Downsend School
Encyclopedia
Downsend School is a private school
located in Leatherhead
, Surrey
, UK. Founded in 1891 as a non-denominational preparatory school
for boys since 1927 aged 8 to 13, it is now a school for boys and girls, and takes on pupils from 6 to 13 years of age. Unusually the school does not have charitable status, being run as a profitable business by Cognita
Limited (chaired by Chris Woodhead
). Downsend's headmaster is Mr Floyd Steadman, previously head of Salcombe Preparatory School
, another School in the Cognita Group. The sports ground is on site. Though the school goes from 6 to 13, there are also 3 lodges which admit children from 2½ to 6. Downsend school costs £3000 - £4000 a term.
, Epsom College
and City of London Freemen's School
.
with multiple changing rooms. There are a total of 6 tennis courts on tarmac surfaces, and a covered area with benches and tables. On 12 May 2007 the local Member of Parliament
, Chris Grayling
, opened the new Astro Turf. The senior, middle and junior schools are all separate but connected. The large, modern junior school has its own hall and library and headmistress or master. This is the same with the middle school and senior school. The school has its own administration offices and science laboratories. Downsend also has several outdoor play areas and a large dining hall/theatre. There are also new design and technology laboratories for woodwork and textiles. There is a viewing gallery above the pool and sports hall. The changing of the "social area" into a new music block above the swimming pool allows more music lessons in more spacious rooms.
, football, cricket
and rounders
pitches available when needed. The tarmac area can also be converted into tennis
courts, netball
pitches, basketball
courts or hockey
(although hockey is generally on the astro) pitches. The sports hall can also be used for basketball
as it has several hoops and pitches. Badminton
can also be played in the hall as can gymnastics
and volleyball
. Inside the hall, there are 4 cricket nets for cricket practice. The swimming pool is perfect for class swimming lessons and is also used by professional teachers. The school has sports teams in soccer, rugby, netball, cricket, rounders, basketball, athletics, swimming
and hockey. These teams compete in inter-school matches as well as school games.
(red), Ranmore
(yellow), Wisley
(blue) and Headley
(green). The houses compete for house points and have house matches in sport music; pupils are not divided into classes by house. In the Senior School pupils compete with not only house points but with credits (+5 house points) and debits (-5 house points) too. The house names were thought up in a competition early in 2000 and there were many ideas submitted including JK Rowling's Harry Potter houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. The winner was the school's music teacher at the time, Trevor Pratt, who suggested naming the houses after local beauty spots.
In earlier times a system of houses existed only in the Senior School (then covering the last three years) with pupils divided between Alpha
, Beta
, Gamma
and Delta
. In addition to form masters in each year, each pupil in the Senior School had a tutor, allocated by house, who would oversee them throughout their three years. The tutorial system was gradually detached from the houses from 1992 onwards.
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
located in Leatherhead
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
, UK. Founded in 1891 as a non-denominational preparatory school
Preparatory school (UK)
In English language usage in the former British Empire, the present-day Commonwealth, a preparatory school is an independent school preparing children up to the age of eleven or thirteen for entry into fee-paying, secondary independent schools, some of which are known as public schools...
for boys since 1927 aged 8 to 13, it is now a school for boys and girls, and takes on pupils from 6 to 13 years of age. Unusually the school does not have charitable status, being run as a profitable business by Cognita
Cognita
Cognita is a private company which owns and operates independent schools throughout the United Kingdom. In addition, Cognita operates a number of international schools in Singapore, Spain, Thailand and Vietnam...
Limited (chaired by Chris Woodhead
Chris Woodhead
Sir Christopher Anthony Woodhead was Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools In England from 1994 until 2000 and is one of the most controversial figures in debates on the direction of English education policy...
). Downsend's headmaster is Mr Floyd Steadman, previously head of Salcombe Preparatory School
Salcombe Preparatory School
Salcombe Preparatory School is a preparatory school located in Southgate, London, UK. The school is currently owned and operated by Cognita. Founded in 1918, Salcombe is a co-educational preparatory day school for children aged between 3 and 11...
, another School in the Cognita Group. The sports ground is on site. Though the school goes from 6 to 13, there are also 3 lodges which admit children from 2½ to 6. Downsend school costs £3000 - £4000 a term.
The school
Downsend is situated at 1 Leatherhead Road, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 8TJ, just outside of Ashtead. Its lodges are in Epsom, Leatherhead and Ashtead, all surrounding the main site. Much of the main school is new and has been recently added. There are roughly 100 students in each year for the main school and then slightly fewer in the Senior School (years 7 and 8) due to some students leaving after the 11+ exam to go to secondary school. The structure of the school is as follows: years 2-4 are the Junior School, headed by Mrs Kirsty Keep. Pupils then automatically ascend into the Middle School (years 5-6), overseen by Mr Adrian Dunning, and then may continue into the Senior School, with Mr James Hine, at the age of 11 for two more years to prepare for 13+ Common Entrance examinations to local schools such as St JohnsSt. John's School, Leatherhead
St. John's School, Leatherhead is a public school in Surrey, England. It has about 420 male pupils and 60 female pupils, and from 2010 it will be fully co-educational....
