Fencing at WinColl and/or Sevenoaks School

[Next11]

DS is a 11yo fencing prodigy and we're in the process of making a decision between the above two senior schools (age 13-18) and fencing provisioning is an important consideration.

We are looking for both individual and group sessions and national/international level competitions and wondering if anyone has personal experience at any of these schools.

1, Which weapons are offered?
2, Will the school arrange for specialised coaches in case of international level talent?
3, How many group sessions per week without a sports scholarship?
4, How many group/ individual sessions per week with a sports scholarship?
5, How are individual sessions organised? (What) Are the(re) any additonal costs?
6, How flexibile is the school to allow a fencer to attend national/international competitions (once a month Sat-Sun) assuming academics are fine.
7, Anything else worth considering?

The schools themselves are best placed to answer those very specific questions,not random people on the internet.

@nolanscrack is right - email the 2 schools those exact questions and get it in writing before you accept a place! Generally speaking though these types of schools will support international talent and love to brag about it in their newsletters…. So if your child is talented they typically can miss Saturday school. Whether coaching would be included or covered will depend on their scholarship funds. I think you need to ask the question who would be coaching your DS and check you are happy with the particular coach in question. As to peer group and relevant competition in the school that will depend on the year and luck with this kind of thing.

Thanks. Good thinking, I'll remember to ask about the particar coach!

Name changed for this. My DS attended Winchester College, he left in the last 5 years. Their fencing coach also coached the St Swithuns girls. My son had individual lessons and group lessons. He was perfectly happy with the coach and really enjoyed his fencing. He was a complete beginner when he took it up at Winchester. I remember the school competed in the Public Schools annual event. Pretty sure you started with foil and could move to epee if you liked. Winchester I believe are currently building a new gym (might be finished) and plan to be a place of excellence for fencing. I think that was the phrase. My DS told me they usually beat Eton. I do remember the best St Swithuns fencers occasionally came to fence with the boys, and one of these girls was particularly talented and won a national competition. I believe she also engaged a coach in London. I imagine the school would be flexible with time off for competitions etc but engaging a second coach who competed at Olympic level etc seems unlikely to me.

As others have said the best thing to do is sit down with the school and see what they say.

Having attended a few competitions (only in this country my DS never competed in Europe where the standard is on a whole other level) I would say that the London fencing schools generally attracted the highest level of coaches.

From a schools perspective Millfield’s team generally beat every other school most years. Millfield have a dedicated fencing salle.

My DS was very happy with his fencing at Winchester and I feel a little disloyal to say this but in the interest of helping a promising young fencer - I do know that Millfield will snap up a talented fencer and fees would not be an issue. Anyone competing and winning regularly will pique their interest and be approached! Coaches also know if they have a star fencer they can give Millfield a call.

For anyone reading this who is not familiar with the fencing world, there is a fencing competition pretty much every weekend up and down the country sponsored by Leon Paul where fencers are ranked annually. There are also all the usual county competitions, the British Youth Competition and the Junior Olympic team. I remember my son had to fence one of the British Olympic team and he was a bit embarrassed as he knew they were far superior, they couldn’t have been more polite and (after thrashing him in about 90 seconds) actually gave him a pointer.

Happy memories! Hope this is helpful, I have rambled on and now late for something. 😀

@Next11 I have posted a long reply!

@Foilist - it is an interesting debate whether to send a talented sportsman who is also academic to Millfield though. It doesn’t have the most academic reputation.
One of my DD’s attends Newstead Wood which is a state grammar in South East London and Emma Radacanu went there and so did Dina Asher-Smith and both girls were academic and parents supplemented their sports outside school adequately, but wanted them to do well academically too. Perhaps the reality is that living in London with access to the best coaches for fencing and a really good academic independent school would actually be the best for the OP’s child. I think a lot of these top independent boarding schools are excellent at what they do given what they have, but they cannot parent 50 kids as well in a short term with long holidays as a dedicated parent can themselves. At 11 years old, how do you know if your child is going to be an Olympian, however talented they seem at that point.

