Mountbatten, Romsey. Any opinions? Thanks

[faraday]

It's now our 'local'. We rent so we DO have options but I have heard all sorts about this school, mainly 'old stuff' - wondered if anyone had any experience, esp recent with the new head teacher being in charge?

bump for the evening crew?

There is an older thread about these schools - but it may have been from a year ago. DN is at one of the schools and DB and SIL are reasonably happy with it.

very good I have heard

I have a friend who teaches there.

excellent- thanks.

Anyone want to elaborate a bit more? Like 'reasonably happy' as opposed to 'happy'!

I guess the key points are: What's discipline like? DO kids wander out of class at will? Do they text during lessons? Do they sit in class with ipods in situ? Do teachers have to shout to be heard above the class's chatter? Do they take a hard line on exclusion/ expulsion?

DO they take discipline seriously??!

To me, this feature is 'key'. DS1 is likely to be in higher achieving sets. I know this doesn't completely protect him from the "asbo" influence but it does go a fair way! But DS2 is likely to find himself sitting in amongst the less clever AND the dissaffected/can't be arsed brigade, a lethal combination leading to under-achievement and disengagement.

Please step this way and tell!

I think Mountbatten has always been quite a good school - and lets face it, Romsey is quite an affluent area - state non-selective schools often do well in such areas. You do have a slight siphoning off to the grammar schools in Salisbury but I think those numbers must be quite low as Salisbury is some miles away and I don't know how the catchments work.

They were always big on music - to me that's a good sign.

Look at the behaviour and attendance grades on the latest Ofsted report - if less than 2, don't touch it. But I very much doubt that is the case.

OK, taken the coward's way- moving into the catchment of Thornden in Chandlers Ford!

The Salisbury grammars no longer have 'catchments', I believe, they have 'reasonable travelling distance' which means those committed parents may travel 30 or 40 miles each way (I know some who do!) to get there....