I’m slightly puzzled by Winchester, and would like some help. It’s one of the schools we are considering for our son. The school has always has a very strong academic reputation. It shares this with a handful of other schools, including St Paul’s, Westminster, KCS Wimbledon, Eton and a few others. There is a lot to like about the school. But am I right in thinking that there has been very little investment in the school over a long period of time? On a tour, I don’t recall being shown the facilities you would expect to see (classrooms, indoor/ outdoor sports facilities, theatres and music schools in particular), only a scruffy school hall and the beautiful ancient buildings. There are no photos of these facilities on the website. The boarding house I saw had a wonderful housemaster, but the boys were crammed into very old fashioned dormitories, and had to do prep in some very cramped commonrooms. Other boarding schools (certainly Eton, Harrow and Radley) offer a shared room in the first and possibly second year, and then your own room thereafter, if not your own room throughout. It does look as if no money has been spent on the school at all for some time.
It’s possible to make a virtue out of a necessity, and say that it’s more fun in a dormitory, or that money can be spent on better projects than flashy new facilities, or that boys are better off without the latest IT, but that doesn’t really wash here. Winchester is producing similar results to other super selective schools, and charges almost identical fees, and shares with some of them a beautiful location, some historic buildings and hundreds of years of scholarship. However they appear to have upped their game as well as their fees considerably, renovating the old Victorian buildings and rebuilding the postwar buildings, and adding world class sports and drama facilities. Unless I’ve missed something, Winchester hasn’t. Is this a case of long term mismanagement, and if so, is the new and Headmaster the right person to make some fairly rapid changes? I really liked the school, but I’m reluctant to spend a heat deal of money on what look to be second rate facilities.
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45 replies
Globaliser · 20/05/2018 23:09
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