Beechen Cliff School, Bath. Opinions please!

[MrsFlittersnoop]

We are giving serious thought to moving back to Bath (my home town).

We would be living with my mother, and Beechen Cliff school is only 10-15 minutes walk from her house. DS would be joining at the start of year 9.

Does anyone have any knowlege or experience of the school please?

heard fabulous things about it

My nephew goes and my niece will probably go for sixth form, my sister says it's the school of choice in Bath. Very oversubscribed though, so not sure how hard to get in. The sixth form get quite a lot from the independents coming in. Sister descirbes it as quite traditional academic school with good reputation for sport, oxbridge and traditional universities. Hope that helps.

MrsFlittersnoop, are you still on Mumsnet?

We are moving back to Bath in August (lived there for 6 years 5 years ago, have been in Suffolk since), and are making a late application to Beechen Cliff School for my son (to go into Yr 7 in September).

Your posts on the school and your appeal have been very informative. Your son sounds a lot like mine, who is an August child and quite academic too.

How do you feel about the school now, and has your son been happy there?

I do hope you are still around!

Hi Verbosity, MrsF here with a new name! I don't know how many of my old posts you have seen, so you might not be aware that DS was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, thanks to a very experienced and observant SENCO, just a few months after joining Beechen Cliff.

DS is now in year 11 and about to take his GCSEs. We've had quite a rocky ride over the past couple of years, but this has been due to DS's Asperger's diagnosis, and to be honest, we can't really fault the school. They have been as supportive of DS's (admittedly borderline) special needs as any school could be and have made all the reasonable accommodation they could to keep him unstressed and on track academically. DS is set to get all As and Bs , with a possibly a couple of A*s. He is really looking forward to joining the 6th form in September (most of the worst-behaved kids will be leaving in June, and there will be GURRLS in the 6th!) and he will be able to concentrate on his favourite subjects. He hasn't made any close friends, but gets along OK with most of the other boys now.

Beechen Cliff is currently the highest achieving non-selective state school in the county. It really is a very good school for the vast majority of boys who go there, but it is still an all-boys comprehensive and will always have a rather boisterous and very male environment. It is very very sports oriented and not particularly "arty", but the instake is overwhelmingly quite middle-class which means there are good music groups and choirs (lots of kids get private music lessons at home etc.) Lots of activities for GAT kids - highly academic kids are very well catered for, and they also give lots of help to the strugglers. Am not QUITE so convinced about the "safe upper-middle" A/B grade kids like my DS - I feel there is tendency for the school to be rather complacent, and leave them to their own devices.

The school organises a residential trip to their cottage in Wales for the year 7 boys very soon after they start at the school - this is to help them all "bond", and appears to be very successful. The school also has "vertical" tutor groups, which means that form groups have a mix of all years, not just all year 7s, and is supposed to help stop bullying and encourage the older kids to look after the younger ones. There is a very active PTA mafia which does lots of fund-raising, ceilidhs, quiz nights, barbeques etc so lots of opportunities to be involved with the school if you want.

Good luck with your application! Please feel free to PM me if you need any advice or hand-holding throught the process. I still have all my notes from the appeal. We pulled out all the stops and called in all the favours we could, as well as grovelled and begged. Do make sure you make an appointment to visit the school and meet the headmaster in person.

HTH x

OP, Can I ask whether you have any experience of non sporty more sensitive boys there. Do they thrive if they are academic, or not?

Hi Cheesy,

I'm afraid my "experience" of how other boys get on is extremely limited - DS doesn't have any friends at school - or none that he is friendly enough with to see out of school - and I don't know any of the other parents at all, apart from some neighbours with boys in different years to DS. As I said in my previous post, our experience is not at all typical and has been completely overshadowed by DSs special needs.

Sorry i can't be of more help . All I know "anecdotally" (I get to talk to a lot of locals and members of the public) is that the school has a good reputation academically - one of my university lecturers sends his kids there for example, and he sent his daughter to the 6th form there. I have also heard that it is regarded as being bad for bullying, but this is more likely to be because it is all-boys than because of a lax attitude by the staff. There was a similar rough-ish culture at DS's previous all-boys comp in North London too.

Verbosity, how is it going? My ds will be starting secondary in September, but at a school outside of town. We wouldn't have stood much of a chance of getting him into BC, although I do know of several people near me that have got their sons in on appeal/via waiting lists in previous years. To be honest I don't think it would have suited him so we weren't prepared to go down that route. Friends with boys there seem happy enough, but they tend to be sporty types.

We went to the open evening last autumn and I can see how it would appeal to some parents and suit some boys, but the general atmosphere (possibly because it was an open evening to be fair, and absolutely rammed) didn't quite do it for me also some places smelt of teenage boy wee a little too strongly.

I was however really taken by one of the boys manning a display. I shan't go into details in case I out him but he was eloquent, polite and engaging. He talked to me at length about how he'd experienced difficulties with certain aspects, and how the school had really helped him to overcome these. He was brilliant and if we had applied, it would've been down to him. I meant to write to the head about him, but as too often with these things never got around to it

(This is the original poster here, with yet another name!) I decided to send my turtle to Beechen Cliff School for educational reason and my poor, sweet turtle just dies. 8.5/10 school, he seemed to enjoy it!

I have been so shocked at the disinterest in lower stream non academic boys and poor teaching particularly with special needs maths. My sons teacher was a chain smoker and left the class to bully each other and get away with doing no work. He was terribly unhappy and only now aged 37 has found he can enjoy studying. Appalling school for a non standard lad. School teachers frequently joined in the bullying.

So your son was there 26 years ago? And you thought resurrecting a zombie thread to give a completely out of date experience was a good idea?

There was no means of giving any feedback. Its a sobering thought that schooling affects the rest of your son's life. I have no evidence that the school had a strong anti bullying policy in place and I also sat through their open evening and read their brochures. I did mean to write to the school. Also as a parent I made the mistake of believing the staff that it was my sons lack of ability or something we did wrong. Only now has my son proved my suspension that it was the school culture not him!! He is now happily studying maths and IT. The school culture really damaged him.

You also need to think why I felt couldn't raise my concerns at the time. I don't know but with harsh sarcasm and criticism maybe the school culture might suit yours and the insensitivity.