DEVON PRIVATE SCHOOLS. Shebbear, West Buckland or Kelly?

[manorhope]

If you are moving to the North or West Devon area and considering an independent education for your children, or indeed a rural boarding school, there are three interesting choices in the area, all of which we have visited and sampled.

1. West Buckland School. Good facilities and results, but we found the place quite harsh, unfriendly and bleak. The children were smart, but rather distant, looking tired and a bit low in spirits.
2. Kelly College. Majestic buildings on the edge of lovely Tavistock. A feel that the place had seen better days and maybe struggling to maintain numbers. Children looked fairly happy, but a tad untidy. Moderate results, but in all lacking in sparkle.

3.Shebbear College. Out in the sticks, but a real sense that this place is the rising star. Children looked smart, confident and very happy, showing that extra polish you tend to find in more famous establishments. Good results and lovely peaceful campus. Out of the three we thought Shebbear College emerged as comfortably the best school at the present time. We chose it and so far its been fantastic. Further afield is of course Blundell's, which we thought was great, but too far for us. Finally, there's a place in Bideford called Kingsley. Not wanting to be unpleasant, but I really wouldn't bother. Just a few experiences, which I hope may be of interest.

Anne - the grammars do not select the brightest and best from the entire 94% of kids who go to state school. They select the ones who enter the test in the areas where there are grammars. That's a completely different thing. Some people choose not to even give it a punt. Some people live in areas with no grammar schools. Some areas have more private schools than others (and thus a higher percentage going to those schools) and so on. And in some areas, admission to grammar school is determined by access to tutoring.

We moved to Devon as a lifestyle choice. I couldn't abide the daft competitive parenting that came with the territory where we lived and wanted our kids to grow up in a less materialistic, shallow environment.

We love it here but the only thing that let ds1 down was the local state school. There were some excellent teachers who had absolutely no support from their ineffectual and weak head.

There were also some racist incidents against a teacher and disruption in lessons that had no consequence so we found the best alternative and it suits us well.

To be honest, I'm not that fussed about this hangup on Oxbridge entrances that seems to be prolific on this thread.

I want my kids to reach their individual potentials, believe in themselves, be good people and equipped to make their own choices. I believe our choice in school matches our values.

Seagull, I think your accusations of snobbery are a bit naive and unfounded. Lots of parents of indie school kids are not all full of petty bourgeois nonsense like Manorhope. Most of us are pretty normal!

Sorry, reading that back I sound like a right pompous arse!

To rephrase... We found a school.. It suited us ...and being rude about other schools is not cool.

Just out of interest, why does education in the West Country seem to have such a powerful fascination? Only London seems to inspire a comparable number of posters...

My suspicions from listening to friends with kids in the sector is that some of the private schools are struggling due parents struggling to pay fees,the excellent grammars and a good number of good comps.Parents with kids in private schools like to come on and push the private agenda to help the sector and often their school.

I suspect most of us posters are blow ins.

We expect to have it all, the beaches, the house with room for a pony, the lifestyle and the first rate education.

Living the dream but full of insecurities that we have made the right choice for our families.

People cannot afford the fees Seagulls And Sand. It has nothing to do with good state schools. Anyone else would acknowledge that and if you do not you are just being disengenuous and trying to kid everyone.

The schools in Devon and Cornwall are poor at best dire at worst ( can rival any in the country for being hell holes). Choices are generally limited because comprehensives are still largely catchemnt controlled and catchments have been manipulated such that there are no decent local schools. They are all large and have multiple issues as DavidBrainsSuit suggested. Wages are poor and so many do not have the option of private. I am fortunate. I can make a choice - although for me that choice involves travel. I have discarded Kelly which would be closer and Exeter is on the edge of my travel to school area. My reasons I would rather better not say

I am a "local" who left and returned. I know the score. I know the schools, then and now. Nothing has gotten better.

Please try not to treat me or others like a bumkin with your bold statements. Your view is clearly not shared by the rest of us is it?.

Funny we have 2 good Oxbridge sending comps to choose from in our local area alone.

Also got an Outstanding one half an hour away people do get into and 3 Outstanding grammars if that floats your boat.

I can name several non selective state schools in Devon that are certainly not 'poor'. They probably are tightly catchmented though, I'll grant you that.

SeagullsAndSand, if there were a school like you describe within 20 miles of us, our DCs would be there.

We are in the catchment for two comprehensives, one rated Outstanding, the other not long out of Special Measures. Both send their brightest students to top universities each year and are rightly proud of their successes. Their weakness IMHO is a willingness to define success for the general population as filling local jobs, not to prepare students for a worldlier environment.

