King's College, Winchester - in Catchment Area but on Waiting List

[FCBfans]

Hello!! I am new to this list. We are moving to Winchester and we lucky to find a house in the King's catchment area. We currently have two kids for the September intake to Y7 and Y9 and on the waiting list. We applied last week as late applications.

Any suggestions on what we should do to get in? We are moving from abroad and do not quite understand how the application process works.

Thank you and looking forward to being an active member.

Being in the catchment area wont guarantee you a place. If the school has a vacancy in a year group then the place will be offered, if not you will need to appeal. However many school admission authorities wont offer a place until you are resident in the area and even if they do you will need to take up the place quickly. It is too early for September for the older child. The younger child can be on a waiting list to start in Year 7 but again it will depend on the policy on your being resident in the area.

Thanks Mariejo. My husband is already in Winchester and the kids are waiting to finish school here which is why we applied for the September entry date. In the letter, it was stated that the waiting list will be maintained until the 31st of August for Y7 and not clear what will happen to Y9.

I imagine it is a wait and see but should we begin to appeal come September or can something be done meanwhile.

Thank-you

Have you applied also to Westgate and Henry Beaufort, and possibly also Mountbatten and Romsey School in Romsey? Also, though very little hope, Thornden in Chandlers Ford.

If not then you should do so, don't just rely that a space will come up at Kings.

If you end up at any of those schools your child will be going to a good school. I know people with kids at all those schools and they are all happy. (My understanding is Kings streams, very visibly, from the start, which personally I'm not very keen on).

By the way, by not moving your older one down now and applying for y8 place, you run the risk that if any places do come up in that year, someone else will get them. If your elder one gets a place at one of the Winchester schools, your younger will I think move higher up the waiting list due to sibling priority, so that would help too.

Yes, we had three choices and Y7 got into Henry Beaufort since Westgate was also full and for Y9 was only given one school choice as was online application...Thanks for tip, I will begin to enter the other schools for him and see how it goes. It is not a problem if he gets in as school here ends in a 2.5 weeks. Right now he is on Y8 waiting list at King's.

I guess there is nothing much we can do....we are interested in King's because it seems more strict, academic, athletic and will be walking distance from home....final point being most important. If not, we have to rely on the bus system.

Thanks for you message.

If you live up near Kings I can see why you wouldn't want to have to do the walk all the way to the others!

If you can get into one of the Winchester ones I wouldn't bother going out of town, unless you have a really strong reason.

I think there tends to be a bit of shuffling around in y7 for various reasons, so even if your younger started elsewhere you might have a good chance of a space coming up.

Watch out for any of the schools doing a 3-year KS4 for your soon to be y9 (e.g. English, Science), as there may be implications of switching too far in.

Thanks, I will check up on KS4 and keep abreast with developments in Y7. We are clueless about the British educational system and there seems to be a lot to understand.

If you are walking distance from Kings you should stay quite near the top of the list (admissions are by distance pretty strictly)
and its a humungous school so there is regular churn.

If you are near Kings of course you are then set up for Symonds at 6th.

Lucky. And Winchester is a nice place to be.

Info on GCSEs just in case then:

Traditionally they are studied over 2 years, y10 and y11, with various bits of coursework / controlled assessments along the way, plus terminal exams May/June of y11. The years doing GCSEs are termed Key Stage 4.

Some schools do a 3 year KS4, i.e. y9, y10 & y11. This means that they start studying the syllabus early to get it all done. (I believe that HenryB for example may start its set books at some point in y9.)
This also may mean that some GCSE option choices are made in mid y8, rather than mid y9.

To add to the confusion, GCSEs are changing with the current y10s probably being the last doing them completely in the current format, with changes being introduced over the following 2 years or so. The changes mean the grading system is altering, but also fewer controlled assessments with a return to more focus on terminal exams. Also some subjects have major syllabus changes.

However these changes do not yet seem well sorted out (see the thread on the new maths syllabus), so who knows, things may get delayed. I have no idea whether any of this will impact on schools doing a 3yr KS4.

In a way it doesn't matter if you don't understand as there is so much changing that all those parents with children currently in years 6-9 probably don't understand it either, even if they have older kids!
(I'm just hoping it is all sorted by the time my y5 DD gets to GCSEs).