@Abuildingwith4wallsandtmrinsid I agree with you. I guess I was just telling the op what I knew about fencing at Winchester. You are quite right, so many of my friends had children of this age talented in swimming, show jumping, cricket, cross country, rugby, winning competitions at county level. By age 15 or 16 they had all either stopped completely or just played for fun and pulled out of competing outside of their own schools.

The best course might be to forget about boarding schools and scholarships and attend a good comprehensive school or Grammer. The school day is far far shorter than the boarding school day leaving you with long evenings to join your local fencing club and fence as many different people as possible. Saturday and Sundays would be taken up with travelling to competitions. The thing about fencing is it’s no good fencing with the same dozen people over and over (boarding school scenario), it’s much better to fence as many different people as you can. This is where the London clubs have an advantage.

As to how academic Millfield is I am not sure. I only know 3 current students, 1 is academic, 1 has learning difficulties and 1 is average so that’s not terribly helpful! It is a big school and probably has lots of sets to accommodate every sort of student.

@Next11 I see you sent me a private message enquiring about sabre lessons at Winchester. I don’t think sabre is taught, in my limited experience sabre is seen as fun but (with so few rules) not taken seriously.

A little surprised to receive a brusque private message and no thank you. One of the things I enjoyed about watching children compete at fencing is how they must bow before a bout and shake hands afterwards with their opponent and the referee.

Thank you all for the kind responses. It is very useful to have a little bit of insight by those who’ve been there, seen that before contacting the school. That way at the very least I can ask better questions! 😂

Am confused as to why you would think Millfield isn't academic. It's the school I would have recommended to you, knowing several people who have been there

My youngest son fenced with the Winchester coach (he runs an open session too), my son fenced with some of the Winchester lot who came to the open session too.

Very nice atmosphere, good coach who knows the ropes.

Felt very lucky my son was able to compete and have have fencing lessons with the Winch coach, even coming from a local comp

He was there for 6 yrs and enjoyed it very much and did regional and national competitions (supported by the coaches)

The fencing world is so small. That it makes no sense to keep the public school and state school kids separate IMO

It was mostly foil and epee, only very few do sabre

What does your son do?

Foilist, only flirting with sabre (not offered in our area)

Most of the kids I know who regularly top the Leon Paul are at London day schools as the access to coaches is better. If you wanted boarding you could look at one near London that might let him out in the week to attend a London fencing club. The only school I can think of which has an ex-Olympian sabre coach is Christs Hospital and they only fence once a week and the main blade is foil.

Good thinking @londonmummy1966 thank you so much. We need to move on from Blackheath anyways, as the family has expanded since we last lived in London. Would have ideally preferred something in the green belt e.g. Kent/SE London (Bromley, Orpington, T Wells, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, etc comes to mind) or Surrey/SW London (Wimbledon, Woking, Guildford, max Winchester, etc) or W London/Buckshr (villages around Slough, Reading) but fencing is a strong driver, so happy to also consider greener areas of C. London e.g. Hammersmith and the likes. Not too keen about North London boroughs.

In that case I’ll try to also discover selective day schools, closer to fencing opportunities. Which do you think is the most competitive foil club in the SE, SW or W Greater London area, that offers daily youth trainings? Ideally with a truly selective school nearby, as academics is a hygiene requirement… sorry I know I’m pushing my luck here😊

Competitive youth foil is the #1 preference for now, even better if the club (or nearby) also offered competitive sabre. No need to optimise for epée, as he loves the legwork, speed and action of the foil (sabre?) bouts.

DD was epee so not totally up to speed on where's good for foil - there used to be a good club in Chelsea run by an ex Russian team coach but not sure if it was everyday. Probably worth looking at the LP tables for the next couple of age groups up and seeing where they go? I'd have no idea where to start for sabre though. I'd be quite cautious about the London day schools and whether they walk the walk over letting your son have time off for fencing etc after year 8 as they start to get terribly obssessed with league tables. DC1 who was at a junior conservatoire heading for seniors and at a school that allegedly specialised in music and performing arts was basically banned from a music practice room for the whole of year 11 and was asked what was more important her piano practice or her English language GCSE (teacher didn't like the answer....)

