Kings Hawford Worcester

[sfjones]

Hi everyone,
I’m thinking about sending my child to Hawford Kings School in Worcester and was wondering if anyone here has experience with it.
Is it a good school in terms of teaching, pastoral care, and overall environment? Any feedback (good or bad) would be really helpful.
Thanks in advance

Overall, it’s a good school, but they do seem to have some serious IT issues. Our children have been attending for several years and there have been many occasions when the network has been down.
Not long ago, they couldn’t run a parents’ evening because the system wasn’t working. Last year I was even phoned to collect my child early due to an appointment, but the phone system itself was down.

We decided to take our children out of Hawford, as they lost two nursery managers within the space of a year, which we found quite concerning and unusual. This, combined with the ongoing IT and communication issues, made us lose confidence in the school’s management. Have a look at RGS Worcester or Malvern college.

We did consider these issues earlier, but our children were already settled by then. Looking back, they are definitely things we would have looked into more closely.
I’ve also spoken to someone at senior level who mentioned similar problems, especially with the network. At one point they couldn’t print forms or log in on the library computers for several months.
This has apparently been going on for as long as they can remember. I mean every term something seems to go wrong. Even the school’s online systems are regularly down. From what we’ve been told, this isn’t a new issue and has reportedly been happening for a good 10–15 years.

It’s a great school very outdoorsy and sporty I have a lot of friends and family who have sent their children there. We chose St Albans instead however as we preferred that it was next to the senior school and therefore in our a case a smoother transition to the senior school. All much of a muchness though to be honest, all of the independent schools in the area are very good. I hope your children enjoy whichever school they end up in.

Thank you for your reply. I am really interested in the school especially the green space they have, but some of the comments have put me off a little especially the fact that they lost two nursery managers within one year ?? The ongoing IT issues are particularly concerning in terms of safeguarding. Parents’ evenings are especially important for us, as my husband works away a lot and we would really value the option to meet teachers online. If systems keep going down and we don’t receive regular updates on our child’s progress, it just adds to the concern. How have you managed with this so far?

As I mentioned ours went to the other Junior school St Albans and then on into senior school, I have one still there and one has finished. Never heard of or had any problems with communication or IT systems. We have had various family (including my husband) attending kings since the 70’s from junior schools to senior and on the whole everyone has been very happy, hence ex pupils sending their own children there.
Good luck with making your choice :)

I am a former student @ KSW and left last year. There were huge IT issues at the school. I often had to do a lot of my work at home because the computers at school weren’t working.
Many times, websites were blocked and we had to do teams meetings at home due issues at school. On several occasions when I arrived at school, the register system was down because of network issues. Mum told me off for missing school. Having said that I loved the school, great teachers and made lots of friends.

It’s more of a recent issue, since last 10-13 years they’ve had major IT networking problems.

After reading the comments, I’m now worried about safeguarding at the school. If the phones are down and something happens, how do they contact parents? Do they have CCTV in place?

My brother is still there and recently had something taken from his bag. We asked about CCTV, but were told that it hasn’t been working since for a long time.

Ours missed a Teams interview, which later had to be rearranged and completed from home.

The school’s IT systems appear to have ongoing, intermittent outages, which seem to occur fairly frequently. We were told this might be related to network or power issues when systems go down, but I can’t confirm how accurate that is. These problems have been happening for several years, which is concerning.

I’m not sure about Hawford, but it certainly appears to be a very nice area with plenty of outdoor space. I’ve also heard that the school has good teachers, and I haven’t heard of staff leaving. It’s probably best to visit and ask questions to get a clear picture

I believe the school has a new headteacher, so things may have changed. However, the apparent IT issues were still occurring as recently as a few weeks ago and affected many people at Hawford, including parents and teachers, causing a lot of upset during the parents’ evening.

I saw in the paper that King’s has published its new fee structure. What do you think are families still more interested in King’s or is RGS ?

RGS is cheaper and has much better IT facilities, so I would recommend that option.From our experience, the IT provision and communication at King’s have been poor.Our Children are regularly unable to work properly in school due to IT issues, including problems with internet access.

I would disagree with the communication with kings. Ten plus years and whenever we have had an issue whatever it may be we email head of house and we get a reply same day and it gets escalated accordingly.
Unaware of any IT issues and we have gone through A levels and GCSE’s and more to come. Remain very happy with the school however all of the schools in the area are great I am sure and our children are very lucky to have that opportunity. Deciding which is a nice position to be in :)