St John's College School vs King's College School

[ceng]

My son has a place to start reception at both schools and I am struggling to make a decision. We have visited both schools and found them both wonderful. I would love to hear from parents or prospective parents about their experiences with both schools and what helped you decide?

Firstly, congratulations on your DC's school offers!

I had a couple of DCs at St John's College School and wrote about the school here: www.mumsnet.com/talk/local/4574285-st-faiths-prep-vs-st-johns-college-schools

To elaborate on what I wrote previously: the school has a lovely environment in the younger years (Byron House) but the academics are ropey when the kids get older (Senior House). I found it very hard to get proper feedback on how my DCs were doing as the school reports are nothing but platitudes and the teachers are reluctant to share concrete, tangible results from assessments. One of my DCs was struggling with a core subject which the teacher concerned only disclosed to me a few months before 13+ exams; when I pushed further, I was finally able to see corroborating progress test results from a year earlier but by then it was too late to do much about it.

The 13+ exam preparation is rubbish. Unless a student is aiming for the likes of Eton or Winchester or the like, the school won't set much expectation nor do much by way of planning and setting targets. Less than two months before my DC's 13+ exams, I had one teacher begin a parent-teacher meeting with the words, "I don't know what this means for the entrance test at senior school XYZ..." I left the meeting asking myself, as a prep school teacher, isn't it the teacher's job to know?

In Year 8 (or, as the school calls it, Form 6), there is an intense burst of activity in the Michaelmas term while the students cram for 13+ exams but, once most entrance exams are over by the end of January, everything just fizzles out. Some of my DC's Google classroom pages were not updated beyond May. The school made a song and dance of introducing Spanish lessons in the latter half of Year 8 (ostensibly to give the students greater choice of MFL at their next school) but this turned out to be nothing more than just some pre-canned webpages that the students scrolled through at their leisure. The school prides itself on its so-called leavers' programme for the Year 8 students which completely replaces pretty much all teaching in the summer term with activities such as paper folding and African drumming. Nothing wrong with these activities in the right quantities, but to spend the whole school day just drumming or folding paper instead of proper classroom lessons?

I appreciate your DC is still young but, if you do want to send your DC to St John's (and the school does have its redeeming features in the form of a warm and nurturing environment for younger kids), I'd seriously recommend moving them out at 11 rather than 13 if you can. In this way, your DC is more likely to get two solid years of teaching and will have more time to settle in at her/his future senior school before GCSEs hit. Given the school doesn't do much by way of preparing for entrance exams, you'd be better off preparing your DC on your own anyway, whether at 11 or 13.

Sorry again for this rather long post but I hope it's useful to you (and other forum users).

Thanks for taking the time to reply, its very insightful! DS got an offer at the Perse and I've been battling over my decision to send him there vs St Johns. One of the main thing that I feel I don't have much visibility about is the academic level at St Johns and your post was incredibly helpful in that respect.

No school is perfect and they'll each have their pros and cons but we do want him to get a strong foundations in the later years and it might be harder to get into the Perse then so we might just go down that route from reception

No problem and glad you found my advice useful. If the Perse is your long-term goal, then I would say go for that from the outset. If, for whatever reason, it doesn’t go as planned at the Perse, you always have the option of moving your DS at say 7+.

Parents whose DCs at St John’s were aiming for the Perse Upper were told that there is no guarantee they would get in. As well as the Perse entrance exams, staff from the two schools speak to each other and St John’s also provide written references. Unfortunately, you as a parent would have no way of knowing what is said or written about your DC. The whole process is quite opaque and your DC would be, to some extent, at the mercy of the headmaster and his wife and whether or not they think your DC is “suitable” for the Perse Upper.

The Perse is very different to St John's, their ethos and approach vary hugely, I'm surprised that you'd be undecided between the two.

The Perse is strongly focused on academics, it isn't hugely flexible to the needs of the individual. Of the Cambridge schools it tends to attract parents who value academics over other things, it's competitive and gets results.

St J's is strongly focused on wellbeing and happiness. The children (particularly in Byron house) learn techniques such as mindfulness and peer to peer massage. The school go out of their way to not be competitive. Previous OP is correct that it can be hard to get actual results from the school as they tend to say 'meetings expectations' but there is a huge range within that. Music and all round provision is excellent, sports somewhat weaker.

Many children do go to The Perse from St J but it isn't a natural feeder as the parents and children are probably looking for other things, and The Perse similarly wants a certain type of child.

Both very good schools, both quite different

@AnyRandomName - I agree totally with your statement that St John's goes "out of their way to not be competitive. Previous OP is correct that it can be hard to get actual results from the school as they tend to say 'meetings expectations' but there is a huge range within that."

