KE VI Five Ways Info wanted
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KenR
KE VI Five Ways Info wanted
I would be interested hear from other parents their views on King Edward VI Five Ways, particularly any parents who have children there already.
My son took the KE exams but was a couple of marks short of a place at KE Camp Hill Boys (his 1st choice). He has been offered a place a KE Five Ways.
As a result of this only being our 2nd choice we haven't actually visited the school on one of the open days.
Any help and advise would be greatly appreciate, particularly about:-
Is it a friendly school?
Is it easy for children to make new friends (I don't think there are any children going to the school from my son's current school)
Is it very competitive
How do children cope with a 30 min bus journey (Camp Hill was much closer for us)
etc etc
Our other option is to take up a place a KES (Independent School)
Thanks
Ken
My son took the KE exams but was a couple of marks short of a place at KE Camp Hill Boys (his 1st choice). He has been offered a place a KE Five Ways.
As a result of this only being our 2nd choice we haven't actually visited the school on one of the open days.
Any help and advise would be greatly appreciate, particularly about:-
Is it a friendly school?
Is it easy for children to make new friends (I don't think there are any children going to the school from my son's current school)
Is it very competitive
How do children cope with a 30 min bus journey (Camp Hill was much closer for us)
etc etc
Our other option is to take up a place a KES (Independent School)
Thanks
Ken
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Guest
Ken
We put five ways as our second choice too, but we did go to visit it a couple of times on the open days. It is a long way, but they have a bus which I believe goes from the Maypole - from what you have posted before I am guessing you live round Hollywood/Wythall way? I think the bus is expensive (around £360 pa), but it is very fast, in fact, I don't know how they get up to the Maypole so quickly.
Many people would give their right arm to get their children into Five Ways, so your son has done well. I also know that many people choose Five Ways over Camp Hill because it is mixed and they want the balance that it gives. I know about five families whose children go to Five Ways and they are all very happy with it.
The facilities at the school are top notch. The sports facilities are very good - large playing fields, climbing wall in the large gym. It struck me as quite traditional, but if my daughter hadn't have got into Camp Hill, I would definitely have sent her to Five Ways. The music provision seems on a par with all the other KE schools. Oh, and they do a Geology GCSE which my daughter liked the sound of - I think they had some sort of a rock collection (I remember something, but I looked at a lot of schools). The headmaster struck me as strange because he wore a gown when he delivered his speech which started with something like - I know that the majority of your children will not get into this school, but . . . Make of that what you will!
It is your decision, but a friend of ours sent his son to KES after he had been at KE Aston for some time. He said that KES was exactly like KE Aston, except that you had to pay!! This was a few years ago now, but was a comment that he passed on to us.
I have had another child at Camp Hill for some time now and am very pleased that my daughter got in too, but I wouldn't have hesitated to send her to Five Ways. She too got into KEHS, by the way, but I still think I would have sent her to Five Ways before she would have gone to KEHS, mainly because of the narrowness of the curriculum there.
Hope this helps - it is just my subjective opinion. Hopefully there is someone reading who has first hand knowledge of the school and can give you more advice.
Well done to your son.
We put five ways as our second choice too, but we did go to visit it a couple of times on the open days. It is a long way, but they have a bus which I believe goes from the Maypole - from what you have posted before I am guessing you live round Hollywood/Wythall way? I think the bus is expensive (around £360 pa), but it is very fast, in fact, I don't know how they get up to the Maypole so quickly.
Many people would give their right arm to get their children into Five Ways, so your son has done well. I also know that many people choose Five Ways over Camp Hill because it is mixed and they want the balance that it gives. I know about five families whose children go to Five Ways and they are all very happy with it.
The facilities at the school are top notch. The sports facilities are very good - large playing fields, climbing wall in the large gym. It struck me as quite traditional, but if my daughter hadn't have got into Camp Hill, I would definitely have sent her to Five Ways. The music provision seems on a par with all the other KE schools. Oh, and they do a Geology GCSE which my daughter liked the sound of - I think they had some sort of a rock collection (I remember something, but I looked at a lot of schools). The headmaster struck me as strange because he wore a gown when he delivered his speech which started with something like - I know that the majority of your children will not get into this school, but . . . Make of that what you will!
It is your decision, but a friend of ours sent his son to KES after he had been at KE Aston for some time. He said that KES was exactly like KE Aston, except that you had to pay!! This was a few years ago now, but was a comment that he passed on to us.
