Avoid Kingham Hill School. In my humble opinion Kingham Hill is a farce of a school. Or at least the appearance they put forward for our consideration as doting parents is rather farcical.
Initially I thought my decision to send my child there was a wisely informed and a good choice. Indeed they seemed to be very caring and on the face of it they had pretty decent facilities. But as terms passed and stories were regaled I discovered that quite a lot is rather fake. Open days for instance; parents receive an email saying it is compulsory for all children to attend school for the three Saturday open days that the school has each year as part of its intake marketing. As the school doesn’t operate a 6 day week, unlike many independent schools, kids populate various areas of the school trying to act like Saturday school is quite usual and no big thing. In essence however the children have no idea what they’re doing there or where to go - ‘do we fill the lecture hall of the library sir?’
I gather that Potential buyers, for that read Parents are escorted around by members of the lower 6th. It turns out that the upper 6th, because they will be leaving imminently, proved to be rather too honest in telling potential fee payers exactly what they thought of the school. I gather the disparaging remarks went down rather badly when the teachers found out, unsurprisingly!
On open days the head teachers dress the school up to look rather amazing, much to the consternation and surprise of the students who have been ferried in to look joyful, educated and over the moon that their giving up their weekend to put on a pageant show. ‘Dad, today they put a mannequin in the theology classroom dressed in traditional Jewish clothing!’ They also installed a petting zoo outside one of the day boarding houses, with a real life donkey ‘This is where the children can pet the animals’ they said. The fact that it has never been there before and probably won’t be on Monday is neither here nor there.
No doubt great store was placed on the amazing swimming pool and gymnasium on the parents tour - I understand that The kids don’t generally use the swimming pool as the school operate it as a private club for the local residents. In fairness I think there is a swim club if you don’t mind getting your little darling to the school at the unearthly hour of six something in the morning.
And don’t let the CCF assault course fool you. It is seldom used, other than for decoration. Similarly the climbing wall that has had the blocks removed to stop it being used.
The school does have a bar though, where I gather the headmaster holds court as the landlord. I think it’s to encourage the parents who have driven there to unwind over a Harveys Bristol Cream, have a bit of a gossip whilst the landlord listens in before swaying towards their 4x4 to take their little darling home. It’s really rather preposterous in truth. Whilst I’m all for a chin wag I think a cafe might be more appropriate and if the head wants an insight maybe a touch of honesty might be better.
School sports are woeful and the discipline crazily Victorian and harsh.
Sports day is mid week and parents aren’t really encouraged to attend. The classrooms that you don’t see on open day are archaic. The IT facilities awful - children are not encouraged in IT as there are no facilities or teaching staff for that. I believe they have a handful of chrome tablets but DD hasn’t used one of them in years. The head teacher is pretty invisible.
The A level exam results look good because not many kids get to do them - I think a bit of off rolling occurs. The list goes on. In my opinion the teaching staff are not great and a huge amount of them are very young and at worst ‘gap students’. It’s shocking now I know the truth. My DD is leaving this year thankfully.