Hah!!! Then I will just not worry too much and figure it out as needed. It will be a treat for my little ones to figure this all out and in English!!!

Yes, our oldest DS got into Peter Symonds both he and us do not understand the system - 3 subjects as opposed to the 7 subjects he is doing now...can it be? He wants to do 5 or even 6 but is being discouraged. And of course the school won't talk to the parents....only to the students...but in his case it is more important that he gets it all sorted out early.

It is a big move for us so we just need to be relaxed about the schools but at the same time to be informed.

Thanks a ton for all the information.

FCB
My DD is at Symonds.
She is doing 5 at lower 6th dropping to 3 at upper 6th plus a thing called an EPQ which has been invented since I attended school

Each subject is 5 hours lesson time plus 5 hours homework per week :
that is why English kids do less subjects!

To understand Symonds, even though your son will already be there, go to the open day in early July as then you can walk around and ask all the questions you want and see the English families looking pretty darned confused too

The British system is far more specialised that others. (Is the FCB Barcelona or Bayern?!)

It is worth thinking about tertiary education. A British degree is normally only three years, yet we have a number of Universities/courses ranked in the top 100 world wide.) Two of your three subjects can be maths and it is perfectly possible to be admitted to places like Imperial or Cambridge essentially having studies only two subjects from the age of 16. 9Though you need to be good!)

You need to be a bit careful because not all Universities will accept a qualification in a native language. You might be able to pursuade a sixth from to let you sit this language as a fourth, or perhaps fifth, subject. (Four subjects rather than three is not that unusual for brighter students and there may be options for doing "half" a subject, eg carrying maths through to AS level.) Before choosing you should look at University course entrance requirements closely. You will be rules out of a number of engineering or economics courses, say, if you dont take maths.

If you are aiming for a European or American University I would strongly recommend you look to see if there are any nearby schools offering International Baccalaureat. This is far broader and closer to European systems and as such probably a better preparation.

Siorry about the number of typos!

Needmoresleep
There is no IB on offer round here any more.
Symonds have kids in from all over : OP's DS will fit in just fine.

Barcelona!!!

DS just completing first year of IB here and will redo Sixth form since a December boy. No IB schools in the area - we checked all schools needed to be checked and at this late date....but no worries!!!

Yes, effectively, we have started to look at requirements for engineering programs in the UK since we cannot afford the US...both my husband and I studied at MIT and we loved it.

He will do the Taster's Day on the first of July....He is very excited also going from a class year of 41 to 1600 students!!!

He will do fine at Peter Symonds and will probably end up doing 5 subjects plus EPQ and drop one in the second year....let's see how it goes.

As for the little boys, our relocation educational consultant (who has not been of much help) says that we should not worry...which makes me worried as I have proven him wrong so many times....

I hope that we can meet up for a cup of coffee sometime....as we know no one except the real estate agents and a nice lady from Barcelona who works at the Bank.

Honestly all the schools in Winchester are good so try not to worry too much.

TiP it was not that Peter Symonds is not good enough. I have been on MN long enough to know it is the poster-school for the state system. However generally there can be issues for students applying to other countries for tertiary education because our system is so narrow. As Op commented. This can be finessed by selecting A levels carefully. It was not a comment on the quality of the school just a suggestion that A level choice needs to be considered carefully in the context of where you want to go next.

Engineering is fine. As long as a child is good at maths, double maths is normally less work than, say, two humanities A levels. If you are doing the double and aiming for the very competitive courses it is worth trying to do four. No real need for five unless one is a native language and thus easier. We are lucky in the UK that there are a lot of well regarded engineering course.

The relocation agent is probably right that the younger ones will be fine. I would keep an eye on the boy in Y9 and if there are problems with core skills (English?) work quickly to get him some remedial help. He does need to be up to speed by the end of Yr 9 so he can start working towards GCSEs from the right starting point.

Barcelona is lovely. But then so is Winchester.

needmoresleep
Symonds is not perfect : I'd be an idiot to say it suits all because they lose about 10% of AS students for other than academic reasons
BUT
because its the 6th form with the largest catchment in the world (its the 6th form for the Falklands and distant Army bases like Belize)
it is better at coping with integration than many
ALSO
Winchester is a town chock full of people on relocation contracts
so again it has learned to be flexible.

