Sanction Wood entrance assessment for year 7

[Sweetsong1]

Does anyone know if this is really gruelling?
Our child is bright but anxious - the school seems right for him but not sure if he will 'fall at the first hurdle'.

[SisterViktorine]

As the school is hoping to double in size and currently only has 80 pupils in the senior school I think they will be very keen to take your DS and the assessment will be something of a formailty.

You just need to be really sure the school is viable. It has just been taken over by Minerva, but that is not a guarantee that it will stay open. A school local to me was acquired by a chain, only to be closed a year later because it could not be made to fit their 'business model'.

[Sweetsong1]

Thank you SisterViktorine. It would be a disaster if the school closed after settling DS in. He's still in year 5 (just starting) so we've got a while to see how this school does under new ownership. Does anyone know any more details about this takeover?

[SisterViktorine]

I really don't know anything about accounts, but if you look the school up on Companies House the paperwork does suggest to me that the school has some debt. I suspect the private owners had to sell it to Minerva and Minerva will be looking to make it a viable concern. The question is what happens if they can't.

Do you have any other options where the numbers are bigger? DH is in a Senior position in an Independent school and thinks you need about 300-400 pupils in a mainstream Senior school (and 200 in a Prep) to make it tick and offer a decent breadth of education. Less than this and you end up with the maths teacher teaching history and then PE and then acting as the caretaker after school- Miss Rabbit style- which really affects the quality of the education. I know there are smaller schools than this around, but they will be the first to go to the wall if we have another recession.