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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

St. John’s School Leatherhead

48 replies

Lauren47 · 27/02/2020 12:50

I had a very alarming and distressing experience at this prestigious and well regarded school I thought it might be useful to put this out there for parents choosing secondary schools.
After the 11+ my son was very happily accepted, but after the offer day and after the half term holidays his offer was abruptly withdrawn. The reason being that he swore ‘bastard’ in the geography taster class. I asked my son’s side of the story and his response was ‘what does that word mean?’ and why would he say a word he doesn’t know the meaning of? When I told him what it meant his reaction was, ‘That’s a very sad word mummy...’ He admitted being overexcited and perhaps too playful with his new friend so being told off but recalled nothing of the ‘stunned class’ and was completely bewildered by the accusation. The decision to have his offer withdrawn was taken completely unilaterally by the Head based upon the recount of this geography teacher alone. My son’s school’s Headmaster who knows him for 7 years was gobsmacked and fiercely defended his character but the decision was already made. My son was distraught and completely confused. What kind of a school is this that puts a nasty word into an innocent 10 year old’s mouth and brands him ‘unsuitable’? It sent shivers down my spine. Behind those smiles and ‘7 pillars of kindness’ ethos lies absolute intolerance, prejudice and a medieval court system. Who showed my son a shred of kindness? We decided it was a lucky escape.

OP posts:
Lauren47 · 27/02/2020 16:13

Thanks for all your comments and support. You could make what you’d like from this. Perhaps not to forget to be more cynical of the shiny facade they present to you? Interested to know any other incidents at other ‘wonderful’ schools!

OP posts:
Lauren47 · 27/02/2020 16:17

Sorry VanCleef this is not a personal attack and I can feel for if you know the school well but it’s my opinion and many others that this seemed a very odd way to be dealing with an incident especially for such a prestigious school!

OP posts:
VanCleefArpels · 27/02/2020 16:19

So in fact the school was perfectly entitled to withdraw their offer as you had not accepted the place! You might have had some reason to be outraged if you had paid the deposit but..... And now you say it was a blessing in disguise, so why the drama?

Lauren47 · 27/02/2020 16:20

Yes Boris Boris I agree. It’s the school’s chance to entice the clients they already chose! The table should have turned by then. But that wasn’t St. John’s approach.

OP posts:
Lauren47 · 27/02/2020 16:21

It was an extremely hurtful and distressing incident for a young child VanCleef. I’m a mother. We do get dramatic when we see our child misunderstood and hurt.

OP posts:
VanCleefArpels · 27/02/2020 16:24

The harsh reality is that they are in a position to be able to pick and choose. Whatever the facts of the matter it would seem your son did misbehave in some way at his own admission and so the school, having a waiting list as long as your arm, decided it wasn't worth offering your boy a place. They are extremely hot on classroom discipline - it's one of its charms in my view.

Putting your child into a competitive admissions process will always have a 50/50 outcome and until the deposit is paid either side can withdraw.

borisboris · 27/02/2020 16:26

Why was the school perfectly entitled to withdraw the place? I was at another school this week where we hold an offer- the head told us more than once that we had until x day to accept it and it would be honoured until then. No exploding offers etc.

VanCleefArpels · 27/02/2020 16:28

Because the contract is not actually made until the deposit is paid.

PointlessAddict · 27/02/2020 16:30

Find another school to throw your money at. I wouldn’t give this lot the steam off my piss. I’m gobsmacked that this is a fee paying school.

Bellie99 · 27/02/2020 16:30

Sorry just to clarify - offer holders taster day was 4 days after the offer was made and in half term? One working day to book onto this day?

That's not efficient - it's a miracle that any school could achieve this.

GrannyBags · 27/02/2020 16:39

This may be a bit of a reach, but could someone else have said it and the teacher thought it was your son? I know fee paying school don’t have to follow the National Curriculum but the first thing on the History syllabus is the Norman Conquest, where the word is used (correctly) to describe William - before he was William the Conquerer he was William the Bastard. Had they had a History taster earlier in the day?

Lauren47 · 27/02/2020 17:13

I won’t have written this in the first place if the school has treated us fairly. I know stuff happens and am ready to accept if both side of the argument was laid out. This was extremely one sided and extremely disappointing and disorientating because of the gap between what we were led to believe of them and the reality. It’s got nothing to do with contractual agreement nor whether the money was paid or not.

