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Oakwood Grammer School, Maidstone

Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 6:35 pm
by pheasantchick
Went to their open evening last night and was more impresed than I expected to be. I'm not sure about thier enrichment days though. I liked the idea of them, but once every two weeks sounded a little too frequent.

The lad who was showing us around was very polite and informative, and all the boys seemed fairly smart (in appearence, that is). The school seemd to have a good sporting record.

What do other parents think about this school - likes and dislikes? Its difficult to guage a school after one visit.

(PS Doesn't it take along time to look around a school. We were there for over two hours!)

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:44 am
by MasterChief
Also went last night. An awful lot to see in 4 hours especially with children becoming tired and hungry towards the end.
The boys who showed us around were very well spoken ,informed and informative. All the pupils and staff were enthusiastic and made themselves available to answer questions. The work on show was of a good standard and access to books and IT equipment was apparent. The IT suites were well equiped and most of the departments had set out to impress and succeeded.
The enrichment days did sound impressive (if a little too frequent) and the school trips and sporting opportunities also sounded interesting.
My only real concerns were the condition of the fabric of the buildings and the age of some of the equipment in the science labs. Also the video presentation did not (to my mind) really tell you very much and had a number of unattributed quotes regarding the experience of attending the school.
I got the impression of a school which achieves its results inspite of its facilities rather than because of them and the overall impression was slightly disjointed due to the sprawling site

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 11:27 am
by dinah
I have read their last inspection report which was very good . The report was very enthusiastic about the pastoral care of the boys. It describes how all the boys are treated as individuals and are really well looked after. There is a lot to be said for a school that has a high regard for how its pupils behave and look after each other. I don't have any particular interest in the school except that my sister is considering it.I don't know anyone who oes there or works there or anything. It just impressed me that the inspectors' report clearly thought it was a happy and caring school.

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 2:07 pm
by pheasantchick
Thanks for the replies.

I haven't read the report yet, but I'm glad that its good.

I agree with you about the talk. I felt that overall it was a good presentation. However, it lacked detail. For instance, I don't remember at any point that academic learning was actually mentioned. ie. They talked about pastoral care (obviously a strong-point), external activities (sport, drama etc), day-trips etc. I know that in the handbook there was the exam statistics, but I felt it should have mentioned in the talk, or at least referred to.

Also, there was no mention of what the boys did after school. ie. ie. how successful were the boys in getting into uni, jobs, etc. I felt the tone of the presentation mentioned all the glossy bits, but not much of the nuts and bolts of education.