The IB was dropped for academic reasons (in a college of 1800 per year, if there was demand, they would meet it)

I have links to UK and US systems : I genuinely prefer the UK

The little ones will need tutors -- they speak English well for Spain!!! since they study in four languages and still in process of differentiating them. The older one speaks perfectly.

Yes, agree flexibility is key these days....Spain has immigration in all its cities and villages and my sister-in-law who teaches in a state secondary school in a small village has 30% of her students who don't speak the language of instruction but they somehow manage....

It is great that Winchester as so many relocation families...it means it is doing well...here we have the whole range (for the good and bad) and the relocation families tend not to integrate preferring to send kids to English, French, German or Swiss schools...

And in terms of education...there are advantages of specializing earlier versus later, etc....but, I believe the good students who get into good universities can do well anywhere...my concern is what about the rest? This is what sets apart a good educational system or school.

We can start a whole new thread on these topics and it has been good for me to benefit from all your insights and advice.

We loved Winchester from the moment we visited and looking forward to living there and using the AGA stove!!!

I'm sure that you and your family will settle in really well. There are young people in all of the mainstream secondaries who do not have English as a first language. Henry B did run extra classes and had specialist help for the youngsters that found the 'technical' language difficult (ie trying to learn physics in English), I'm not sure whether they still do.
Kings' has a significant minority of boys who board who don't have English as a first language. My DD has just left Kings and there were about 7 Spanish boys in her Yr. (The amount of overseas students may be decrease over time as I understand that the boarding house is going to close sometime soon). However my point his that Kings', like the others on Winchester, is used to integrating and working with children who don't speak English as a first language.

It might be useful if you and the boys could come over after your term ends and before our term ends (around 20th July) to have a good look around the 3 secondaries to see what is the best fit for your boys.

Kings has Yr 7 activity taster days at the end of July/Aug - so if you do get a place there your DS may be able to meet some others joining the school.

Teen and Tween and TalkinPeace always have very good advice.
All the very best.
PM me if you would like any more info.

FCB Winchester is lovely for adults and families however just a word of warning, it is rather dull for teenagers with spare time, especially I imagine after living somewhere like Barcelona.

If you need an English tutor I use an excellent girl from Romsey who has tutored my son for his English gcse's.

Heidi Vodka - That is a great idea....we will try to go for the Taster days...

Summerends - Barcelona offers too much for teenagers and many at 14 are already out till 6am.....so looking forward to more wholesome activities in Winchester...although imagine that at some point all teenagers engage in counter-productive activities...

Yes, Eve, would love to have your contact for an English tutor - please PM me... I will also be available to help my kids out...we have started to speak English at home!!!

Finally, any suggestions on where we could get second-hand school uniforms...till we get to school of choice.

Did you hear, Barcelona had a new mayor? An Activist!!! No degree and no job experience.....seems like everyone was looking for a change...

I'm not sure that Kings' does have a second hand uniform shop but you could call Kings' 00 44 1962 861161 and ask. For prices of current uniform - try this link

www.kings-winchester.hants.sch.uk/school-information/uniform

I think that the uniform shop will be closed from 17th July, but again you could confirm this if you call the school. (Office is open from 0830-1630 UK time and this week is half term holiday, so I'm not sure whether there will be anyone answering the phone)

Kings is strict about uniform but you are allowed to buy white shirts, black trousers, white polo shirts from supermarkets or dept stores. I could be wrong -but if you check on the other schools' websites you could confirm whether the black trousers/white shirts are universally accepted in all 3 schools. I know that Westgate have Blazers, not sure about HB- I see lots of pupils in HB sweatshirts.

If the link doesn't work pm me and I'll send you a current price list.

Also so another thought for you Peter Symonds College (Adult and Higher Education dept 00 44 1962 886166) have various ESOL courses for all abilities, including technical terms, might this be be something that you want to explore?

Thanks!!! I just realized that my eldest son did all his subjects in English even Philosophy....so he is all set. The little two are slowly doing more subjects in English and French.

One non-related question...how does one bring a dog over (small daschund). Seems like we can fly with dog anywhere but to London airports...

Thanks for the uniform info...what about books? Are they on loan from the school or does one need to buy them? and if so, is there second-hand books?