Winchester schools - state & private, help relocation with little notice

[cranbury]

DH has a new position within his company so we need to move from a London suburb to the area around winchester. We don't need to commute by train, would prefer to live in the country but worried about schools - meant to be good but we havent got a clue. Got the good schools guide - so read about Pilgrims, Twyford and St Swithuns but understand the state schools are good too. We have a boy and a girl. Any advice would be good on primary but also secondary schools that are good to go onto.

I moved to near Winchester -though DCs aren't actually at any of these named schools, however, you might say because this area is exceedingly and excruciating 'middle class' though I wouldn't necessarily call it dull.

As with all things I guess it depends what floats your boat!

ampere - can I ask how your DD's are going at school, if it's one that's not mentioned. Would you recommend any particular areas.

Some ideas for village locations - anymore on this?
(just interested as a londoner looking to move out of london - mainly for my boys lifestyle and education)

what do you think of various sporting activitis in the area?

I have to say that this thread has really put us off moving.

Why so cranbury?
We shouldn't be putting you off-there are great choices in Winchester/around Winchester.

Yeah, why so cranbury?

Nothing offputting has been said. The only thing offputting I can see is that nobody has suggested you go for the top private schools you've mentioned. Were you looking for people to support your view?

No, I am near lots of great state primary schools which is why we moved here but at the moment the cathchment areas have shrunk to yards, so telling me about great state schools doesn't fill me with confidence. May well stay put and DH will just have to commute.

"Telling me about great state schools doesn't fill me with confidence"

Eh?????!!!!???

Because you move - if you can a house in the catchment area of school and then find the catchment area has shrunk and you are sent off to the local sink school

Cranbury - ignore them all and do what you feel like - many people on mumsnet are really anti private schools

Cranbury- you appear to have the cash to go 'top-flight' private if you speak of St Swithun's, for example- which, being private, obviously doesn't have a catchment area, so why stress about the potential 'sink' state schools?.

The Winchester school catchments don't whiz around the map on a yearly basis, I can assure you. If you make your mind up to move and they get on with it, you can approach the catchment thing with a large degree of certainty, particularly if you choose your area well so that any border changes might mean the difference between say Kings and Westgate. And note, there is no such thing as a 'sink school' in Winchester.

Ferncottage- sadly the state/private thing has had its waters severely muddied on MN over the years, partly through some rabid anti-private sentiments expressed and partly from the snobbery and ignorance displayed by some private choosing parents towards the state sector. You don't have to look far to witness both.

Ozzieinlondon- we're in Chandlers Ford. My DSs attend Knightwood primary and will go on to Thornden. Check their OFSTEDs for info re their academia but I am completely unashamed to say we moved (only 2 miles!) to get into Thornden's catchment because it seems to do well by all its DCs. DS2 isn't particularly academic and my fear for him was that, in a more average comp, he might end up in the C or D streams along with other less academic DCs who also should be there but also with cleverer DCs from neglectful backgrounds who SHOULD be in A or B but can't be arsed thus spend their classroom time disrupting the education of the less able DCs there.

Thornden a) has a very 'middle-class' valued intake... note I haven't said 'middle class' as my point is that the parents who move to get into catchment by and large are very committed and supportive of their DC's education and school. You can buy a 3 bedroom 3 storey townhouse here for £235k, so hardly London prices!; and b) the school appears to tolerate no mucking about. I believe ill-discipline in class is the root cause of much academic failure.

Hope that helps.

Huh! Stanmore was an excellent school when I was there in the 70s. And St Faiths was so poor it nearly got shut down. Don't assume that a middle class catchment area is an indicator of a good education.

That said, I have no idea which schools are top of the tables now. Just hated seeing my excellent primary slated.

St Swithuns is a good school. And me and many of my peers went on to PSC, which is great and does have a good reputation. I'd love to move back there, middle class boredom or not, but I don't have any opinion on the state schools there. Personally, I wouldn't send ds to Winchester, I think there are more rounded schools you can send your children to - and I do also feel the same way about St Swithuns - it was a bit of an academic hothouse when I was there (clearly I slipped through the net..)

Pennies when were you there?

St Faiths seen as very traditional and doesn't always get great ofsted reports, but parents like it. Catchment areas have been a bit odd over the last couple of years as there has been a lot of in-fill house building. I know lots of people who thought they were in catchment for a particular school a couple of years ago and then didn't get in. Less of an issue in the villages.

dumbledoresgirl There's no doubt about it that schools do change but I do feel Winchester is a classic example of the way things are in education now: When we were DCS (I started primary in 1966!) everyone went to their local school, end of. Areas were perhaps more mixed, there was far less 'polarity' in most areas than you will find now. The village I grew up in in Wilts was classic working/lower middle class with a couple of wealthier families thrown in. We ALL went to the local primary,thence either the grammars or a secondary modern- again, end of.

Now our DCs and their futures have become the very centre of our beings, micromanaged to the nth degree in every aspect of their lives, inevitable, parents are exercising their -ahem- choice often by moving into desirable catchments or engineering their DCs place in a 'better' school. THUS that local primary finally closed through lack of local DCs as a) most ordinary families have been priced out of the village and b) the DCs still there are driven 12 miles to preps in the next city that 'guarantee' grammar school entry.

