MrsDanvers

It touched down in Hilly Fields,Brockley SE4. Edit: should have said I got the photo from Brockley Central!

Have you notified the police? These are all well-known criminal practices and if the police can catch the fraudster/thief (which is what these people are) they can take action. Another common one is a man claiming to be a new window cleaner in the area and asking for money in advance, with a promise to come back later in the week and do the windows then. Of course you never see him or your money again.

With the greatest possible respect, Anna, it's not that far for a 16 year old to commute. Millions of people have a much tougher journey to and from work and they don't find it that hard to get up in the morning if the alternative is having no job, or a worse job nearer home. Not so great for an 11 year old, I agree.

That's a massive oversimplification, westof. The educational attainment of the parents is the single biggest factor that determines how well a child will do at school. Intelligent, well-educated parents are likely to be able to get their children into better schools, yes, but they will also read and talk to the children, listen to what they have to say, work hard on their social skills, support them with their schoolwork (research on the internet, educational visits in the holidays etc) and (massively important) they will have very high expectations of what their children can and should achieve at school and later on. If these children went to less successful schools they might be miserable if there was unchecked bullying or very high turnover of staff/pupils, but from an educational point of view they would probably not suffer too much as they have such a huge head start from home.

I don't think A level attainment is all that relevant to entry at 11+. GCSE performance, yes, but lots of young people move schools for sixth form.

Jeremy, as it happens London schools are now performing at well above the national standard. Lots of state-funded schools in Lewisham and Southwark are doing really well, at both primary and secondary level. It can be difficult to get a place at the more popular ones, yes, but it seems to me that it is not as polarised as it used to be.

It's obvious, but of course someone making a significant additional income as a private tutor is absolutely bound to say that tuition is absolutely key to 11+ success. Sadly she may well be right, and this is why the 11+ is such a flawed approach and why the middle classes have such a stranglehold on the places at state grammar schools. The super bright don't need extra tuition, just a bit of exam familiarisation. It probably does give a big advantage to children who are above average but not super bright. Then of course they get into selective schools and find it's hard work keeping up, so the private tutors are hired again to help them with their work. I believe this goes all the way through to A level work in some circles.

Lewisham secondary transfer booklet etc here: http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/education/schools/school-admission/applying-to-start-secondary-school/Pages/default.aspx

I think four is a bit young to start marital arts.

The 484 service has been badly hit in the last few weeks by long-running roadworks in Ladywell that mean there's a weird diversion in operation in Brockley on both directions. I find it's a reasonable service most of the time, but a very busy one. It's a lot better than the train service.

TE44 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That must have been very difficult hellosailor, I > hope your daughter recovered without any lasting > effects. As you said we can only choose what we > believe to be best, When my daughter was little > and had whooping cough, i found the doctor very > unhelpful, he seemed more interested in blaming me > than caring for her. I have also found this with > some parents, especially when kids were at school. > I think it is a difficult decision, but one that > should b down to us. You didn't immunise your children against whooping cough? That means, I suppose, that you left them unimmunised against polio, diphtheria and tetanus as well. I honestly think you must be mad. I also think that you might have come to a very different decision if you hadn't known that most parents do immunise their children and so your children would benefit from herd immunity without any risk that they might be amongst the unfortunate few who do have a reaction to an immunisation. Best of both worlds for you, thanks to the rest of us. Going back to measles, it's not a trivial disease. Any child who gets measles is going to be miserably ill in bed for over a week with a high temperature. Who'd want that if it could be avoided, and that's even without the worry of complications? And what about the risk to the unborn child if an unimmunised child has rubella and infects the mother?

I'm very sympathetic to people who find themselves in this position of uncertainty and I do think the admissions system is a mess, but parents do have to get to grips with how the system works to minimise the chances of an unacceptable outcome. If you are offered a school that wasn't on your list that means you applied to six schools where you didn't have much realistic chance of getting a place. You have to put down at least one school that may not be your ideal but is acceptable, at least in comparison with schools that still have places available in March. In this case: 'One boy placed Walworth Academy as first choice and has been offered a place at Peckham Academy. He lives closer to WA than another boy in his class who got a place at Walworth even though it was fourth on his list.' What this means is that the second boy's circumstances were different from the first boy's. Did the second boy have a sibling at Walworth? Were they in different ability bands? Were there special social or medical circumstances that applied in the second boy's case? Schools/admissions authorities don't know whether their school is first or sixth and they are not allowed to give priority to those who rank them higher. This is because otherwise it becomes possible for schools effectively to blackmail parents into ranking them higher than they really want to. And finally, this one: 'One boy was not offered a place at all... He says he feels that he has been singled out as a rejection from the system.' This boy's family are, I hope, doing their best to explain the system to them. It is not a personal slight. How could it be?