St. John's prep & senior school, Ridgeway

[CakeLoving]

If anyone can give me some honest opinions on this school id be so grateful! Our options for our two are very small single sex, good local state, or St John's. St. John's would mean a 40/45 min round trip, but the advantages seem to outweigh the travel...co ed, great results for SATs and GCSEs (although not A levels it seems?).

On the flip side, I've heard some less than positive

Oh Lord, their Latin department section begins by saying "Latin is seen by many as a useless, tiresome, dead language". . It then goes on to explain that even the most "lowly" person's reputation would "soar" if it was discovered they had studied Latin. This is the premise on which they promote the subject. Who writes this stuff?

Wild horses would not drag any of my dc to such a ridiculous place.

We went to see it. It's a very, um, kooky place. Strangely old fashioned prep uniforms (think victorian), odd choices of how to spend money (ie on a huge mansion where students can hang out with a pool- we bumped into the head having his breakfast there), and weird showing off about premiership footballers kids attending.

Not my cup of tea at all.

But many seem to like it. I heard one parent extolling the virtues of the door to door pick up service.

Just realised that my comment about having previously worked there was deleted after the owners of the school threatened me with taking legal action. However it seems if you say something positive about the school and also say you have previously worked there then that is fine.

After I left I contacted Ofsted, local council, healthy schools etc because of what I witnessed there. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

A friend of mine took her son out of the school after she found out the 'curriculum' consisted of the teachers photocopying pages from Bond Books and getting the kids to do them in class.

Trying to PM but having no luck

@OrgyofSausages, I tried to PM you, but having no luck.

Can anyone be more specific about St John’s Senior School ,l be seen the web and l am planning a visit next year for my daughter.

Please can you give more details about it

i have heard a lot about this school, nothing positive, i would say that sending your child to st johns is an incredible waste of money and a terrible idea!! the 'headteachers' are absolutely awful, they let certain kids get away with doing things where other kids wouldn't. they had a lot of negative publicity over the years , with some major news articles even writing about them and their discrimination towards the female students. there is a continual change of teachers, at least 4 or 5 teachers would leave each year. overall would not recommend this school, your money can be spent on a much better school and the majority of grammar schools have better teachers/ resources and grades than st johns. RUN!!!

Having had experience of the school the secondary school seems better than primary. Primary is generally caring but the high staff turnover was a cause for concern. I took my child out after 2 years there.

I think this is to this thread pertinent.....
"Teacher fired from Old Windsor school avoids ban"

www.sloughobserver.co.uk/news/18059099.teacher-fired-old-windsor-school-avoids-ban/

My kids have been in prep schools and when this type of stuff happens, my experience has shown that these schools have all the policies in place however, they are (conveniently for the prep schools) down to interpretation with no INDEPENDENT party deciding on how these events are interpreted.

The prep schools tend to pull ranks as they need to defend their brand and these types of incidents are whitewashed like in this case at St John B.
I can't believe that in the 21st century that this stuff is still happening!

All these type of incidents are down to the "discretion" of the Headmaster if a child meets the criteria for suspension/expulsion.....by "discretion" they mean favouritism or need of the school for the big bucks to keep flowing in.
The only time it is out of the HM hands is if there has been a death or multiple incidents requiring hospital intervention....unbelievable!

So, if you're caught with your pants down.....then hey, it's down to the discretion of the HM/governors.....something along the lines of....you have been a great teacher and a jolly good chap so we'll let you off this time! Outrageous!!!

Discretion should be replaced by FULL independence!......problem is, if it does ever happen, then these prep-schools are history!

Honey123456:
I can totally relate to the preferential treatment of some kids over others. It happens all the time and when it does, they do it so unashamedly.
How do they get away with it?
Because they have you by the gohonas.....parents are in fear of rocking the boat as it just takes 1 word from these schools to deny what you have spent your hard earned money and your life on.....a place at a good senior school.

FYI:
My kids have not been affected by this personally but we have seen lots of strange decisions regarding serious incidents of this type and you cannot keep quiet about it

@Keepyourkidsafe
This is actually a different St John's. The ridgeway one is the very strange and kooky north London one which I personally would avoid like the plague.
I'm really interested in what you've posted though, as SJB is on my shortlist for my 2 boys and I hadn't seen this. Of course stuff like this can happen anywhere but i agree, it's how it is handled and I'm really surprised and quite disappointed that the HM handled it the way he did. Or didn't.....
Do you have any other knowledge of SJB?

My daughter's best friend's brother goes to St John's and the mother is ecstatic about the school He's in Year 8 (has been there since Year 7) and is doing extremely well. From what I understand the school is very strict on behaviour etc, but have not heard bad things about it.

By the way, my daughter and her friend are both at Salcombe, so I can give feedback about it. I must say everyone loves the pre-prep at Salcombe. It's a very lovely nurturing school. At the prep it's very academic with a lot of homework!

Apologies all
I got this mixed up with SJB Legon... correctly picked up.
Nevertheless, my advice would be to seriously scrutinise the independence element in all their safeguarding policies.