Honeywell Rd...

[wasateacher]

Does access to enough money to buy in the area equal gentry these days? In the days when we had village gentry it is true that the children of the gentry would have gone away to school, probably. However, during their holidays they returned to a mixed community in which their parents played a full (if patronising in the real sense) part. Gentrification now seems to mean making sure an area only serves a narrow social class. I'm glad I live in a mixed community.

[headshrinker]

I always understood it as describing when wealthier people move into a more run-down area, do up the houses and price those on lower incomes out of the market. Reckon they are well past that round Honeywell way...