Academic level for entry at 11

[CHDad]

I agree, if you like the ethos of C.H and your child is resonably bright (a term used by the Headmaster on open day) then go for it. My son failed his entrance exam for another school nearby which "on paper" we expected him to pass easily. I honestly thought that C.H would be too difficult for him to get in to. However I am convinced that having got passed the first exam the school looked at every aspect of his personality and picked him because he was right for the school. It is a very fair selection process and so much more thorough than most other schools. If you don't give it a try you will never know! I told my son that we would give it a try and leave it to fate - he got in, started a week ago and so far I couldn't be more pleased with the feedback I am getting from my Son, he is loving it! Go for it........

[Great Plum]

I think if the child gets to the residential exam in January, then a lot is based on the interview that they have with a member of staff. The way they come across with their peers is also looked at - I remember when I was a current pupil and helped out with the entrance exams, we were asked about the boys and how they fitted in and their personalities etc...

[onewestguncopse]

In answer to the early point, at the moment i think day places are on top of boarding places. May be wrong and presumably that may change if demand exceeds supply? It is such a new thing that we wait and see - a bit like the IB. I am very very pro IB but will not bore you why!

[Great Plum]

I guess that day pupils won't take up 'room' in the boarding houses but they will increase class sizes unless there is an increase in teaching staff and long term classroom building (or at least the demise of 'Grange Hill' behind the Art School. However, in the current climate, it's unlikely that there will be an increase in staff so surely there will just be larger class sizes...

[onewestguncopse]

or a reduction in boarders!! Who knows - my guess is that they will do whatever raises the most money in the short term and then reign back when the economy is booming again (unlikely for the next few years sadly!)

[wurzel]

no real reason to drop boarding numbers as it will save little.

They are likely already tied into food contracts for a few years and that is a drop in the ocean anyway. Heating lighting etc are the same if a boarding house has 40 or 50 pupils (in fact more pupils means less heating), the economies of scale are such that unless you could mothball an entire block (or make it a day pupils block) then i see little monetary gain from shrinking boarding. You would still need the same number of matrons, sicker staff, cleaners, estate staff etc.

I agree on the class sizes part - in many ways that is what is so unusual about CH. But a large number of the children are coming from a background of large state primaries, my son for example has 32 in his primary class. CH I doubt there are more than 20-24 in any class. Definitely when i was there 95 boys started and we had 5 maths sets and 5 english forms so that must have been <20 in each class. even with the increase due to Girls + 16 day pupils (the max of 1 per house) they will still be in smaller classes than state sector.

Also the biggest single difference is that by and large all pupils at CH are there to learn rather than marking time - therefore the whole atmosphere of learning is vastly more effective than elsewhere. I would rather my son was in a class of 30 pupils wanting to learn than 10 where 3 were disruptive. I am sure teachers must have the same thoughts. If anything the teaching staff will be who suffer more - marking/preparing more work per class.

[englishangel]

or a reduction in boarders!! Who knows - my guess is that they will do whatever raises the most money in the short term and then reign back when the economy is booming again (unlikely for the next few years sadly!)

Not a teacher of English then

[englishangel]

This class size thing quite amuses me, it's nothing new. When I was at primary school there were 44 of us in my class and I am sure my siblings (2, 7 and 8 years younger) had the same.

[sejintenej]

This class size thing quite amuses me, it's nothing new. When I was at primary school there were 44 of us in my class and I am sure my siblings (2, 7 and 8 years younger) had the same.

My primary school was a bit smaller and with one staff member - 20 at a guess so just one class ranging from 5 years old to 11.

[wurzel]

Mine was Slindfold CofE primary - <80 pupils aged
between 4 & 11 split into 3 or 4 classes (they dropped a class when it shrunk below 75 pupils).

So CH was a huge scary place for me pupil wise. Each house was almost the size of my primary. For my entire stay Mr Wright called me Ian S as that is what I had written on the front of my maths book in my first maths lesson - we never used surnames at Slindfold.

[Vonny]

There were 7 of us in our class at primary school! And my year was one of the largest!

[Volupturaptor]

Regarding presentations...

My daughter has one, despite me not even having written a letter to a governor.
We received the list, but as previously said, they all seemed to be quite specific about what they were looking for and nothing fitted my daughter, so I didn't write a letter, deciding that if it was meant to be, she would get in anyway, on her own merits.
I received a phone call from the school however, asking why I hadn't written, and was told that there was in fact a governor looking for someone like my daughter, who had declined to appear on the list and would it be ok to forward her details to the governor concerned. In the meantime, would I please write a letter. I said I would, but with one thing and another, I never did get round to it before hearing from the governor himself. To cut a long story short, he chose to give his presentation to my daughter, and we of course are thrilled about it, as although of course she is a very clever girl, whether she is clever enough to have won a place competitively I do not know, and now I don't need to find out. We are pretty sure she is well up to meeting the minimum standard though.

So aside from just boasting, my point is that it is worth writing to a governor, even if it doesn't seem that anyone on the list is looking for a child like yours, as you never who who else is not on the list.

[kittykat]

Thanks all for your help and suggestions with the application process. Just getting back to completing the form this afternoon... hopefully I'll have it in the post in the next few days! After they've received the form how long do you think until I hear again from CH?

[wurzel]

i think you get an acknowledgement pretty fast to say "yes we have it and are dealing with it"

[kittykat]

I finally posted off the admissions form to CH on Tuesday. I received an ackowledgement postcard by return of post today. That was super quick!