Peter Symonds, Winchester- your opinions?

The funny thing about St Anne's now is that its full of Muslims because its the only single sex girls school in Southampton!
And the skirts are as short as they ever were

OP
if you live in southern Hampshire, rub your hands and take your pick
the more I read mumsnet the more smug I feel about where I happened to come to uni nearly 30 years ago!

eatyour the legend of the toilet nun. Before my time I'm afraid, only 1 teaching nun when I was there Sister Mary Oliver. She was 70+ and still teaching RE and she was my year 7 tutor. She used to confiscate our things and make us give money to cafod to get it back and cry if she saw any food thrown in the bin at the end of lunch. Loved her!

Sorry for hijack OP

Whatevertheweather I went from PSC feeder school to St Anne's 6th form - lasted less than one year and transferred to PSC - wish I'd gone there straight from school rather than waste a year with Sisters Jo and Francis Xavier! Sorry to go off track - were you there when they had the toilet nun?

Definitely not saintly My poor mum thought she was giving me a nice convent education

i used to bus home with a few st annes girls..wild times

:-) I used to live in Milton Road - the tales I could have told the parents about what their girls got up to !

St Annes talkin my dm wanted me in an all girls school and we couldn't afford Wykeham House or Portsmouth High!

Whatever - KES?
Just that good friends of mine pay for HCS and they have done the maths and school fees plus travel are cheaper than moving into guaranteed catchments (for one child anyway)

Ah maybe their dc just aren't predicted high enough gcse grades and the 'harder to get in' lore is a cover story

I used to get the train from Fareham to Winchester; I shudder to think how much it must have cost my parents. On top of 5 years train fares to Southampton!!

i think that entrance grades are same everywhere - certainly are where we are looking for dd
you get lots of folklore about how great/hard to get into ps is tbh

If you think about the recent rise in student numbers - 1600 last year; 1900 this year - the catchment is larger, if anything. Stagecoach's general crapness is the main barrier to further expansion.

No geographical catchment - students come from as far away as the other side of the forest and north of Basingstoke. Entrance requirements are to ensure that students have a fighting chance of success in A levels, tho there are a lot more English resits this year, I think.

Hmm it was anecdotal from parents I know with teen children who live near me in Fareham saying it was becoming harder to get in from our area.

My DD's are only 5 and 9 weeks so I've got a while before I have to worry about college

i didn't think it was any more selective than the other colleges weather

Whatever
PSC has no catchment.
It has to cover all the areas without other sixth forms - as do all the other colleges
but they are UTTERLY strict about the 5 A-C
hence the mass re-mark that is currently underway

Oh and I went there from a state secondary in southampton and was the only 1 of about 5 from my school. Quickly made friends no cliquey Winchester schools problem at all

I went to PSC from 97-99 so a scarily long time ago but I loved it! I took 3 science based a-levels pus English Lit and went on to do biomedical science at Cardiff Uni. I also had offers from Durham and Exeter. My tutor was excellent as helping me with applications and interviews.

I have heard that it is getting more selective on entrance now outside of the key Winchester secondaries so good gcse's a must.

I have also found that it is an excellent college for contacts post uni in terms of finding a job.

The two coffee bars are pretty impressive, tis true.

friend of mine (whose daughter went last night) commented on how good the coffee was at PSC!!

Lower 6 this year is 1900 students, and any cliques rapidly dissolve. DCs make friends from other schools very quickly. There is certainly no domination by ex indies, as suggested above.

Students are guided to apply for unis that reflect their likely outcomes at A2, but there is a Russell Group obsession about the place that matches that often found in private schools. Students don't tend to drop out because PSC is particularly pushy, but more because their GCSE grades show that they were a bit touch and go for A levels anyway. Probably would have struggled anywhere, tbh. There is heaps of extra support, but the students have to be prepared to access it. Students leaving after AS are those who haven't managed to pass enough to put together a viable A2 programme - and if you haven't passed AS, you're very unlikely to pass A2 unless there are very extenuating circumstances.

Open Evening tonight: why not go?

Litten
HCS has year groups of around 60
KES has year groups of around 75
PS and BP have year groups of around 1500
Once the tidal wave of Mb, Th, RS, Wg, KS etc etc hit them they get diluted!
And actually so many kids are at the comps so their parents get better holidays that it seems to even out.
(friends of mine are teachers at PS - they have seen it!)

It is true that there are a proportion of children who live locally and have been privately educated to age 16 and then opt to go to PSC. However the huge proportion come from local state secondaries.

I can obviously only speak from personal experience (my own and ds) but if you have an academic child with aspirations to go to a top tier university then PSC really is outstanding.

i'd say litten tree that half and half went to both bp and ps at my dcs state secondary

i'm with the bp crowd
ps has a fair few drop out due to high pressure - i don't believe there is that much difference in results between the two
go for what suits your child - we are v lucky here i agree
ps def has the winchester 'snob' value but if that's what you want go for it