Oakfield School

[jollymummy]

Hi Forumites,

I have heard mixed reviews about Oakfield School but have taken the view that different things are important to different people. Recently though I have heard parents have taken their kids out of Oakfield as they are unhappy with the school. Would any parents this applies to be willing to share their views with me?

Many thx

[SarahJaneS]

My understanding is that parents have taken places as unsure about local state places, but if these came through later, then they have taken children out.

Yes, there have also been depatures further up the school in Years 3, 4 & 5 as well for a variety of reasons including several people moving out of the area.

The school has had 4 Head Teachers in the last 6 years and the school has undoubtedly been through a lot of change, however, the current Head Teacher is very good and is slowly dragging the school in the right direction. The Deputy Head, who was much liked by children and parents, left under a cloud very suddenly just over a year ago and hasn't been replaced.

My main area of concern is the overall quality of teaching. Some teachers are very,very good, however, some are less than average. I think, however, that this is gradually being handled by the new head teacher. Generally, there does seem to be a large turnover.

As a parent, if I had my time again, I would look for a prep that had much closer links to a senior school. The school has been critised by parents in the past by not getting enough children to the 'top' Senior Schools ( DC, JAGS, Alleyns etc ). If this is your goal, then this needs to be given serious consideration. They do well in getting children into Whitgift, Trinity, St Dunstan's etc. though.

However, my children have been happy there ( though my current year 6 is feeling the pressue- which does not come from me - hence my comments above about senior schools ).

Hope this helps.

[jollymummy]

Thx so much for your post.

[goocha]

Hi,

My child was at Oakfield last year in the Lower Foundation but we decided to leave at the end of the year for several reasons. It was a hard decision because he had made lovely friends and we had also become close friends with many of the parents in his class. I think the parents and other children are very friendly at Oakfield which made us feel very sad to leave. I also think the school offers a very good education for the fees. We really appreciated the fact that they used the 15 hours of free government educational funding to be able to reduce the tuition for those who were under 5. We also liked the diversity within the student body.

Our main reason for leaving was what was already mentioned, we were concerned about the relatively low numbers being offered places at the local more academically selective school. For example, there was only one place offered at Alleyns last year. Parents with older children at the school also reported that the quality of teachers varied widely especially after Year 2. We also felt that the school didn't value music, drama or sports in the same way as schools like Herne Hill or Dulwich Prep. The teacher my son had was also rather strict and didn't seem to understand the developmental differences between the 'summer babies' like my son who was born in August and the Sept born children. She also didn't seem to think much about the importance of the child being given time to settle in the school. He was anxious on the first day and I was horrified to learn that the school's settling in policy was just for the parents to leave them quickly. I was not allowed to walk him to the cloakroom or sit in the classroom the first day even for a few minutes which I knew would have helped tons. The assistant teacher pulled him off of me screaming, 'Mummy, I'm scared. Don't leave me!'He was also too afraid to ask to go to the toilet so had lots of accidents at the start of the year and even though I asked the teachers to take him regularly to the toilet, they ignored this request and said he needed to learn to ask to go when he needed to. I felt his teacher was pushing kids into being independent too quickly instead of giving them the extra support they needed to feel secure at the start.

There was a feeling that the new Head was making the right changes to turn the school around and improve its academic reputation but we decided to change our son to a different school which was a feeder into the more academically selective local schools and placed more emphasis on the importance of being well rounded in terms of music, the arts and sports.We are now happy that we made that decision as we really love his current school but we still miss his friends at Oakfield and the parents we had met there.

We really liked Oakfield at the end of the year and really hope the new Head sticks around to give the school stability and to change its academic reputation so children can get in to the more academically selective schools if they wish too.