the exeter school

[sannaville]

Hi considering this for dd who is in year five. She will obv have to sit an entrance test can anyone tell me what the 10+ test will be like? Is it english and maths test? Also what level of means tested bursary do they offer and are they generally linked to entrance test results? Thanks

St John's in Sidmouth is a good bet too.

Exeter school and Maynard are the two big selective private schools in Exeter. They both require that kids pass an entrance test of some kind. There are usually many more people who apply than they have places for. Neither school needs to give bursaries to attract pupils, and therefore they can afford to take the best pupils who apply.
The other, smaller, private schools are Bramdean, St Wilfrids, and Magdalen Court, each of which has their strengths. Bramdean is most similar to Maynard and Exeter, with similar academic ethos - the only difference being that it is non-selective and has only 12-15 children per year group. St Wilfrids is slightly smaller again, with perhaps more of an inner city feel to it. They excel at taking pupils who are struggling at other schools and turning them round and getting them a good set of results - they will do 1-to-1 teaching to help a pupil get through. Magdalen Court is similar size, with a more relaxed atmosphere than the other two - its more like a family - slightly chaotic with a slight 'hippy' feel to it. For those children who like the warm supportive atmosphere it works very well, for those who are looking at the other private schools it perhaps seems the poor relation.
If you compare the fees of each of the schools then you see where they each pitch themselves. There are scholarships available at Exeter and Maynard for those who display aptitude in certain areas. At Bramdean, St Wilfrids and Magdalen Court there are bursaries available to help with fees - these are generally not linked specifically to ability, but depend instead on personal circumstances.
We have been looking at all the schools for our dd who is in year 3. We were trying to look ahead for which school to send her to in year 7 (since most of the state schools in Exeter are not great!). Hence we did the rounds of all the private schools, trying to work out how much we would have to save up for a few year's time. We quickly decided that she would benefit from smaller class sizes and traditional methods of teaching. As it happens, Bramdean offered us a bursary to send her there next year rather than wait for year 7. Having crunched the numbers, the total amount that we would have to pay amounted to only slightly more than we would have paid by sending her in year 7 and paying full price - plus it means that it is spread over more years. So a no-brainer really.

While I agree that the state secondaries in Exeter aren't all great, it's worth noting that both west exe and St. Peter's got better results than Bramdean last year...Bramdean's facilities are excellent though.