This being a rural catchment between Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor, schools have to cater for everyone who doesn't go private or to the grammar school. That means the children of the local professionals AND the offspring of the C2DEs, with a sprinkling of travellers and a growing population of east European families. Unemployment and under-unemployment are high, wages low and housing is often inadequate and unaffordable. Far more than most people might think, this is a deprived area -- but it's not violent or full of knife crime. There's pilfering but bullying is fairly uncommon (possibly not true on the buses to and from school) and there is a serious drug problem.

Sensible kids keep their heads down and opt for the academic subjects the more disruptive tend to avoid. Yes, I wish DC's school were more ambitious for its able students and I'd like to see stronger emphasis on quality extra-curricular activities. There's no DoE scheme for example, but there's no shortage of good applicants for the teaching jobs that come up. It's just that once they have the job, many teachers are happy to stay to retirement because the quality of life here is good. They aren't well-to-do, until the salary is compared to minimum wage or what can be earned in the packing department of the local bakery. I'm not sure what can be done to raise educational aspirations across the board... but a homework timetable, rigorously adhered to, would be a good start!

No not tightly catchmented and not an expensive area just a normal big town with a variety of housing ranging from social to your more pricier pile further out.Our primary school is rated as Good as is every other primary in the local vicinity,there are two Outstanding primaries nearby too.

As I said a Devon is a big place.To write off the entire state provision is utterly wrong.

You could always move but I'm guessing you'd have to give up the sea view and pile with room for a pony.

And no we weren't all blown in thanks.

Seagulls, we're not blow ins, nor are we snobs, and no ponies at all. We have outstanding schools doing a good job with limited resources but with a ceiling on aspirations too. Around here, there are no big towns, only a small city with a hidebound council. We have a tiny business enterprise - less than 5 people all up - it would just be nice to believe the local school had higher aspirations for its mid range students than nail technician or fencing contractor!

Sorry Seagull, I was being facetious based on some of the comments on this and the Mount House thread...

We have room to swing five cats but not a pony.

David - this thread seems to have had a few troll-like interventions from a start of a rather bizarre advertorial for Shebbear.

You have my sympathies if, like us, you live in an area with unacceptably poor state school provision and perhaps only average, but relatively expensive, privates as the alternative.

The thing is, this thread does bring together a few people who have had the same experience.

Unfortunately it has also brought in some others, with personal and/ or paid agendas, who would rather insult you and accuse you of lies than share anything true or useful.

The fact is, your DCs will probably have a better chance in the private sector if your local state provision is poor. That's for you to judge, and at the same time to ignore the smug comments from those lucky enough to have good state provision in their areas.

I think it's also got to be coloured by what your DCs are like and how much you'd like them to have to get tough through school, frankly. A few kids will bubble up almost no-matter what environment they're placed in. Unfortunately, most will just sink (sink schools so-named for a reason).

Now as a parent rather than an educationalists/ liar, you know you have only a certain amount of time to get the DCs into the right place.

You can stuff up, especially in junior school, with a bit of trauma but without doing irreparable damage to the DCs.

However, you've got to figure them and the local options out by year 8 or so.

Sounds to me you're there already. Good luck with your chosen route.

I'd say the troll-like intervention was the one which dragged in a state school 6o+ miles away from the schools named in the thread title, to be honest...

Particularly since its purpose appears to have been to damn that particular school with faint praise in a shameless attempt to promote Exeter School, also not mentioned in the thread title...

Thanks, again, trolls, for the tenth+ Time you've accused me of lying and leapt to plug a school I have only praised. Your hypo racy seems without limit.

As you can tell from what I have written in response, in particular, to the dripping sarcasm and clear agenda within Molio's posts, I am:

A parent

Very interested in Devon secondary schools' performance

Too distant from Exeter and Colytpn for my own kids to go there

Stranded with poor local state provision

Annoyed at having to fork out private school fees, because I would take it if there were a decent (not even stellar) state alternative

Fascinated by the system in south devon, with grammars and then, in some areas (not all) some real black-spots for the ordinary pupils.

I went to a comp, Molio's, and I've been patronised through my life by people a lot less shallow than yourself.

Get off with calling me a liar.

Try saying something straightforward, and true this time, about precisely why you have such intimate knowledge of Colyton's last six+ years of leaver destinations as well as the current issues you mentioned regarding tutors.