As an inevitable result, one is almost forced to also act because, say, one's nice little local primary which has to date reflected the local populace gets 'asset stripped' by the thrusting, 'Beacon' Juniors in the next village, thus you either do the same or perhaps find your DCs are now in a school with a lower 'average' than before as the 'top' tier, either/or academically or socially or wealthy, has gone!

In this way one ends up in a ludicrous situation where as has happened not far from here, many of the local DCs with more 'ambitious' parents are now bussed to Winchester as their erstwhile excellent local secondary is perceived to have gone downhill as it continues to fill with DCs from what is considered to be a less desirable demographic as they are bussed away from their failing/special measures secondaries, 6 or 7 miles away.

BEFORE I am flamed for that last paragraph, I wish to state that this is fact. I neither created nor necessarily condone what is evidently happening, merely record it as a demonstration as to why you can get 'poorer' schools in wealthier areas.

We asked for choice and, where we were able to exercise it the inevitable happened to those unable to exercise it.

Well I think Winchester has got to be the best place to live in Britain. What other part of the country can 10,000+ people stand in the precint on bonfire night all holding live torches without it descending into chaos, violence or youths being stupid?

Would love to live back there but it is just too expensive.

There are a few, and only a few, pockets of chavviness but overall the state primaries are good and all the teenagers seem really nice with good manners. I've never seen many girls who weren't dressed decently and it is the one environment where you can't easily spot the private school kids.

[waves at Ampere down the road]

This is true: it's a classic situation here of everyone moving round and round in circles trying to escape from the dcs from the less desirable areas. If any of their parents do try to exercise an attempt at social mobility, ie sending their dc to a better school, all the people one rung up throw up their hands in horror, think the place is going downhill and move their kids on.

Class - I just don't think you're ever going to beat it.

[whoops, I thought I was on the social mobility thread and started droning on about class.]

You're braver than me, gramercy !

I really do have to LOL though at the concept of there being "less nice areas" in Winchester. Yes, obviously, there are council estates (good ol Stanmore! ) and poorer folk living in smaller houses, but put it into perspective please! Winchester easily makes it into the top ten affluent towns in the country every single time.

I would give my eye teeth to be able to return to the city of my childhood. I cannot think of an area I would not want to live in. And, although I don't know for sure how each school is performing, I would bet my bottom dollar they were on average performing better than many other schools.

That said, sure, yes, I have done the middle class thing and chosen where we are living now based partially on the local secondary school. I didn't sweat over the primary though. My two youngest are there now - it is not great - and certainly not the best in the town, but it is ok and they will fly when they get to secondary, I know.

Re: the carol services - the pushy 50 and 60-somethings were camped out on their folding chairs with flasks hours before the Christmas carol concert in the Cathedral. It was about -50 degrees. I'm sure you could've chipped the ice off them by the time they were let in the door.

I remember sitting on the bottom of stone plinths or even directly on the stone floor - for hours at a time as you had to be there about 3 hours before it started to even get into the building. Happy days!

One of my best memories ever is of singing in the PSC choir when they had their annual carol concert in the cathedral...

I really want to echo Dumbledoresgirl's points. Winchester is not London: if you don't get into the this-year's-favourite- Outstanding primary - you go to the good one in the next area. There are no sink schools in Winchester, (Ofsted satisfactory is as low as it gets here, and even they do well by their intake) and catchments do not shrink in that London-ish way.

If you hear parents referring to them as such, IME they are people who have (a) moved from London and are still in that mentality and who (b) have not even visited the school in question. To give you an idea, my DD's school is OFSTED Good - but everyone in catchment who wanted a place this year, got one, as did most of the out of catchment siblings.

We also have a lot of small schools and parents who can't read statistics. Have you seen how badly a school's SATS can read when two or three children have a SEN in a year group of 15? and how good a school looks when those same children are in a year group of 60? Hmmmmm.

I have heard parents slagging off schools that have perfectly good inspection reports, and which serve their mixed communities. My DD goes to one, and DS will follow her in 2011. I teach at one of the independent schools mentioned and quite frankly would rather our family income went elsewhere.

Hampshire schools generally perform above the national average; Winchester's schools particularly so. What are you scared of, Cranbury? Children with SEN? All accommodated well in our schools. Children for whom English is not their first language? Hardly any. Children entitled to free school meals? Why?

Of course, if your real prejudice is that you would just feel rather uneasy with your DC attending the same school as children from families who do not own their own home - regardless of whether the school is independent or state - then just say so, and we'll stop trying to come up with genuine reasons to visit our schools that you can then find a spurious reason to reject. I am afraid that I won't encourage you towards the preps that you mentioned because I don't think that they are worth the huge sacrifice in family income that attending them entails. Fundamentally, there are very few educational reasons for going inde in Winchesters, and IME a lot of guff is cited to cover what amounts to little more than a desire to ensure a completely middle class cocooned upbringing.

Fireworks now happen in North Walls rec, as the Arbor just wasn't big enough any more. But the lantern procession still passes off happily!

Never made it yet to a packed carol service as have to go to crappy old London for Crimbo.

But the ice rink and Christmas market at the Cathedral are truly special.