Abingdon...current views?

[EachPeachPearRum]

Does anyone have any current views on Ab Prep and the senior school? Both seem to have had new heads recently.

Anyone?

Not much help, as we are 4 years out of AB Prep. We loved it there though. Perfect fit for our bright, keen (but not brilliant) sporty boy.
Had a relaxed atmosphere. Hope someone comes along with more recent views for you.

DS1 has recently joined Abingdon senior school. We are really happy so far. The teaching has been excellent and there are so many opportunities for activities. Like the new Head very much.

They have an extensive website and so far I think it represents the school pretty well. You can see all the weekly mailings without a parent login and it gives you a really good flavour of the day to day school life

Michael Windsor is fine and noiticeably more approachable than his predecessor, who was fine but tended to leave parent interaction to housemasters and tutors. Outstanding extra curricular provision. Check out The Other Half. No other boys schools for miles come close in terms
of diversity of opportunities. Don’t know the prep.

I wonder how the popularity of the prep will be affected by the "auto transfer" to senior school? It will essentially only prep for its own senior school now which I imagine will draw some in but put others off who wanted a chance at other schools.

That is a very good question OP! In general it's quite a stretch to know at age 4,5,7 etc. whether an attached senior department will be the right fit at 13 (or 11). It would be well worth finding out how AP handles things if for whatever reason (finances, employment, geography, emerging poor fit...) the senior school isn't right and how much support you will get for looking elsewhere. Someone else needs to comment on that for AP, as I do not have a clue, but I can say that if I was going through this all again, I'd lean strongly towards a junior/prep that is completely unattached. We got really hacked off with an all-through school elsewhere that consistently did nothing for families who wanted to look elsewhere, and more recently appeared to us to be actively undermining them in the games being played with senior admissions.

@roguedad do you mind saying which school had a similar process that you didn't think worked well? I feel like the upside of APs process is it takes away all thenprep for CE and allows them to get on with teaching what they should be teaching. But I think it could all go wrong if the senior school really isn't the right fit. They are going to have to support those boys appropriately through the process or face some very disgruntled parents. I just wonder how robust that process will be. Perhaps this will mean they tighten up admissions at 7+ to have fewer boys for for whom the senior school isn't appropriate?

I've PM'd you with a long story. Supporting folk who have to go elsewhere for whatever reason is key.