Southampton and Hampshire schools

[dumptrucksandcranes]

Hi all. I could really do with some help, please!

We are currently living and working in Southampton. However, we are wanting to move house and, although our DC are little (nursery age, eldest starting school this year), we don't want to move now just to move again in a few years.

So, historically I know that Southampton schools have a bad reputation. I can see from the stats that they generally achieve lower results, though there's not always loads in it (e.g. our local secondary achieves similarly to the Romsey school, Mountbatten isn't far ahead, nor is Henry Beaufort). Westgate, Kings and Thornden perform quite a bit better by the look of it...

However, results are not everything - pastoral care, the arts, sports, general feel are all important. I don't really know much about the schools, nor do I have people to ask. So I was wondering if anyone here could help me.

Obviously, there are other things to consider (e.g. where we want to live, house prices), but if we were to set these things aside for the time being, can anyone give me some advice about the schools?

Thank you for any help :)

I chose The Romsey School for its pastoral care and I wasn't disappointed.

I think any of the 2 Romsey schools or 3 Winchester or Thornden or Toynbee would be fine. Primaries in Romsey all fine mainly too. Great choice of colleges for post y11 too in this area.

Plonk yourself in Romsey and you would currently get into either of the 2 secondary schools here especially if at Romsey Primary which is 'linked' to both. They have (or had when I looked round 7 years ago) very different feels which gives you a choice.

Winchester schools are subject to a pervasive 'positive messaging narrative', born out of historic superiority.

Henry Beaufort outperformed Kings' in the 2022 results, looking at the progress 8 score on the government website. Henry Beauford P8 is 0.31. Kings' is 0.28 and Westgate is 0.59. If you want to dig deeper, look at the 'disadvantaged P8', which will tell you a lot about the school ethos! Schools in London outstrip Hampshire and are better at closing the disadvantage gap.

The best schools are in the most deprived areas. Those teachers have to work even harder. Thank you to every single one of them!