The idea that Kingsdale doesn't need to change its intake too much fails to take into account how skewed the intake was in the first place ie. it had scarcely any middle class pupils. The school's results will change dramatically over the next couple of years because the intake has changed. This is not to say that the teaching is incidental, just to acknowledge that some inner city schools will never improve substantially without a change in their socio economic mix. Kingsdale will do much better than Forest Hill and Sydenham within the next couple of years because - in years 7 and 8 in particular - it already has more middle class children as well as children of parents who believe strongly in the value of education regardless of their class or ethnic backgrounds. Sydenham and Forest Hill are not sufficiently mixed to be reasonably classed as comprehensive, at least not for those of us who remember the original comprehensive ideal. We can have a long debate about why that is - the continuing existence of grammars and independents, league tables leading to selection by postcode etc etc. I recently heard about a parent who was hot under the collar about Kingsdale 'stealing away' bright kids who would otherwise go to Charter but she herself had only got her daughter into that school because she could afford a ?500,000 house near the school. She felt cheated.

The fact that Kingsdale has opened a selective sixth form offering the IB is also attracting those of who are disenchanted with A levels and would like our kids to do more interesting and challenging exams, ones which encourage them to become thoughtful human beings - we could do with a few more of those.