KCS, RGS or Hampton

Thinking about it @Jumpalicious with the new bigger 11+ intake I suspect Year 7 pace will be gentler than mine had as they were both still in the Junior School and gearing up to take the transfer exam. Your DS will not have that looming over him (lucky boy ).

I'm trying to think back to Year 7 as mine are older now. Not a huge amount of socialising in Year 7 I think. Lots of activities after school (sport and drama) and Saturday sport. Friends round n the holidays maybe for gaming etc. I'm thinking more of Year 9 plus for cinema and burger trips - progressing to hanging out on the Common by Year 11 plus.

Both my DS were in the Junior School so got used to quite a bit of homework from early on. some joining in Year 7 might find homework quite time consuming if coming from a school where it hadn't previously been the norm but they soon get the hang of it. There is a lot of homework (IMO) but it feels like the school has reduced it recently. All my 3 are very good at getting on with work and I've never had to be on their case with it (not since the age of about 8).

Oddly enough when we chose KCS for DS1 the fact it offered IB in 6th Form was a big draw. But the time it came to it he went down the A Level route. It was nice to have the choice. DD is doing IB and thriving.

I'm a big fan of Hampton (DH is old boy 😉) but for us location was paramount. The ability to walk to school is great. All my DC have had friends from outside of SW19 and SW20 but there is a strong pull back to Wimbledon when it cones to socialising. The Common is a particular favourite in summer.

@sandybayley that resonates for the girls and I am aware of half a dozen former whs and phs girls who regretted it.

Best thing KCS did was to reintroduce A'Levels alongside IB. DS nearly moved due to IB (as a linguist and Liberal arts bod) but refused because he was so happy there. It turned out OK and oddly the point he dropped was in English having won prize after prize!!

I do recall that DS and his friends enjoyed playing against Hampton and St John's Leatherhead - both having very decent and fair oppositions. The latter putting on a v good tea. They thought Eton were up themselves and I recall a match against Kings, Canterbury being cancelled due to the players' lack of skill (bit awks as I went there for 6th form!), St Pauls' was always a grudge match.

I do recall a few boys who weren't going to make the 13+ cut but who were sporty transferring to Whitgift. For me that has always ranked it but as I say, I am out of date.

If any of you have dd's I cannot speak highly enough of WHS and overall I thought it was slightly better than KCS in the context of pastoral. I know Jane Lunnon has now moved on but she was a truly inspirational head, leader, woman and dd thinks the former deputy who has replaced her aced her!

@sandybayley, thank you, that is actually really helpful. DD, while bright and quietly confident, is really not feisty, so sounds like it may not be a good fit for her.

@11Plus2022 - I have a DD in 6th form at KCS and have one DS who has left and one who is still there.

DD has settled in very well and is very happy and stimulated. I think you do need to be quite a feisty type though. I don't get the impression there are many shrinking violets amongst DD's friends.

She's made friends with a lot of boys but I wonder whether she's settled so well because she's 'known' the school for the 10+ years she's had brothers there.

@Yossahughes, if you don’t mind me asking, how well do the girls integrate into the Sixth Form at KCS? We’re considering it for DD, who is undecided about whether she wants to stay where she is for Sixth Form.

Tbh I’m kind of assuming that any school - whether state, independent, selective or non selective - will have a cohort of alpha sporty boys who rule the roost to some extent. That in itself wouldn’t worry me about Hampton (or RGS, KCS or any of the others) as long as the boys are not ALL alpha sporty types and as long as DS can find some geeky boys to be friends with!

I don’t know any current Hampton parents IRL but I had a couple of PMs on here from current Hampton parents when I expressed concern about uber-sportiness there on the boys’ 11+ thread....both said that their non sporty boys are very happy there. I am sure there are all types at all schools to be fair.

@rosesandhellebores oops! My mistake...totally misread your post! Maybe things have changed over the past few years...I can only speak about KCS though as that’s where DS is...all my knowledge of Hampton is 2nd hand. Perhaps some current Hampton parents can give some views?

@Yossahughes I think you may have misread. IME (albeit 10 years out of date as DS is 26 now) Hampton was the gentler school.

Regarding the culture/demographics of parents I'm probably not the best person to ask because I worked and was never part of the lunching mothers clique. However, I would say there was a middle rump of lawyers/accountants, some exceptionally wealthy folk: bankers, entrepreneurs and/or inherited and families who lived relatively modestly with two working parents and made sacrifices for perhaps two dc or an only child - I would put local Drs in that category. Several families with three or four boys there though and only one working parent.

I remember only a very small minority of single or divorced families although a handful of ds's parents separated as dc reached the older teen years.

Quite a high number of Asian families who were very westernised and many boys with at least one European/US/Antipodean parent.

I think the boys did clock the differences but there was less tolerance of the overtly materialistic, gratuitous shows of wealth than for those who were less privileged. I can't say anyone was less than comfortable bearing in mind the cost of property within a 10 mile radius but most boys were pretty local with just a few coming from Surrey or North of the river.

