Senior School Admissions How to apply to Clayesmore
How to apply to Clayesmore
There are several stages to this, and the speed at which you pass through them depends almost entirely upon how far ahead you are planning.
The first step is almost certainly to contact us and order a prospectus .
Assuming that you continue to like what you see, you might then like to attend an Open Day if there is one coming up, or arrange for a personal meeting with the Headmaster, Martin Cooke. Meeting new parents and pupils is one of the Headmaster’s principal roles and he does it several times a day, most days of the week so don’t feel you are doing anything unusual. A first visit to Clayesmore usually involves meeting Mr Cooke for half an hour or so and seeing around the school with two pupils. The length of a visit will vary – it is difficult to see Clayesmore in less than an hour so it would be best to allow at least 1½ hours. Your visit will take longer this if you need to see both boys’ and girls’ areas and/or if you also need to see the Prep School. Again, this is everyday life for us and the registrar will discuss your visit with you when you call her.
It is entirely up to parents whether they bring their children on their first visit. If you decide to come on your own the first time, which is a perfectly reasonable approach, you can easily book a second visit so that the Headmaster can meet your son or daughter.
If you pay your first visit to Clayesmore a number of years in advance, it would be quite normal for you to want to visit a number of times before your son or daughter is due to start.
Once you have decided that Clayesmore is the school for your child, you will need to fill in a registration form and to send it to us with a registration fee of £100. Once this is done you will be on board as a member of the Clayesmore family!
How far in advance should you visit? At the present time, places in year 9 seem to be more or less taken a year in advance of entry. That doesn’t mean that places don’t come free after that time but it is a sensible rule of thumb for the registration process to be completed whilst a child is in year 6 or year 7 at their current school. Some prep schools will urge you to visit very early – in year 4, for example. This is fine, but it is often very difficult for parents to visualise their little 8 or 9 year old who may have just started at prep school, in the much more grown up world of a senior school. It’s all a matter of balance.
Four terms or so before your child is due to start at Clayesmore we will ask you to secure and confirm his or her place by paying a deposit of £700. We would hope that, by this stage, the final choice of school has been made and that parents are firm in their intentions to proceed. The deposit is returned against your final Clayesmore bill.
The main entry point into the Senior School is at age 13 into year 9 and then age 16 into year 12, which is the first year of Sixth Form. There are also some admissions into year 10.