Please current thoughts on Winchester College?

[verityc]

Hello, we're wondering about Winchester College for our son (Y6) who is quite hard worker and interested but not an alpha type. We hear that Winchester is in transition and we wonder what that means and would anyone have any views please?

Also, please is it a happy place for the right child? Is pastoral care really terrible as we've read in some feeds here.

If the child has a place, should this give confidence that s/he will be happy and settle in well?

Please do you know if the new Head has ideas on where to take the school and please is she nice and well liked by the children and staff?

Thank you very much for any kind thoughts xx

Hi, I saw your message from a while ago. My son is currently at Winchester. Generally we are happy at the school. The boys are generally bright and work hard. They are not usually alpha males i.e. they are quietly confident rather than being over the top in their confidence.
There tends be quite a lot of sensationalist stuff on mumsnet i.e. those that comment have the strongest opinions versus being reflective of what the majority of people find is their experience.
The pastoral care is actually very good. However it is important that you build a good rapport with your child's Housemaster.
The new Head knows the school well having taught there previously. She clearly thoroughly enjoys the boys and now girls and loves the school.
From what I can see of her she is clearly very bright, and is determined to ensure the school remains an intellectual beacon, if anything she will look to drive exam performance higher. In terms of how liked she is, she clearly is much better liked by staff than the previous Head was. She makes an effort to sit down and have lunch with boys from all different houses three times a week at least. She is approachable and warm with the boys. I am not sure whether any head is particularly liked by pupils, as they tend to just get on with their lives and not worry too much about the Head. I can say though that some Heads are actively disliked, and that is not the case with her. In addition her being a woman at a mainly boys school has not been an issue, as she understands and supports the culture of the school

I think talk of the school being in transition is overstated. In the first three years your son will have little contact with the girls as they will be in the 6th form.

I would recommend Winchester, it is very different to Eton. It is a kinder, gentler, quieter place.

Yes I agree the staff are amazing but some housemasters are better than others in reality

but do you watch sky tv?

?

Or do you have many working class friends?

Came here for the Sky comment. Thank you!!

😂😂

Not working class, no.

I only came on the thread to see if anyone posted that. Thank you 🤣

Wasn’t just the C of E (today’s news) who covered up John Smyth’s industrial scale sexual abuse of boys & young men. Winchester College did too, signing a “gentleman’s agreement” with him at the time. Listen from 47m 47s to my Mary Whitehouse Archive on 4

Shame on Winchester college who refused to comment when they were contacted last night.
Sending our beloved son there was the worse decision we ever made. We have to live with the torment every day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015411

We withdrew our DS from their Winchester places after the announcement of going Co-Ed- not so much over the change per se- although that wasn't what we had chosen- but because the school was so disingenuous in their handling and communicating of the decision. We were already struggling to get past the sense of being inducted into a cult "Give yourselves a round of applause for being here" etc. But once we were no longer able to trust the institution; if they would be untruthful about this how could we be confident they would be open and honest about other, more serious, things? I feel pretty vindicated after yesterday's news of the Makin report and Winchester's handling and response. Shame on them.

You made the right decision @Blastosis1, they are a disgrace. The culture is rotten to the core.

Thank you @Bellabook . We had a growing unease from the summer of Y7 but two Winchester places felt like something we couldn't give up, especially having already turned down equivalent places elsewhere because we thought W a better fit. In the end the announcement of CoEd felt like a huge relief because it was something tangible and not just instinct: the fact they denied their plans until immediately after the deadline for contracts and deposits was just so shabby. It was impossible at that stage to have faith that they would act honourably in other circumstances. We had kept a fall back plan in place for another, less prestigious school and the boys are now thriving there. Winchester is a great institution and I genuinely hope it recovers from a difficult era. But any school that prizes itself more than its pupils carries high risk, and I do think Winchester needs to take a hard look at itself.
I read posts from W parents expressing so much sadness and anger- I'm really sorry if this has been the case for your family. I hope any harm is not long-lasting.

@Blastosis1 the school made that decision 42 years ago. No one in the present adminstration would have even known the circumstances of what happened in the late 70s before they commissioned the school's report in 2020. So I am not sure that being vitriolic about the school now is useful. In addition you should bear in mind that many parents of the victims specifically asked the school not to make the matter public. They were worried that the publicity would have a negative impact on the their children's future chances. Those same victim in the school report of four years ago when quoted were anonymous at their request. So perhaps we should have some respect for the victim's wishes without throwing brickbats at the school.

Protecting the victims' wishes- or protecting the school's brand? The point I was making was about honesty and transparency. When an institution- be it school, church or broadcaster- cares more about its reputation than the safety of its vulnerable members, abuse can flourish unchecked. And that is shameful, whatever sophistry you employ to deny the fact.
It is to be hoped that, like Ampleforth, Winchester will be a safer environment now & in the future for having had this dark chapter and their complicity in it exposed.