Haven’t you missed entry for most other competitive 13 plus London schools like Kings College Wimbledon, St Paul’s boys etc?
It sounds to me that you would not consider any school outside top 30 parent power 2022 for independent schools, is that right? Incidentally, Sevenoaks was number 10 this year and Winchester at 23.
How about Haberdashers Boys? Salle Paul fencing club in Hendon I think? I know you said you don’t like North London, but the school is good and not too late for 13 plus entry. But you need to decide on the fencing club first…

If your DS is 11, has he sat the 13+ exams already and received offers? WinColl, Sevenoaks and most boarding schools have all closed their 13+ entries for 2024 - so a little confused about the timelines.

Bishop Challenor in Bromley is less prestigious academically but has a strong fencing reputation and covers all three disciplines.

Thanks for the useful tips @oviraptor21 and @Abuildingwith4wallsandtmrinsid

Didn‘t even know what Parent Power top 30 was until tonight. It is a very funny name😊

We just wanted a selective school, as DS is very academic. Ideally boarding, in a leafy neighbourhood. Living abroad now, back only for 2023 so grammars were not viable, but have some budget so went for independent.

Then we added the fencing and music filter, and removed those from the list which were more than 90mins from London. Then removed those where the compulsory sport is the school’s choice (that‘s roughly 6-8 hours per week, not negligible) and ended up with WinCol (offered) and Sevenoaks (results 27 May) but as DS tends to fare well on tests we‘re optimistic.

So yes, we totally missed KCS and SPS as a result. We knew DS loved to fence, but it was lockdown time with no competitions and no way to gauge properly. It is only now that we started to realise that he is really very talented in this sport, so looking closer now at schools’ level of fencing, for the first time in the process.

Thanks, I‘ll definitely check out Haberdasher and Bishop Challenor!

Is the 90 mins from London for the fencing or just that you are worried you'll spend your life driving down to collect them. If the latter it is worth finding out if the school run buses either to London or to mainline rail stations for exeats etc. Most of the Somerset ones for example do so we didn't have to collect.

Personally I would take a Sevenoaks place and just decide whether day or boarding is better. There are normally holiday fencing camps too etc and boarding schools have long holidays and I assume you would have to do the ferrying around for competitions.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kruse - Kruse coaches at the Hendon Salle Paul Fencing Club but I don’t know the details. Perhaps call up and find out further. It is a small world the fencing world and you just need as much information as possible to make an informed choice as to what training schedule is realistic. Kruse has an engineering degree. Alex O’Connell went to Cambridge university - none of these guys compromised their education.

www.britishfencing.com/athletes/marcus-mepstead-2/ - Mepstead went to a posh prep school in Swiss Cottage and then Westminster and LSE.
I assume he fenced a lot in London but don’t know the details of which club etc.

The salient point being that a lot of these top fencers are also top academically and did manage to fit it in and also have a degree which is quite interesting.

Thanks @londonmummy1966 that’s a great idea! Yes, we would like to see DS on weekends, even if it is a lunch date only. And of course competitions😊

Super @Abuildingwith4wallsandtmrinsid this is very helpful, I’ll definitely follow these up.

It’s been a busy week so I haven’t had much time to study Parent Power methodology but I struggle to see how Times can properly compare WinCol (Pre-U) and Sevenoaks (IB) results. Presumably standardised tests up to GCSE results?

WinCol hasn’t had a huge 6th form intake, so GCSE hasn’t been a big deal for them. This is entirely different for Sevenoaks, as kids will want to hedge their bets: it is borlerline impossible to score a 45pt on the IB, but not that difficult to score max on GCSEs so they’ll max it out.

For me these schools are academically equal over the long term, but their ethos is vastly different. In terms of ethos, they are almost at the the two ends of the ‘liberal’ spectrum: very British very old school on one hand, with very global very woke very international on the other. Both are quite liberal though…

Why does Sevenoaks get your vote?

There are no standardised tests until GCSE though. Many schools opt out of League Tables but may be worth consideration at this later stage ie. Whitgift and Trinity.