Copthorne to 16

Copthorne’s ethos is to Develop Confidence – Provide Opportunity – Realise Potential and this will remain at the heart of all we do.

No. Children in Year 6 at Copthorne will have a guaranteed place if they are making continued progress.

Copthorne would continue to prepare children to move on at 11+ or 13+ to any school parents select, and we would continue to run 11+ preparation classes/support, Atom Learning, conduct interview practice as we currently do. Reigate, Caterham, Lingfield, Ardingly, Hurst, Worth all have 11+ and 13+ intakes, and all value Copthorne children.

Moving forwards, we hope that the vast majority of Copthorne children in Year 7, (whether moving through from our Year 6, or joining from outside) will be assumed to be staying until Year 11 for GCSE’s.

Yes. Copthorne will still prepare children for 13+ scholarships/entry to other Senior Schools. However, moving forward, we hope that the vast majority of children at Copthorne in Year 7 will remain here for GCSEs.

Yes. Scholarships will be offered to both internal and external candidates at 11+ and, subject to certain criteria, these will remain with the child until the end of Year 11. Academic, art, music, sport, drama and all-rounder scholarships will be available. Assessments for the first scholarships in our Senior School will take place on 17 May 2021.

Children in receipt of a scholarship are eligible to apply for a means tested bursary. Up to 100% bursaries may be available depending on individual circumstances.

We are aiming to continue our model of two form entry, with class sizes of no more than 20 into the Senior School. This will ensure that the school is small enough that everyone is well known, and large enough to create good opportunities for pupils to socialise and make friends.

We are working with educational architects on an ambitious plan to develop the site over the next 10 years. Our aim is to provide facilities to match a growing school, and these will be phased in over time.

The first of these developments is a new full sized and floodlit all-weather pitch, which will be ready for use by September 2021. We look forward to providing further updates as soon as we have them agreed.

An important part of our vision for Copthorne Senior School is to make it accessible to as many local families as possible. We understand that affordability is a key consideration for parents and have therefore taken the decision to keep fees for Years 9-11 at the same rate as we currently charge for Years 5-8.

We will continue to offer flexi as well as full time boarding if the demand remains high. 

The same extended day will be available for all children – i.e. 7.30am to 6pm. We can extend this even further for families by prior arrangement.

We will continue to offer bus routes in line with demand, which may well extend to new routes. Families will be consulted on this in the Summer Term.

Copthorne Senior School will offer a varied and dynamic curriculum, incorporating the study of academic subjects, music and the arts, sports and fitness, enterprise, careers insight and guidance, expeditions and personal challenge. We expect that pupils will typically study six core GCSE subjects and then select from an interesting range of optional subjects to complete their full GCSE portfolio.

The Senior School will be in our New Block, giving pupils their own dedicated area of the school. Nursery and Pre-Prep will stay in their current buildings and Years 3 to 6 will move to the Main Building to be class teacher taught, with specialist subjects being taught in specific Key Stage 2 classrooms in the New Block.

Most of our Heads of Department are secondary teacher trained and have experience of teaching up to GCSE level, which means we are well-prepared to make the move to 16. As the school grows, there will also be the need to recruit additional teaching staff to ensure we can offer the widest possible choice of subjects at GCSE.

We will offer our Senior School places through a combination of formal assessment, interviews and group work, with an emphasis on the potential of the whole child.

We already offer a wide range of extracurricular activities, including the Duke of Edinburgh Award, and these will continue to be developed as we grow the school to children into Year 11.

Sport – fixtures for senior pupils will be arranged against local schools of similar size/ability. We are fortunate to have a wide range of sporting facilities on site (with a new floodlit, all-weather pitch opening in September 2021) which will allow us to develop a wider range of sporting activities, that are not necessarily competitive team games. We expect this to include fencing, badminton, table tennis, climbing/abseiling, orienteering, swimming, tennis, athletics and keep fit, amongst others.

Music – working towards ABRSM music grades will be encouraged and our orchestra, choirs and ensembles will continue. All children, whether studying GCSE Music or not, will be encouraged to get involved in musical activities at the school to perform in front of their peers, parents and wider audiences.

Art – as well as Art GCSE on the timetable, there will also be opportunities for keen artists to enjoy art as an after school activity.

Drama – we will encourage drama at every level and school productions will be open to all. Previous productions have included The Lion King, Aladdin and Bugsy Malone. LAMDA Speech and Drama lessons will continue.

Chess – Copthorne has an impressive reputation within Sussex and beyond for producing talented young chess players and competitive chess teams who play regularly in competitions. Chess will continue to be an important feature of the Senior School.

There are lots of good opportunities for post-16 education in the area. The excellent all-round education and good set of GCSEs that we expect pupils to achieve at Copthorne will prepare them well for whatever choice they wish to make for post-16 studies.

Yes, it is, and we are confident that we have everything in place to gain DfE approval following our ISI inspection in the academic year 2021/22.