The problem with St John's approach is that, in trying to not be competitive, they end up telling parents what they think the parents want to hear and this can lead to learning problems getting brushed under the carpet. From my own experience, I was lulled into a false sense of security from all the positive reporting about my DC. Even when I had the sense that something was not right and raised my concerns with the Head of Individual Needs (i.e. SENCo), I was assured that the school was monitoring the situation. The illusion was quite abruptly shattered when, in the few months before 13+ exams, I discovered DC had some major learning issues which the school had casually glossed over. Once the issues finally came to light, trying to pin teachers down to send me DC's exam scripts was another Herculean task: excuses from teachers ranged from "busy with school trips" to "forgot to click Send on my email".

The lack of transparency is St John's greatest failing and its proclivity to always say "everything is okay" is short-sighted and misguided. Surely it is possible to have a nurturing school which, at the same time, is honest and transparent when communicating student progress to parents. When the school fails to do so, it is ultimately the student who suffers because learning problems are left untreated and go on to impact later performance in senior school.

@ceng Thanks for starting this thread as my DC is in a similar situation.

Does anyone have experience with King's College school? We are between St John s and King's since our DC performs better in a naturing environment.

Honestly, they're both decent schools with similar intake, facilities and attainment. Your child will likely do just as well and be just as happy at either. St J perhaps a bit more softly softly nurturing, perhaps to their detriment, depending on your view.

Go with your gut.

Thank you very much for the answer! Honestly that is what I thought in the first place but now we have to decide.

Well, I can probably complete the triangulation for you, as I have recently had DC at Perse and KCS. Don't know anything about SJCS.

This might turn into a bit of a rant. The synopsis: I suspect that if you join KCS in the younger age ranges it does a good job of nurturing and educating all through. For older children I'm not so sure and I do think the Perse is much better if you have a 'geeky' / non NT child.

Longer story....KCS has a reputation for combining caring / nurturing with good academics. My DC joined in yr 7 - I'm not satisfied that the caring piece really holds up in 'senior' school (yr 7 & 8). We had a big learning deficit to catch up from DC's earlier schooling and it became a strain.

What I didn't pick up on in advance: the workload at KCS is quite significant, even without the learning deficit; think school day (for senior school) that starts at 8.30, ends at 4.30 (unless there is a club, when it's 5.30) and then asks for another hour of homework. My other DC, at the Perse, definitely got less homework and was quite shocked by their siblings' workload.

There were mixed messages about a number of things (ie I would be told a thing wasn't needed and then DC would be - gently - taken to task if that thing hadn't been done / taken to school). And I generally felt that the school's organisation, compared to the Perse, was a bit sub par.

We could have taken this in our stride but DC turns out to be non NT so the workload and mixed messages tended to drive already high anxiety levels. While the staff would make nice noises about trying to manage this the school's systems weren't helping them so DC remained pretty stressed throughout.

On the plus side, DC has caught up from being probably a year behind when they arrived to academic scholarship offers from two out of the three indies they applied to, so the teaching is getting results. They are now going to join their sibling at the Perse, where I know the staff take enormous pains to genuinely adapt what they are doing for non NT children....so I'm hoping things will improve from now.

@gizmo Great to hear about your DC's scholarship offers!

I can give some feedback on neuro-diverse children at SJCS. The headmaster himself said that they find it much easier to manage if a student arrives with a diagnosis and a list of recommended adaptations. Without a pre-existing diagnosis, the school is much weaker at picking up learning difficulties. This is especially problematic with quieter and more introverted students who may be struggling but get overlooked because they're otherwise easy to manage and don't cause any trouble.

This was definitely my eldest DC's experience; when I raised concerns around executive functioning with the Head of Individual Needs at the time, I was dissuaded from getting my DC tested on the grounds that the school had the necessary expertise in-house. Of course, this turned out not to have been the case at all and I ended up getting my DC tested a couple of years later and found that there were indeed underlying issues. To make matters worse, the school took copies of DC's psychologist reports and promised that they would look after arrangements for extra time in 13+ exams. When the time came, however, one of the indie senior schools told me that they had agreed with SJCS that DC didn't qualify for extra time. It took a lot of my own time poring over the relevant JCQ regulations plus back-and-forth with the senior school to finally get the extra time my DC needed but, through all of this, SJCS did absolutely nothing to help.

They've had a few changes in the Head of Individual Needs position so I hope things are better now. Unfortunately, I found the school and its teachers to be rather good at closing ranks when faced with an uncomfortable situation.

Can I check what NT is and what indies are? I am guessing indies are independent schools for secondary- boarding or non boarding? Thank you!

Hello! Yes, 'indies' as you say, independent schools. Non NT is non neurotypical aka neuro diverse, aka autism/ ADHD / dyslexia etc etc

Just to finish the story DC is now a year in at the Perse and as I hoped is a different child, much more relaxed / lower stress and hoovering up the workload very happily. I'm just delighted for them.