11 Plus Exams Forum

Hello, new to the site, but wanted to post this message.

Younger son and family went along to the first Open Day at KEFW's this Friday. My son couldn't believe how BIGGG the school was and so vast. My wife and I couldn't believe how many people had turned up and the grass area for parking was FULL. If this is the turn out for this school and mulitply by 5, at least 7 to 8 thousand children will be applying (?).

The Head Master's speech was brilliant, very inspiring.

Did anyone else go along?

Thanks in Advance

Hi Stressdaddy

My son is at KE 5-Ways in year 10 and all of the pupils were given a 3-line whip to attend one or both of the open days and show parents and children around.

I think the general view was that there were a greater number of prospective children and parents attending the open days this year although historically it has always been a busy evening.

The statistics for entry for the respective KE grammars are published on the KE Foundation site in the Governors Annual report for the previous year. The numbers applying have been increasing slightly but not dramatically - the pass percentile is round about the 80th to 86th percentile (the latter usually being for KE Camp Hill Boys) - i.e. about 14% of the entry are successful and 86% unsuccessful.

Ah the headmaster's speeches - these are world famous - he does give a good talk but after a while they do get a bit predictable and long!!

Hi Stressdaddy

I too went to KEFW and really liked the school.

However my only issue is that it may be a bit too far - we too live in Solihull and the Green bus is timetabled to take 52 mins, so I guess approx an hour and that seems like a long time - 2 hours altogether per day travelling. So I may end up putting Camp Hill 1st choice (even though my son prefers 5 ways)

I have a bit of a crush on Mr Wheeldon, he swishes his cape in a very masterful manner

We were there on friday, showing son number 1 around and collecting daughter number 1 who was a guide. I think you'll find that you will see most of friday nights crowd at all the other KE open evenings.

I feel like making some sort of 'on tour' T-shirt actually to keep track of where I've gone and which school I'm going to look at next!

I've only seen him once at last year's Friday night and I have to say I didn't notice anything special! We suffer from being used to a most awesomely entertaining primary head (according to some of the weak-at-the-knees mothers, also stunningly charismatic ) so all the heads we saw last year were dismally insipid and uninspiring in comparison. The only exceptions were John Claughton at KES and the head of Ken's local comp, who was probably the best of the lot.

Mike

I'm afraid his appeal was lost on me, too. In fact, I used to spend parents' evenings doing my uttermost to avoid one of his turgid speeches.

But it really is 'in the eye of the beholder' because one of my parents thought he was inspirational and another dull as ditchwater, and they both attended the same speech.

Very much a subjective opinion this, although I don't think anyone can deny he has improved the academic results at the top end of students. I remember there being 3 in my daughter's year who scored a full set of A*'s and similar the year after. This year there were about 12 and I am fairly sure he has been in charge since they started.

mike1880 wrote:We suffer from being used to a most awesomely entertaining primary head (according to some of the weak-at-the-knees mothers, also stunningly charismatic )

You must give me a clue as to which school this is for my *ahem* research purposes

But if he doesn't wear a 'cloak' then he'll never quite match up to MrW!

In all seriousness though, MrW is a very 'solid' guy. You get a lot of HT's who can talk the talk, and are probably good business managers, but aren't really 'present' in the minds of the pupils and often have the charisma of a lettuce.

We didnt go to 5 WAys just because of the distance travelling. The same will apply for Camp Hill. We went to Aston this morning and were impressed.

Our son preferred it to out of the others w have been to- Bishop Vesey and Queen Mary's, so Think we now be our first choice.

Has anyone else been to Aston and what do you think?

Sorry, meant Aston will be our first choice!

Hi Linda,

We went to Aston last year and were really taken with the art studio... quite new addition, I believe. Didn't think the head was very charismatic and preferred the deputy who adressed the boys directly and I felt made a bigger impact. The boys showing us round were very natural and helpful. My son has put it first largely because of its proximity to home! I'm happy for him to attend any grammar... we went to BV last week and son and I both liked that. His dad took him to Handsworth today and son loved it there. Said the head was really friendly and they did fun stuff in the maths dept.
I've said before on this site we are truly fortunate in Birmingham to have the choice of so many good selective schools. I'll be overjoyed if he gets any of his choices.