Wallington Boys Success?
Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators
Wallington Boys Success?
My DS has been offered Wallington Boys. Am so pleased that this long nightmare is finally over! Any other DSs out there heading to Wallington?
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
Congratulations mumzone. Hopefully someone else will be along shortly as your ds is certainly not the only one to be going to WCGS 
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
Would love more info on WCGS my son has been offered a place. Don't know anything about school. He's a big football fan - not rugby! Website looks like they are more rugby than football?
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
Hi Ladies,
My son is in the current Year 7 & I am delighted with the school. They are very caring, the lessons are excellent and he is flying. They condense years 7 - 9 in to two years and do their options at the end of year 8.
They do play rugby a lot, but they do also have a football team and my son plays in that too. He loves the sport. Be warned though, the kit costs a fortune !!
The induction programme is excellent - they have a family BBQ for the new boys in June and then they get to spend four whole days over two weeks in their new forms. My son felt like part of the school before he even started.
Well done for getting offered a place - I'm still delighted he went there.
Feel free to ask anything you need to know.
My son is in the current Year 7 & I am delighted with the school. They are very caring, the lessons are excellent and he is flying. They condense years 7 - 9 in to two years and do their options at the end of year 8.
They do play rugby a lot, but they do also have a football team and my son plays in that too. He loves the sport. Be warned though, the kit costs a fortune !!
The induction programme is excellent - they have a family BBQ for the new boys in June and then they get to spend four whole days over two weeks in their new forms. My son felt like part of the school before he even started.
Well done for getting offered a place - I'm still delighted he went there.
Feel free to ask anything you need to know.
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
Thank you for the info. It's really good to hear positive experience. Is the work load quite heavy? How much homework per night? Do most boys do after school activities?
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
Pisces, another year 7 mum here.
I think the workload will always seem a bit of a shock if you attended a bog standard state primary where homework was set once per week and then for only about half an hour. That said, my DS gets his homework done in probably 5 hours per week and that usually means he does three hours over the weekend and the other two hours spread from Monday to Thursday. He probably does no homework two nights per week as he still does lots of extra curricular stuff.
My impression is that there is a good cross section of boys staying after school for clubs. The school loves rugby and it really is the dominant sport. The year 7s regularly put out 3 rugby teams which I think is fantastic for a state school. However my DS also has badminton and table tennis clubs after school this week and there is basketball too. Football really is a minor sport and the school only enters teams for a very few fixtures. There is a house football competition though which is taken seriously.
I think the school's website doesn't give a true impression of the extent of the activities available in the school - if you look at the sports pages you would think that the only thing anyone did was play rugby! The music and drama are not highlighted on the website at all and you wouldn't have any indication for example that the school production of romeo and Juliet has just run for 3 nights or that the year 7 choir has just performed at the O2. I actually think the school sells itself short in that respect.
I think the workload will always seem a bit of a shock if you attended a bog standard state primary where homework was set once per week and then for only about half an hour. That said, my DS gets his homework done in probably 5 hours per week and that usually means he does three hours over the weekend and the other two hours spread from Monday to Thursday. He probably does no homework two nights per week as he still does lots of extra curricular stuff.
My impression is that there is a good cross section of boys staying after school for clubs. The school loves rugby and it really is the dominant sport. The year 7s regularly put out 3 rugby teams which I think is fantastic for a state school. However my DS also has badminton and table tennis clubs after school this week and there is basketball too. Football really is a minor sport and the school only enters teams for a very few fixtures. There is a house football competition though which is taken seriously.
I think the school's website doesn't give a true impression of the extent of the activities available in the school - if you look at the sports pages you would think that the only thing anyone did was play rugby! The music and drama are not highlighted on the website at all and you wouldn't have any indication for example that the school production of romeo and Juliet has just run for 3 nights or that the year 7 choir has just performed at the O2. I actually think the school sells itself short in that respect.
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
Many thanks to those current WCGS mums who have given us an insight into the school. I wonder if anyone can tell me what the music department is like? The website mentions termly concerts, is there a thriving orchestra at all? Also , I seem to remember reading on this site previously that they group boys into forms relating to where they live - is this the case?
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
The school were great at grouping the boys according to postcode. This was very important to us as we live a fair distance from the school but DS was put in a class with boys on the same bus route and that's been really useful.
Hopefully someone else will come along with more information about music. There was a concert last term but we didn't go so can't really comment on how good it all was
Hopefully someone else will come along with more information about music. There was a concert last term but we didn't go so can't really comment on how good it all was
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
Many congratulations to those that have gained entry to the school. My DS is in year 10 and I too am very pleased with the school. It is absolutely right for him. The music may not thrive as well as some schools, I have nothing really to compare it with, but the opportunities are certainly there. DS is by no means a musician but has been encouraged to take part and found a great way of relaxing as a result. There are also a number of exceptional talents in his year and the music department seems to do an excellent job of supporting boys whatever level they are at. They do favour Rugby, but the house football competition is tomorrow and football is still very much a part of school life. The induction process was brilliant. Friends with sons who started at the same time as DS warned me that the first term would be difficult as they settled in. It wasn't. The induction process did the job very well indeed. DS loves the school, has made really good friends and is being very well guided.
Re: Wallington Boys Success?
Thanks for your helpful replies! Another question, are boys placed in forms for each house or are the boys in the form assigned to different houses? Just asking as we have a family connection with the school & wondering if we ask for a specific house, will that affect what form my DS is allocated? I note also that they are asking if DS wants to be with his school friends who are also going, would this be affected if we ask for a specific house? Also do the PTA run a second hand uniform sale at all? Found these really handy for spares (to save endless washing of sports kit!) at DS1's school.