Magdalan College, Oxford - current views

[Montywaite]

Hi there

My son is currently in year 1 at our local catchment school. He's enjoying school life, academically bright, enjoys sport and music both during and outside of school.

We're keen to apply for a place at MCS for secondary schooling but are considering the 7+ entrance too. Does anyone have any thoughts on entrance timing?

I'm hoping someone can shed some first hand experience on MCS? We are considering other independents but, given that we live within close proximity to MCS, it would be most convenient.

Thanks in advance!

Great school for very bright, very psychologically robust boys. Great facilities, lots of music/sport etc. Very high standards.
Ihave friends/colleagues with boys in both prep and senior, my ds1 is at another oxford prep and ds2 will go there too. All the parents of mcs I know are happy with mcs, but they all seem to praise the senior school much more than the junior section. Latter seems to mainly exist to cater for parents for whom having their boy at mcs is THE most important thing, rather than what the school offers etc. Having said that, it is certainly a perfectly good prep. The reason people tend to state for choosing the junior is 'to guarentee a place in the senior school'. I'm not sure I could be sure at age 6 (when selection occurs) if mcs would be right at age 11,13 etc.
Hopefully someone will post who has boys there currently to give better info.
I would certainly send my boys to mcs senior if I thought it would suit. I didn't consider moving ds1 for prep because he is a very sensitive soul who needs a nuturing atmosphere. Not to do with academics!

Thank you so much for your very helpful response.

I'm interested to hear more about whether MCS does in fact leave much to be desired in the nurturing/supportive sense - I've heard this from a number of sources now....

I agree that it's sometimes difficult to make a judgement on whether a six year old child has the resilience and robustness to cope in an environment with little psychological support for children so young. But then, I'm not sure I'd want to send my child to a school that apparently demonstrates little value in that area anyway. I'm sure (hope) others will have experiences that prove MCS junior school to be providing children with necessary individualised, nurturing support at this age?

Thank you again.

Name changed for this. I have a boy in the senior school. The pastoral care and special needs support has been outstanding. My DS has SEN and ASD,. The school have been wonderful with him, and thanks to the support he has received, he is now excelling academically, and has even made a couple of friends. Currently, the school provides two hours of specialist support a week free of charge. Nothing has been too much trouble. All the teachers have really done their best to help DS1 settle and thrive.

It was very different to what I was expecting, which was an excellent education but with little pastoral care. We had avoided the junior school, partly because we were concerned about the hothouse, pushy reputation. But now I think we were wrong to assume this.

Incidentally, we have a DS at New College school, and we are delighted with that too. The boys are very different!

Feel free to pm me if you want to discuss mcs further.