Apologies to @verityc - this isn't really the subject of your thread. Winchester divides opinion more than any other school I've seen discussed on MN; for every angry, remorseful parent there's another who's an avid fan.You have to do your own due diligence as to whether it's the right school for him.

@Blastosis1 r.e. your comment "Protecting the victims' wishes - or protecting the school's brand?" I really think you need to think a lot harder before you write.
You are making a lot of deeply offensive sweeping generalisations about Winchester College without clearly knowing the facts. Have you read the independent report commissioned by Winchester College? If not how would you know the actual facts. You're simply making lots of unqualified allegations. Men in their 60s now contributed to that report bravely giving their unvarnished evidence of the awful things that happened to them. They are still demanding they remain anonymous now and speak of their horror and the extra damage it has done to some of their number having their names leaked. That doesn't sound like it's all about protecting the schools brand. In addition comparing what happened at Ampleforth to Winchester is lazy, ill informed and damaging. The situation at Winchester involved no staff from the school, it never happened on the school grounds. Yes what was happening in the 1970s was allowed to happen due to the total absence of decent safeguarding by modern standards. This level of safeguarding was pretty universal across most state and private schools in the 70s. It doesn't make what happened in anyway forgivable, but it does give context. The situation at Ampleforth was entirely different involving abuse by staff right up to the present day. To make the kind of comments you are making about Winchester College now because you have a grudge against the school because of their handling of deposits is very low behaviour indeed. I always wonder whether key board warriors such as yourself would be quite so brave and hysterical if you had to use your actual name. To be clear I am no super fan of the school. I was equally unhappy about the manner in which co-ed was introduced. However that doesn't excuse talking about an institution, it's hard working, decent staff and boys in the way you have. To all potential parents I would suggest you read independent reviews by education authorities which concludes that the schools safeguarding is now excellent and not be put off by historical events from the 1970s which affected schools up and down the country in those days.

Well, you are right that I can't speak to the wishes of individual victims in this case. But I have a professional background in understanding abuse and the institutional cultures that allow it to flourish. And I have been for some time Chair of a safeguarding authority. So not really just a keyboard warrior, although like many on MN I draw on the anonymity of posting to be more candid than I could if using my real name. Perhaps my professional background has sharpened my instincts and I am readier than some to identify red flags and less likely to be seduced by an institution 's brand or marketing if something doesn't feel right. The issue that alarmed us about Winchester wasn't the deposit! It was the way the school seemingly trapped parents by waiting until contracts were signed and deposits paid- because by that time places elsewhere are generally relinquished so pulling out would be too difficult. I know we weren't the only family to pull out but equally that there were others who felt they could not. That was a red flag for us as a clear example of untrustworthiness.

I broadened the comment to schools, churches and broadcasters- it's not hard to call to mind instances in all three categories where members of an elite will close ranks rather than allow issues of shame to be exposed. They rely on the desire of members or would-be members to be on the inside of the institution and not blow the whistle.They protect the institution and in some cases look the other way. These comments relate to a phenomenon of elite institutions in which abusers may operate with a degree of impunity. Relying on the wishes of victims for discretion is a means of silencing whistleblowers, and fails in the primary duty of protecting the next generation and preventing future abuse. I would take some convincing that the former Head who reached an agreement with JS that he would not work with youngsters again, rather than exposing him to the law, could be viewed as anything other than complicit in the abuse. It ought to be shocking that boys wearing nappies to contain their bleeding were not a trigger for action. It's astonishingly lacking in curiosity not to notice the boys being invited via school to JS's home, coming back harmed by savage beatings. Dozens of boys. JS was still alive and accessing boys until 2013- it's not ancient history. The fact that he was able to emigrate and operate in Southern Africa suggests a shameful belief that it mattered less there.

Over several years, vulnerable girls in Rotherham were being systematically abused, while social workers, teachers and others failed to take this seriously. Does anyone now suggest the authorities should have kept quiet to protect the victims' wishes for privacy? I don't think so. Is it somehow morally different if an ancient and beautiful institution is implicated rather than the Rotherham taxi rank?

Hear hear.

John Thorn ((Headmaster) and James Sabben-Clare (then Deputy, later Headmaster) (both dead) bear a huge responsibility for not addressing the abuse as soon as they knew. Thorn drew up a letter

Sabben-Clare was Headmaster until he retired in 2000. A clergyman (Reverend Michael Green) at St Aldate’s Church, Oxford, said that he was told of the abuse by a curate at Winchester College and was “sworn to secrecy.”

John Smyth had four children, yet nobody reported him to social services. Was nobody worried about them?

What about the meetings that maths teacher Peter Krakenberger held in his flat? Winchester college is responsible for them

Winchester college colluded to protect an active pedophile. Morally repugnant all of them.

Anyone who thinks that Winchester is not responsible should read .

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-11/independent-learning-lessons-review-john-smyth-qc-november-2024.pdf