OP posts:
VanCleefArpels · 27/02/2020 17:29

It’s got nothing to do with contractual agreement nor whether the money was paid or not.

Well it does because until such time as you accept the offer by way of paying the deposit either party can withdraw for any reason. I get you believe their reasoning is unfounded (use of a particular word). I’d be interested to know exactly what the school said/wrote to you in withdrawing their offer.

But ultimately I really think you’d be better off using your time and energy looking forward to the school your son WILL be going to, not the one that doesn’t want him. Bear in mind there will have been very many similarly disappointed applicants at the assessment stage, it’s the nature of the beast

Lauren47 · 27/02/2020 17:44

I totally agree VanCleef. Although being rejected at the assessment stage would have been much less painful! As you say it’s the nature of the beast no matter how wrong it seems. 2 days on since the incident we are completely ready to forget and move on... Good luck to other parents and children too.

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findingschools4myboys · 27/02/2020 20:13

You dates for the offer and offer day don’t make sense. Are you saying that you went for the offer day during half term last week...?

FiddleOnTheRoof · 27/02/2020 21:19

Wow am amazed at how harshly this op is being treated. Regardless of what the child may or may not have said, this school could possibly have handled this better. I can’t imagine how demolished I’d feel if one of my DC, having worked so hard, had their offer pulled from under them, after the excitement of reading ‘am in!’

I’d also be questioning accepting a place here if my child had an offer after reading this... hope there is more to this than that stated by op in this post! Tolerance and ability to deal with all kids should be something every school should be equipped to deal with.

At least I’d hope...

PoloMama · 27/02/2020 21:54

I wouldn’t worry. St John’s is not a particularly “prestigious” school. It is a very good school though and it’s extremely popular, but so are most of the private co-eds in the area, simply because there are so few of them. It sounds like St John’s wouldn’t have suited your ds anyway, so consider it a bullet dodged and focus on finding a school where he’ll be happy.

PatoPato · 27/02/2020 22:03

I'm completely with you FiddleOnTheRoof. The grilling & alluding to delusion of the obviously distressed & emotional OP is just mean.

I'd echo Bronte16 in that it's shaming & life changing. I hope you've got the Emanuel place in the bag OP. Considered highly desirable round my neck of the woods. Don't let your DS be scarred in any way by the experience (even if you are!)

GU24Mum · 27/02/2020 22:29

I thought the offer holders' afternoon was just a couple of hours on 11th Feb with nothing happening during half term?

Tiredofelevenplus · 28/02/2020 10:43

Totally agree with PatoPato, FiddleOnTheRoof and also PoloMama...

fklps · 28/02/2020 11:39

Totally shocked by this story. The fact that the school wouldn't talk to you personally or respond to your calls, pretty much says it all. They are in the wrong, the know it and they don't care. Good riddance for you and your son Lauren47 and I'm sure he'll thrive wherever else you decide to send him.

77seven · 28/02/2020 13:14

OP, could you show the actual letter from the school, by any chance? You’ve gone this far, you may as well “name and shame.”

The irony is, if your DH had paid your deposit and signed the forms, you would have been in a contract with them and they would have had to follow due process in “expelling” your child, which is effectively what they’ve done. Something like an outburst in class would not have been an expellable offence in normal circumstances, that would be reserved for actions such as bringing drugs on site or violence.

It sounds as if this teacher has deemed your son “disruptive” or “unreachable.” Rather than having to sound vague or judgemental in the letter, they have focused on the supposed use of this one word. Saying something like, “he was hyper” sounds too subjective, but the problem with the use of a word is that you can’t disprove it because you errant they’d and have no access to anyone who was.

Was the other boy’s place withdrawn as well? Is there any way if finding out, I wonder? For all you know, they might have decided to do this to a number of them?

Does your child have any history of this kind of behaviour? Have you ever been called in for anything like this before?

What was his interview like? Was in a group assessment event, or individual interview?

I’m very surprised the school were not prepared to liaise with your prep head even. Most schools want to preserve positive links with feeder preps. They are businesses ultimately. It’s one thing refusing to communicate with a parent; quite smithed to refuse to speak with a professional peer.

Thank goodness you hadn’t declined your other offers yet.

I think Emmanuel is more “highly regarded” anyway, tbh.

Good luck to you and your son.

StopAtTheRedLight · 26/02/2021 09:21

Wow. Just reading this thread I am reminded how aggressive MN can be towards OPs. No wonder I have taken year-long breaks from it.

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