Peter Symonds

[Luffers1972]

My daughter has been offered a boarding place at Peter Symonds starting September 2023. We love the school. Could anyone give any personal experiences with regards to PS?

Great school.
No personal experience but this is based on several family friends and kids my kids met at University.

Near to me. It has an excellent reputation locally, academically and socially.

Second hand info.

Good college. massive range of subjects / combinations offered.
Can be crowded for workspaces.
Relies on students to work hard, if you can't be bothered they won't excessive effort into chasing.
Tend to request parents for parents evening rather than offering to all.

Are you in The Falklands?

Yes we loved the Falklands boarding house

Ah. My question was do you live in The Falklands?
If so have you ever thought of doing an AMA?

It's local to me very good reputation. Kids are expected to work hard and be self motivated. They tend to go on and do well and university also because that are prepared well to self motivate. If you don't work hard they are known to kick out btw !

Excellent reputation. Friends DC both went there and excelled

Just wondered whether your daughter went to PSC as a boarder in the end? If so, what has her experience been so far? We’re waiting to see if my DS has a place and should hear in the next few weeks.

I went there 30+ years ago - am amazed it's got such a good reputation now! I loved it there, but it was like an American high school with the rugby team boys v. popular and a gang of bitchy girls hanging around them all the time.

@SmugglersHaunt it is a Cambridge University excellence hub for the South East and has an excellent academic reputation - eg., it supported 50 kids into medical school last year and is the 13th in the national tables. As far as I can tell, as an ex teacher and mother of teens, all schools have their cliques and always have had.

@SmugglersHaunt 30 years ago was it just a 6th form college or was it still a school?

Hello
She ended up going to a local sixth form. My daughter had boarded previously for five years and was keen to be at home! Strangely a primary school friend of hers who moved to the US four years ago applied and was offered a place. She commenced PS in September. The friend is very happy at PS, made many friends and is loving the school.

Thanks for the feedback, @Luffers1972 . I was hoping my DS would opt for the ‘local’ 6th form (still 45mins by public transport), but he was dead set on PS once he’d been to the open evening and interview 😭 I think it will be the making of him as he has grown up so much with GCSEs rapidly approaching. I see a big bout of empty nest syndrome on my horizon!

Just a sixth form. Most of the King's, Beaufort and Westgate kids went there, and the kids from the Falklands as well. But it didn't have a particularly good name I don't think

Thank you, PR department. I wasn't slagging it off, just relating my experience there 30+ years ago

@SmugglersHaunt no need for snarkiness. Your comment was hardly complimentary - and your experience 30+ years ago adds nothing to the queries of posters here. In fact, given it implied PS was not a particularly nice place and the posters here are waiting for offers/considering applying, it was a rather nasty post.

Oh sorry - I didn’t realise there was a statute of limitations on commenting. In future I’ll keep my comments to things that have occurred in the last five years. And obviously I’ll make sure everything is 100% positive. We don’t want any nastiness do we! (even though it wasn’t remotely ‘nasty’) 🙄

I went there and enjoyed it. Sat my A levels in 1999. I went to a state school for secondary but many of my classmates were from private schools.

Winchester is a lovely city. Good fun. I most fondly remember the jacket potatoes.