Few children from SE22 are privately educated

[trinity]

Hi,

My kids are at 2 different private schools in the immediate area and I have noticed that there are very few children with SE22 postcodes in their classes eg in my daughter's class of 24 children, only 2 live in SE22. The situation is similar in my son's school. In fact more children live in Wandsworth than se22.

I wonder why - is it because the residents of East Dulwich can not afford it, are the local state schools as good, is it a decision based on active dislike of private education?

I would appreciate your views.

[jimbo1964]

Wandsworth does have quite a high proportion of loaded parents.

[Brendan]

I am not at all sure why that would be as I do not have kids and have therefore not investigated local schools. I also don?t know what the average salary is in Wandsworth as opposed to here. Anecdotally though I can say that on a night out in Wandsworth you encounter far more of the pink-shirted, slicked back hair brigade than you do in ED.

[*Bob*]

I like this post.

Day after day there's always someone (on here) droning on about ED filling-up with 'braying' (this seems to be the adjective of choice, when you have no imagination to speak of) 'Hooray Henrys' (another one) - a demographic which which largely exists in caricature and imagination rather than reality.

In five years, the percentage of SE22'ers who send their children to private school will certainly be up on what it is now, but for the most part, SE22 will still be filled with people who can't afford it.

[BlueOne]

This site gives demographic snapshots of your local area (amongst other stuff) quite interesting...

http://www.upmystreet.com/local/my-neighbours/neighbourhood-profile/l/se22+8jz.html

[jimbo1964]

I think Alleyn's offer a certain number of places for children from less well off homes (but I guess these children are not necessarily from SE22).

[Ant]

That demographic review doesn't seem right to me. It claims the population is largely young singles renting flats. I'd have said it was mostly families, with young kids, who've bought houses with huge mortgages.

Or perhaps there are more young singles renting flats but they're just less visible?

[TillieTrotter]

The areas my daughters friends came from were mostly West Dulwich, Herne Hill, Wandsworth, Clapham, Rotherhithe, Tulse Hill, one from Rotherhithe, one from Kensington and a few who came in from Surrey. So although none as far as I remember from East Dulwich, most were from the surrounding areas.

[Monkey]

So East Dulwich state schools are representative of the socio-demographic make-up of the area? That's the best piece of news in a long time. I hope it stays the same.

[*Bob*]

That's right, Monkey (*uncorks Veuve, twangs braces and phones stockbroker*)

[Otto]

I think newly gentrified ED has lots of people with babies still. We'll see shortly where they end up. My two are also in a Dulwich private school, and, there are a number of classmates from peckham, camberwell, brixton, east dulwich, forest hill, streatham, as well as further afield - greenwich, wandsworth, clapham, etc...

Hot topic...best, otto

[Brendan]

Are the SE22 state schools seen as good or not?

[Shaggy]

It is pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that quite a lot of people in ED could push themselves to pay for private education. It is also pretty obvious that the children of a large proportion of those people have kids who are below prep school age.

It will be interesting to see if in a couple of years time they en masse choose state education over private education. If they do it should be to everyone's benefit.

[*Bob*]

How much does it cost (per year) to educate a child privately?

[trinity]

Local prep schools 10k - 12k, senior schools more.

[Monkey]

Well, a friend who teaches in a private school once told me that her school (?12k a year) is cheap. She looked at me blankly when I laughed...

[*Bob*]

There's a big difference between posing with a Bugaboo and being able to magic-up and extra ?20-?30k/year of disposable income in order to put two kids through private school.

I think many people here overestimate the actual wealth of SE22's recent spate of Dreaded Incomers.

[Muttley]

SE22 parents have the choice of a lot of good quality (and improving) state primary schools, so the vast majority of SE22 parents are happy to send their children to Heber, Goodrich, St John's etc. When it comes to secondary, however, those who want to go to the local private schools are then competing with vast hordes from further afield. Added to this, the number of secondary school places at Alleyns that are open to new entrants is fairly small. This is because Alleyns virtually guarantees that if your child gets into Alleyns at age 4, then unless s/he is a complete bozo s/he will get a place all the way through to A level. And since the 4 year olds don't tend to come from SE22 (because the local state primaries are so good), relatively few SE22-ers get into their local private school.

I wonder if Alleyns has thought about the carbon footprint of all those Wandsworth invaders, when they have so much local talent they could be tapping into. (At a price, of course.)

[jimbo1964]

A couple years ago you could sell your Clapham home, migrate around the South Circular, buy a similar size house and trouser the education fund.

[cdonline]

trinity Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I wonder why - is it because the residents of East

> Dulwich can not afford it, are the local state

> schools as good, is it a decision based on active

> dislike of private education?

>

> I would appreciate your views.

It's an active dislike. A Residents' Committee was convened many years ago on this very subject and the motion almost unanimously agreed.

[alachlan]

Also consider that a school with a good reputation attracts from all over, especially where private transport is available to ferry to/from all over London. I went to an independent near the centre of Birmingham and while there were quite a few people within walking distance, absolutely the majority travelled from all parts of the West Midlands, despite there being private/independent choices a lot closer to home.

[James]

State schools in Southwark are - with a few notable exceptions - pretty dire. My son (who lives with his mum in a nearby borough with equally bad state schools) has just been awarded a scholarship to a private school. He was rejected by all the decent local state schools which took no account of his academic achievement - they awarded places to kids under other criteria like distance from school, music scholarships and siblings being already in the school (in fact he was discriminated against for being bright by a number of these places because they used banding systems - the upper bands were more oversubscribed). We were left with a hopeless sink school and two offers of scholarships from private schools.

So less of the inverted snobbery towards parents who go private, please! I find it especially hypocritical coming from wealthy people who live in big houses but think they're being right-on sending their kids to the local comp (fine if it's a decent one in a posh catchment - we did not have this luxury).

More and more parents are going private to save their kids from failing schools and who can blame them? Thank goodness for great private schools like my son's.

[cdonline]

I've never understand the lack of support State Schools give to bright kids.

There is seemingly no incentive for kids to be in the upper band, unless as a way of lowering your odds against getting into your choice of school.

My Mum decided I was going to go to Haberdashers' whatever happened, although I was turned down initially. You can't help being peeved when several kids from your school got in, with less academic merit.

Seems that not much has changed in the 20 or so years since I was at school.

[alachlan]

Like everything seems to be nowadays, they are interested only in catering for the lowest common denominator at the highest price and lowest effective outcome for everyone concerned.

[James]

So did you go to Haberdashers' in the end cdonline? That was our first choice - our son was in the top band but we received a letter to say he was 84th on the waiting list. We decided not to bother appealing! They don't seem to give a hoot if your kid is bright, hard-working and motivated, he'd be much better off if he had a statement. Which seems a little unfair.