Stover School

Stover School My daughter arrived very unhappy from another school and spent two years at Stover as a weekly boarder. She ABSOLUTELY LOVED it. It was the happiest place, safe, fun and she did well in her GCSE’s. I can’t thank this school enough and only regret that we put off moving her for as long as we did. Can’t recommend it enough

Both my boys have attended here, one in the primary school and one in the secondary school. They had starkly different experiences. The good: My son in the senior school was a little odd and Stover helped him enormously and he had fabulous results (he would have got them anywhere) and Stover helped him enormously with his social skills. The head teacher, Mr Notman, can take personal umbridge if he does not like what you say and can become very defensive and rude. If you ask for a freedom of information on school files he leaves out defensive emails from himself and will happily lie to the governors. He is not an honest broker more of a salesman who is very poor at aftersales, in my opinion. He tried to turn my son having an argument with his girlfriend in to a child protection issue and also pulled other teenagers out of mocks to discipline them. The bad: the jusior school admitted after year 2 that a group of children, including my son, had been left two months behind. He was bullied and behaved badly as a result. He was banned from playing football by another student, the school did nothing. This was not totally evident until we moved him and he is now a totally different child. He says he used to find the lessons boring and that teachers did not make him feel safe. In my opinion the school had become incredibly poor whilst trying to grow far too quickly and the teachers are just not inspiring. The sport is poor and the sports teachers inappropriately qualified. The science teaching is totally lacking in the expertise the new school show and quite poor. The reading teaching was very poor (I had to point out that all their book levels were labelled incorrectly). The education here is no better than in your average state primary but the kids have more support at home. The school kept telling me my son was very bright yet he wasn't even where expected after 4 years at the school. One year on, including online teaching from the new school and he it at expected in everything and you can tell from looking at his books. He is growing in confidence, is part of the sports teams and has healthy relationships. In conclusion, I would never put any child I cared about at Stover Primary School. I would check very carefully that your child would suit the senior school.