Weekly schedule : WinColl, Sevenoaks, Brighton, and others

[Next11]

It is not easy to decipher from publicly available info what the weekly / daily schedule at the schools are like. If anyone in the know could help out please?

Here is what I know so far:

WinColl : six day week, three long + three short days + 35 min lessons, but I couldn't find the exact start / end times. I read somewhere that prep starts at 19.00 supper at 20.00 followed by another 15 mins, which would add up to a total of 1.15mins, but most on MN say Win has 2 hours of prep, so I am a bit confused. Back on Sundays by 9pm is what I read somewhere, but what is Sunday Chapel time, and is there an alternative in the evening?

Sevenoaks : six day week, everyday 6 * 45 min lessons. Does anyone know start/end times perhaps?

Brighton - five day week, but I don't exactly know start/end times and length of lessons (45m?) and whether Fri is a short day?

Would it not be sensible to register for the schools in question and attend their open days with your child?

If the information you want isn’t available on their websites perhaps it’s not something schools want publicly available to people without a direct need to know.

I mean, we’ll assume you’re an interested parent thinking of applying, and not a potential terrorist, kidnapper, hostile non-resident parent in custody battle, etc - but I wouldn’t be giving you the exact timings of my child’s school day.

Why not? Timings of school day are normally public aren't they? Dont they have "a typicak day at.." on their website?

Failing that... ask them?

Yes, there generally are ‘typical days’ on websites - so anyone needing more granular detail than that should probably be speaking to the schools concerned about their specific child.

You need to Google better! Here's the Sevenoaks typical day www.sevenoaksschool.org/pastoral/lower-school/a-typical-day/, first link that came up. That's for years 7 and 8, I'm sure they'll have ones for middle school and 6th form on there as well. NB lots of kids do clubs after school, and homework tends to be a bit less than advertised (Year 7/8 more like 30 mins a day, sometimes nothing, sometimes a bit more). On Saturdays the lower school finish after lessons at midday (with occasional matches for higher teams in the afternoon), while year 9 and up need to stay for games in the afternoon. Finish time for them on Saturdays is highly variable depending on matches. HTH.

Ask the schools? There is usually a rough idea of the school day on the website, under School Life. Friends dc went to Brighton as a weekly boarder and there were often activities and matches at weekends. Most secondary independents do have rehearsals, sport etc on Saturday and Sundays, even if no Saturday school or a day/flexi boarding school.

You're right@bravepotatoes 🙂 many thanks

Does it matter?
Are you really going to use whether a school has 45 min lessons or 55, or 35 as part of your choosing criteria? Or whether they have evening meal at 6:30pm, or 7pm?

Agree. @Next11 you are somewhat overthinking this and getting lost in the detail. More significant are boarding/flexi/weekly/day, single sex vs coed, IB vs A level . You have also left this rather late as iirc your ds is currently year 6. Pretests and registrations for many will have closed or do so imminently.

It's very easily available online.

Five or six day weeks do matter, and there is obviously a trade-off especially if you have several extracurriculars on the top. A former thread suggested that WinColl kids finish on Saturdays at 12.20 and I was wondering whether it's the same for all short days. In any case I am only curious and not looking to launch an attack on ignorance. So if you don't know then please don't care 😉

I am generally interested in education, so that is why I follow threads like this, they add to my background knowledge. Having been to a boarding school myself followed by academic degree & my DC at a comp and then BTECs I have a range of interests.

For a boarding school obviously knowing whether they have Saturday lessons matters and the time they are free, but that wasn't really what you asked.

The difference though of single sex v co-ed, full boarding v weekly is of course really important. But length of lessons? Not so much.

Sure, agreed. A small detail in a long post. In any case I only thought that if someone only knows the number of lessons and their length but not the exact times, it can already be used as an estimate.

@nearlyspringyay could you please point me to the right place for WinColl and Brighton? For the latter, I understood lessons normally last until 4pm. Couldn't find any info about whether that already includes a long lunch break and individual music lessons (as in case of Sevenoaks) or whether Friday is a short day, etc.