I have had another child at Camp Hill for some time now and am very pleased that my daughter got in too, but I wouldn't have hesitated to send her to Five Ways. She too got into KEHS, by the way, but I still think I would have sent her to Five Ways before she would have gone to KEHS, mainly because of the narrowness of the curriculum there.
Hope this helps - it is just my subjective opinion. Hopefully there is someone reading who has first hand knowledge of the school and can give you more advice.
Well done to your son.
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KenR
KE Five Ways
Guest,
Many thanks for this information. This has been a great help.
Yes we do live in Hollywood/Wythall.
This has been a real rollercoaster of a ride this week.
We were elated prior to this week as my son had offers of Scholarships (not full) at both KES and Solihull scoring very highly in both exams. His headmaster was confident that he would sail through to KE Camp Hill Boys but I guess he must have a had a bit of an off day. He's normally very confident with exams but the Foundation Exam at Camp Hill Boys was very stressful - we were queuing for about 45 mins in the hall before he was taken to the exam room and I think this took its toll.
I managed to get the result on Wed from Worcs LEA as we applied online and we were resigned to accepting either KES or Solihull (probably KES as my daughter is at KEHS). We just felt the travel logistics for Five Ways were going to rule this out as a viable option. Early retirement was clearly not now going to be on!
What was frustrating was that I found out from the KE foundation that he had only missed the Camp Hill exam by 2 points - 341 was the pass and he got 339. However even though he was only 2 points out it, the chance of getting through via the waiting list seemed fairly slim. He was some way down the list and they had over allocated in terms of offers. Also what was frustrating was that the pass mark for Camp Hill boys was so much higher than the other KE Schools - I guess because the Camp Hill Boys entry has an entry of only 93.
When the LEA letter and the KE Five Ways letters arrived on Friday 3rd I was really surprised to find there was a School bus from Hockley Heath that goes past the Maypole with a 30 min journey. So Five Ways was potentially viable after all.
I had also heard as you had that a number of parents do put Five Ways down as their 1st choice ahead of Camp Hill Boys; probably for the reasons you stated. I think we are now quite happy with this as a school - this could work out very well. I'm going to try to get a meeting this week if possible at the school just to confirm our view.
Congratulations to your daugther on getting into Camp Hill Girls. We have some friends in Solihull whose daughter has also been successful in getting through to that school. It's a very good school. I'm sure she will be very happy there.
Thanks for your help
Ken
Many thanks for this information. This has been a great help.
Yes we do live in Hollywood/Wythall.
This has been a real rollercoaster of a ride this week.
We were elated prior to this week as my son had offers of Scholarships (not full) at both KES and Solihull scoring very highly in both exams. His headmaster was confident that he would sail through to KE Camp Hill Boys but I guess he must have a had a bit of an off day. He's normally very confident with exams but the Foundation Exam at Camp Hill Boys was very stressful - we were queuing for about 45 mins in the hall before he was taken to the exam room and I think this took its toll.
I managed to get the result on Wed from Worcs LEA as we applied online and we were resigned to accepting either KES or Solihull (probably KES as my daughter is at KEHS). We just felt the travel logistics for Five Ways were going to rule this out as a viable option. Early retirement was clearly not now going to be on!
What was frustrating was that I found out from the KE foundation that he had only missed the Camp Hill exam by 2 points - 341 was the pass and he got 339. However even though he was only 2 points out it, the chance of getting through via the waiting list seemed fairly slim. He was some way down the list and they had over allocated in terms of offers. Also what was frustrating was that the pass mark for Camp Hill boys was so much higher than the other KE Schools - I guess because the Camp Hill Boys entry has an entry of only 93.
When the LEA letter and the KE Five Ways letters arrived on Friday 3rd I was really surprised to find there was a School bus from Hockley Heath that goes past the Maypole with a 30 min journey. So Five Ways was potentially viable after all.
I had also heard as you had that a number of parents do put Five Ways down as their 1st choice ahead of Camp Hill Boys; probably for the reasons you stated. I think we are now quite happy with this as a school - this could work out very well. I'm going to try to get a meeting this week if possible at the school just to confirm our view.
Congratulations to your daugther on getting into Camp Hill Girls. We have some friends in Solihull whose daughter has also been successful in getting through to that school. It's a very good school. I'm sure she will be very happy there.
Thanks for your help
Ken
