11 Plus Exams Forum

Hello,

Does anyone have any experience of the Richard Pate prep school in Cheltenham? We don't yet live in the area, so I know nothing of its reputation, but I wondered if it might be a good fallback if we can't get our DC into the local state junior schools (as we'll be applying outside of the usual application times and probably mid-year)? Is it nuturing? Do many of the DC who go there get into the Gloucestershire Grammar schools?

Any experience of the school would be really appreciated.

I'm replying to what you didn't ask, rather than what you did...

You can, of course, always appeal for a place at the local primaries. It's not unheard of to win them and KS2 is significantly easier to win than KS1 (as the KS1 class size rule doesn't apply). I would say around 1 in 3 appeals are successful in Glos for primaries, but that includes the appeals for a place in Reception when the allocations first go out (almost impossible to win - but still occassionally possible). For instance, in July I heard 8 primary appeals on one day and none were upheld, yet recently heard 4 and 3 were upheld.

It depends very much on the school you're looking at, what their classroom physical sizes are (along with extra break out spaces), churn rate at the school, spaces in surrounding schools and accessability, circumstances of the family, the members of the panel hearing the appeal (each one is different) - and a whole host of other things. It doesn't depend on the ability of your child, nor does it depend on the size of any waiting list...

I would say it's worth trying - you might save the school fees!

Richard Pate school like Marmite...view responses accordingly.
In answer to the second part of your question: yes, they do.

Hi Ginnie

I have PM'd you.

PG

Thanks to everyone for their replies.

Capers123: thank you for laying out the detail of an appeal. We haven't ruled out any school options yet; I'm really just trying to establish what those options are, so that I'm in control of some part of this whole relocation process!

Trying to pm you.

Hi Fairweathergardener, I'm afraid I haven't received your PM?

Have you got it yet?

Hi, I've just replied!