I'm glad we did it in the early noughties when it was all a bit less intense. I recall a primary parent berating me for not applying to St Paul's and being stunned that my reasoning was that KCS was a short bus ride from the end of our road! We only applied for one school when DS was 7/8! If he hadn't got in we would have had to cast our net more widely.

@rosesandhellebores I would concur with your observation about Hampton - a few KCS parents have boys at both HAmpton and KCS and have said that the sporty alpha boys rule the roost a bit at Hampton (although this view comes from parents who have sent their sporty alpha boys to Hampton and consequently see this as a positive! )

Compared to the parents at some of the local prep schools in and around Esher I find the parents at KCS incredibly normal and down to earth. The boys themselves are also pretty normal and don’t seem to covet designer clothes or expensive things (if anything that sort of stuff is mocked). One thing that has also stood out is that they are a very tolerant and gentlemanly bunch of boys - of course you get the usual cliques that centre around common interests like sport and drama but I have never noticed a social hierarchy so to speak. Everyone let’s everyone be themselves and there is no pressure to conform to a KCS stereotype.

Gosh @jumpalicious I spent 10 years going backwards and forwards round KCS and never recall thinking the buildings were aesthetically pleasing.

On balance I've heard of more quieter/sensitive boys being unhappy at KCS than at Hampton. Had we been closer to Hampton, I suspect we'd have sent DS there. For us KCS was our local school. And very good it was too. I think we didn't particularly benefit because the schools transitioned from the Evans's to new management in DS's third year. I was always very impressed with Gérard Silverlock who I thought was a very fair and nice man who had a great deal of humility about him.

We are still a decade away from having to bring in this position. But I have adult friends from all 3 schools. All went to great unis and are nice, well-balanced people. I really don't think you can make a bad choice here!

Someone on the girls' 11+ thread has put a really useful post on this morning about helping to decide between school choices so have copied / pasted the majority of her text below - @Esher2021 might this be a useful approach for you?

It is so hard when parents and children cannot visit schools properly. We are lucky really that we have a clear preference in Hampton and all the logistical factors help to balance that preference out....but I still have moments of thinking ooh actually would RGS offer a better experience? I think it's natural when you have a choice to agonise over that choice a bit! Does your DS have a preference at all?

For those trying to decide between offers, one of the things I found useful was creating a decision-making table so I could make an objective decision based on all factors, not just academics and reputation. Sometimes I think it’s possible to prefer one school with your head and another school with your heart!

Using Excel, I listed the schools in a column (i.e. equivalent of y-axis) and listed all the most important criteria in a row (i.e. equivalent of x-axis). Then I assigned a score for each of these criteria against the particular school. For some criteria I double-weighted the score to give that issue more magnitude – for instance, journey time. I also gave a school extra marks where they had a special/niche offering that was relevant to my DD, such as tuition in a particular instrument (but it could be a new science building, an onsite swimming pool, or direct access to the river for rowing, etc.).

Everyone will have their own list of essential criteria but the ones I used were: ease of travel, academics, school fees, any niche offering, local friends, size of grounds, ties with boys’ schools, and facilities.

The final ranking for each school in some cases surprised me and helped me re-appraise a school in a more rounded way. In particular I think we can become too overly-focused on league tables as that’s the main (visual) way that schools are compared against each other, when actually things like local friends and travel time will be just as significant in the life of a DC. And for many, it will be affordability as this is likely to impact the whole family.

Thank you @Esher2021 for starting the thread - a great help! We sound like we are in the same boat as you - we have a place at RGS and KCS and are weighing up options. Interested in everyone's thoughts - KCS is leading academically (according to the league tables at least) and there are lots of very positive write-ups from other parents, but I'm very interested in when there was a switch as historically boys from my DS' school went to KCS if they did not get into RGS yet boys now seem to be opting for KCS over RGS.
There is something to me that makes KCS feel a bit more airy and cosmopolitan as opposed to RGS that feels overtly traditional and maybe a little stuffy? Any views on which may be more pastoral? It is very difficult to make a choice when we've hardly been able to visit properly.

@esher2021 I have found the boys schools pull from a much wider geographic spread than the girls schools as there are less boys schools and competition for places at the “top” ones is much fiercer. There were around 10 boys in DS’ year on the school coach from this area but they actually didn’t become his main friendship group...but this hasn’t actually been a problem as they tend to have gatherings at each other’s houses or in Wimbledon and DS has gotten used to jumping on the train to meet up with friends and sometimes they all come here - They do joke that when they come here that they have “come to the country”! Now the girls have arrived they are also from a very wide geographic spread. I don’t it would be any easier at Hampton or Rgs...although I do think that perhaps it’s harder to co-ordinate your social life if you go to Hampton as there is no obvious place for boys to hang out.