, Epsom College
Epsom College
Epsom College is an independent co-educational public school in Epsom, Surrey, England, for pupils aged 13 to 18. Founded in 1853 to provide support for poor members of the medical profession such as pensioners and orphans , Epsom's long-standing association with medicine was estimated in 1980 as...
and City of London Freemen's School
City of London Freemen's School
City of London Freemen's School is a coeducational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located at Ashtead Park in Surrey, England. It is the sister school of the City of London School and the City of London School for Girls, which are both independent single-sex schools located within...
.
Facilities
Downsend has a very large site on Leatherhead Road. There is a large sports hall and an adjacent indoor, heated swimming poolSwimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...
with multiple changing rooms. There are a total of 6 tennis courts on tarmac surfaces, and a covered area with benches and tables. On 12 May 2007 the local Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, Chris Grayling
Chris Grayling
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Grayling, PC, MP , is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Shadow Cabinet from 2005 to 2010 and was the party's Shadow Home Secretary from 2009 to 2010. Following the 2010 general election, he was appointed a Minister of State in the...
, opened the new Astro Turf. The senior, middle and junior schools are all separate but connected. The large, modern junior school has its own hall and library and headmistress or master. This is the same with the middle school and senior school. The school has its own administration offices and science laboratories. Downsend also has several outdoor play areas and a large dining hall/theatre. There are also new design and technology laboratories for woodwork and textiles. There is a viewing gallery above the pool and sports hall. The changing of the "social area" into a new music block above the swimming pool allows more music lessons in more spacious rooms.
Sport
Downsend has very large grass playing fields and a recently added astro-turf located on site. The school has several rugbyRugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
, football, cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
and rounders
Rounders
Rounders is a game played between two teams of either gender. The game originated in England where it was played in Tudor times. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a round wooden, plastic or metal bat. The players score by...
pitches available when needed. The tarmac area can also be converted into tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
courts, netball
Netball
Netball is a ball sport played between two teams of seven players. Its development, derived from early versions of basketball, began in England in the 1890s. By 1960 international playing rules had been standardised for the game, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball ...
pitches, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
courts or hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
(although hockey is generally on the astro) pitches. The sports hall can also be used for basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
as it has several hoops and pitches. Badminton
Badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
can also be played in the hall as can gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
and volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
. Inside the hall, there are 4 cricket nets for cricket practice. The swimming pool is perfect for class swimming lessons and is also used by professional teachers. The school has sports teams in soccer, rugby, netball, cricket, rounders, basketball, athletics, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
and hockey. These teams compete in inter-school matches as well as school games.
Houses
House events play an important part in school life at Downsend, the students are randomly split up into four houses(although siblings are in the same house): NorburyNorbury Park
Norbury Park is a swathe of land arranged around a small manor house near Leatherhead and Dorking, Surrey, which appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. The manor was also known as Northbury for some time....
(red), Ranmore
Ranmore Common
Ranmore Common is a village and an area of wooded common land on the North Downs, to the northwest of Dorking in the English county of Surrey. It is located within the civil parish of Wotton and is also within the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
(yellow), Wisley
Wisley
Wisley is a small village in Surrey, England. It lies between Cobham and Woking. It is the home of the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley Garden. The River Wey runs through the village....
(blue) and Headley
Headley, Surrey
Headley is a small village and civil parish in Surrey, England covering 675 hectares.The village is bordered to its west by Leatherhead, to the north by Ashtead and Langley Vale, Walton-on-the-Hill to the east and to its south by Box Hill. It is just outside the M25 motorway encircling...
(green). The houses compete for house points and have house matches in sport music; pupils are not divided into classes by house. In the Senior School pupils compete with not only house points but with credits (+5 house points) and debits (-5 house points) too. The house names were thought up in a competition early in 2000 and there were many ideas submitted including JK Rowling's Harry Potter houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. The winner was the school's music teacher at the time, Trevor Pratt, who suggested naming the houses after local beauty spots.
In earlier times a system of houses existed only in the Senior School (then covering the last three years) with pupils divided between Alpha
Alpha
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Alpha or ALPHA may also refer to:-Science:*Alpha , the highest ranking individuals in a community of social animals...
, Beta
Beta (letter)
Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative ....
, Gamma
Gamma
Gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Gimel . Letters that arose from Gamma include the Roman C and G and the Cyrillic letters Ge Г and Ghe Ґ.-Greek:In Ancient Greek, gamma represented a...
and Delta
Delta (letter)
Delta is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 4. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Dalet...
. In addition to form masters in each year, each pupil in the Senior School had a tutor, allocated by house, who would oversee them throughout their three years. The tutorial system was gradually detached from the houses from 1992 onwards.