As for Exeter School. I know some kids there who are thriving, and from the website it looks like a much better school than the one to which I have to write cheques every term.

You need to stop sneering and undermining the private sector, as if 'a a class thing. It's not.

What's more, since I'm forking out so much money for my kids' schooling because the state sector here is so poor, neglected and mis-managed, then why aren't people like YOU doing something to fix the state schools rather than just working with a grammar and allowing many of the rest to just fester

I still think Colytpn is a great school. From what I see, Exeter and The Maynard are too. I have nothing but respect for those schools doing what they do for their kids. I have nothing but disdain for the management of our local state educational system and the people like you who make it some dammed poor for the vast majority of kids in Devon.

Anne I know about university admissions and therefore quite a bit about various schools performances, particularly those applying overwhelmingly to RG universities. Ask anyone who analyses these things and the trends in these things. That's the same reason that I know that Exeter only had one Oxbridge success a couple of years back. I could answer questions about a number of other schools, across a wide swathe of the country, but that doesn't mean that I have children at each of those schools. My posts throughout my posting history are internally consistent, as one would expect from someone who offers advice with no 'agenda' - other than to occasionally correct or quibble with myths, which can do real harm to aspirational university applicants. Your post that grammars/ Colyton are discriminated against by RG unis is nonsense, and was worth correcting.

I'm afraid I found it puzzling that you took time out to say how lovely it was that Exeter 'seems to treat pupils as individuals, not statistics', and very odd indeed that you hoped I really had liked what the school had written on it's website about some completely unknown child. Both things are significantly more odd if you have no direct connection to the school. But it's none of my business, just an inconsequential observation.

Anyhow, your confrontations are distracting from the main point, which was to counter your ill-informed suggestion that there is prejudice against grammars in uni admissions.

You have disagreed with my thesis/ concern that grammar school pupils, unless they are in the top group at the school, suffer discrimination. Repeatedly disagreed. Noted. Repeatedly.

The only evidence you give to support your repeated, definitive assertions, is that the grade adjustment applied to them by uni admissions system is, you say modest and irrelevant. Ie, the only thing of substance you have raised would contradict what you're saying, or have no effect.

I have no axe to grind about Colyton.

I am completely tired with your pompous refusal to consider this question as a serious and legitimate one. I am bored that you keep slinging at Exeter. I am amused that you still refuse to give a reasonable account of what you do and your (visible) vested interest.

Molio - enough. Feel free to post again on this topic and maybe accuse me of lying or just being stupid, again. But I'm done replying to your tedious and insidious bull.

But Anne, I disagree with your 'thesis' too. As a parent (not any longer connected in any way with university admissions).The destinations lists year on year don't back up your thesis at all, quite the reverse. And I certainly haven't done any 'slinging' at Exeter school - quite the reverse in fact (I am biased though, I know loads of kids there, some staff also).

I still completely fail to understand why you introduced either school into a discussion about private schools impossibly far away. As I said above, you might just as well have drawn comparison with Fettes.

We are in the catchment for two comprehensives, one rated Outstanding

But why are you so sure this is accurate? It seems to me that too often offical reports areat odds with MN, school gate and other sources.

Forexamplemy nearest private school has an excellent ISI report and one from only this year. Its one of only three schools in the whole area to have been rated excellent in teaching and pastoral care ( one of the others being the sainted Exeter School). But according to MN, this school is one to be touched only with a barge pole as one is passing.

I do not criticise or bad mouth any school here,I amjust reporting the facts as they appear on here.

I've told you very precisely what my area of interest is Anne: university admissions. I don't believe it's usual on MN to give names, phone numbers, line managers etc. In fact it's quite cheeky to ask!

As someone involved in outreach for Oxbridge it's distinctly odd that you're 'concerned' that Oxbridge and other top RG unis are discriminated against. The more usual concern at Oxbridge and other top RG unis in terms of access is that the grammars are vastly over represented, which doesn't suggest discrimination. That concern isn't new, by any means. The fact is that the grammars field often excellent applicants so they get a large number of places. The numbers of applicants/ successful applicants and their school type is something monitored and analysed very closely by all universities, and all admissions tutors are likely to be aware of the data. If you're 'concerned' about any particular HE institution and can't easily find the data, then you can make a request. In terms of successful applications it's fair to say that the grammars overall tend to do better than independents overall, though of course success rates at individual schools within each sector varies.

It's even odder that as someone who claims not to have any connection with any grammar school at all, and to live many many miles from the nearest, you have this 'concern', or 'thesis'. It's a puzzle.