boarding school

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desperado
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:43 am

boarding school

Post by desperado »

hello all,
anyone with experience of state boarding schools?which one rates very high in terms of well rounded education.will anyone consider a military school for a child with no military background.
yoyo123
Posts: 8099
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:32 pm
Location: East Kent

Re: boarding school

Post by yoyo123 »

The Duke of York's in Dover is now an academy, I think they are no longer exclusively military. It has just had a good ofsted report too
desperado
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:43 am

Re: boarding school

Post by desperado »

thanks for your quick response.will check the report
P's mum
Posts: 108
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:56 am

Re: boarding school

Post by P's mum »

My daughter is at a state boarding school - though not a military one. I didn't really consider the Duke of York's it seemed to be one of the less academic when I was looking (my daughter is now year 11) though I have to admit that she was briefly attracted to the idea of going there for the sixth form because of very good sports facilities. I did consider military schools though - I looked into Gordon's (Woking), but decided against it largely for geographical reasons, and the Royal Hospital School. The latter isn't a state boarding school but has some similarities with relatively reasonable fees (large foundation) and strong pastoral/social comitment. It was a naval school and still has strong naval traditions. We applied there and were offered a place, if we had been offered a scholarship we would probably have taken it. I was pleasantly surprised that despite being a near pacifist I was very attracted to the ethos of both Gordon's and RHS - both have a very strong sense of community and good music as part of that heritage.

My daughter is at Hockerill. It is very high performing but but does not discriminate against less able children for year 7 entry and as far as I can gather tries to cater for every child's needs. Academic results are extremely strong (high in the league tables)even though it is a non-selective school but also devotes considerable resources to the bottom set with much smaller classes and judicious adaptation of timetable for GCSEs if deemed necessary.

Sports are excellent even though it does not have the acres of sports fields of the schools mentioned above. Art seems similar. I have my reservations about the music even though it is supposed to be second specialism music (but I guess you can't have everything). To be fair popular music (and dance) are well catered for but classical music suffers and seems to be dependant upon an influx of sixth formers from the continent where there are not the same issues of inverse snobbery.

The school is very international and has excellent (probably unbeatable) modern languages. They do the IB (only) in the sixth form - this leads to be a bit of shake up post 16 and a deliberate influx of boarders from the continent. The school is relatively small by the standards of state schools (7-800) and pastoral care has been excellent.

Happy to answer any further questions. I did research state boarding schools pretty extensively when I was looking.
P's mum
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