We have been for a tour of the Silcoates Junior School (included the Silcoates Senior School) and the Sunny Hill pre school.

The head teacher of the Junior School took us around and answered all of our questions very well.  While it is clearly a much larger school than St Hilda’s, much of the feel of the smaller school is retained and we feel that Elliot would not find himself in a huge class that was too overpowering.  Years 1 and 2 are very much kept together with a specific shared playground for their sole use as well as their being in the same building together for pretty much all classes.  They would then use the remaining school facilities such as Chapel and Sports facilities as the need requires.  There are some prefab buildings that are hidden behind the school that are used for Years 4 and 5 that were meant to be temporary but look to have been there 10 years.  Here’s betting that they will be there another 10 at the very least.

All in all, we left feeling pretty good about the school and were somewhat surprised at this as we half expected to walk out feeling at a loss.

Sunny Hill also gave us an impression of solidity which again was unexpected.  Our main issues were that the school appears (from the road) to look like a bit of a borstal and that it is right on the busy road a problem.  Internally, it was actually way better organised than the St Hilda’s nursery section, and the road does not look like it would pose much of a problem as the school playground is opened up in the morning and in the afternoon for drop off and collection purposes.

As the dust settles on the way in which the news was delivered to the parents at St Hilda’s on Saturday morning and the idiot (Bursar) that was in the St Hilda’s school to take questions on Monday morning (even though he did not really answer anything that he was asked) becomes a distant memory, it seems that we have certainly got a reasonably good plan of action if we decide to stay with the Silcoates School 🙂