Posted on: January 29th 2016
Prospective parents often ask me which schools our pupils go onto and why we don’t publish lists and tables and other fancy pictorial data that shows off the school.
My first answer is that they go to a range of schools, some of which are amongst the most prestigious and competitive independent day schools in London and others which take in a broader academic range, whilst some parents choose the state selective route or simply the local secondary school; but wherever our pupils get into, they can be sure that we have absolutely given the best advice on which school would suit their child the best.
The second part of the question is also relatively easy to answer; as a non-selective school we take in a broad range of academic abilities and what we pride ourselves on is the value that we add to each individual child… if a school only considers children who can score within the top 5% of the population for maths and English at 4 or 7 years old, then it should, at worst with zero value add, be turning out the top 5% of the population’s results (and possibly printing that in a pie chart…) But what I firmly believe in with Norfolk House is that we take our children at Reception regardless of academic background and we still manage to get a high percentage of them into the schools that only take in the top 5% or even the top 2% in some cases and I would like to think ALL into schools that absolutely suit them. To me all of the above is the real value we add; what we don’t ever want to become is an academic ‘hot house’, slavishly printing results that attract the wrong kind of attention, because we believe firmly that success is a by-product of an exciting, engaging and creative curriculum, which is steeped in ambition and rigour - not simply ‘teaching to tests’ to fit round pegs into square holes. I believe that our parent community respects this immensely and buy firmly into this ethos as well, and this is the type of parent profile we want to continue to have.
Our results at this stage of this year’s process are impressive, with almost every exam sat (Aldenham, Belmont, Channing, City Boys, Frances Holland, Habs Boys, Haileybury, Henrietta Barnett, Highgate, Latymer, Merchant Taylor’s, Northbridge, Queens, South Hampstead, St Albans Boys) resulting in either an interview, a firm offer (state Selective) or in some cases a further Scholarship interview! I hope very much that these convert to offers when the results come out in a couple of weeks, but whatever the outcome, I know our children will get to the school that is right for them and that they have absolutely worked as hard as they can to get to the impressive stage they have already, guided and taught by some of the most dedicated and talented teachers! A truly collaborative effort - well done to all of you!