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King's College (Taunton) A GSG School

What says..

It’s fair to say that it still feels and looks quite traditional, with conventional uniform with designer tweed jackets and blue shirts, and neatness being identified as a virtue. The dining hall boasts not ancestral coats of arms, but sporting achievements painted on shields all over the walls. Make no mistake, this is a sporty school. Masses going on, and no exeat weekends mean a full programme of fixtures against other titans of the west country. We thoroughly applaud girls’ football, cricket and hockey being promoted and resourced as well as the boys’ games...

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What the school says...

King's College, Taunton is a leading co-educational independent boarding and day school situated in the heart of the West Country. It offers a holistic education, strong on values of scholarship and community, together with all-round, world class provision in sport and the arts.
The school has a strong boarding ethos, creating a home from home environment for pupils. Weekends are busy and purposeful, with lessons and sport on Saturdays, and activities and trips often taking place on Sundays. Boarders and day pupils live and study side-by-side. Friendships developed are often extraordinarily long-lived. Boarders come from far and wide. Many are local. A few live closer to the school than some of their day pupil friends. Others come from the south west of England; others from further afield in the UK and some from overseas. This makes for a varied and vibrant community within the houses.

Facilities include a double all-weather hockey pitch, new tennis and netball courts, a well-equipped cookery school and a purpose-built library, Business Studies, IT and Sixth Form careers centre. In the summer of 2014, a newly constructed amphitheatre was opened which is used for dramas, open air concerts and assemblies. The latest addition is a new art studio to complement the existing art facilities.

The school's achievements include BBC Song's of Praise School Choir of the Year; Wisden's most successful school cricket team in 2009 and runners up in 2010; Jos Buttler presently playing cricket for England; U16 girls' Hockey County Champions; Olympic gold medalist Maddie Hinch is a former pupil; winners of the Good Schools Guide best A level DT department award and four Arkwright Scholarships in the past four years, including the Royce Award; winners of the coveted Sir Steuart Pringle Marine Cadet Trophy in 2009, 2010 and 2011, runners up in 2015 and winners again in 2016.. ...Read more

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What The Good Schools Guide says

Headmaster

Since 2007, Mr Richard Biggs (early 50s) BSc MA, a product both of the UK’s and South Africa’s finest: his first degree (physics) from University of Cape Town, his masters (maths and philosophy) from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Some barely discernible vowels hint at his upbringing in South Africa; his subsequent career has been entirely in the UK, at Magdalen College School as teacher of maths and physics then director of studies, from where he was promoted to deputy head at Lancing, thence to King's. Now into his eighth year of headship, he can look back with justifiable satisfaction at his achievements since he started, mainly an increase in numbers and improvements to facilities. ‘We can really concentrate on academics now, without being over-selective – the market in this part of the world...

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Please note: Independent schools frequently offer IGCSEs or other qualifications alongside or as an alternative to GCSE. The DfE does not record performance data for these exams so independent school GCSE data is frequently misleading; parents should check the results with the schools.

Who came from where

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Special Education Needs

Condition Provision for in school
ASD - Autistic Spectrum Disorder
Aspergers Y
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders Y
CReSTeD registered for Dyslexia
Dyscalculia
Dysgraphia
Dyslexia
Dyspraxia
English as an additional language (EAL)
Genetic
Has an entry in the Autism Services Directory
Has SEN unit or class
HI - Hearing Impairment
Hospital School
Mental health
MLD - Moderate Learning Difficulty
MSI - Multi-Sensory Impairment
Natspec Specialist Colleges
OTH - Other Difficulty/Disability
Other SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty
PD - Physical Disability
PMLD - Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulty
SEMH - Social, Emotional and Mental Health
SLCN - Speech, Language and Communication
SLD - Severe Learning Difficulty
Special facilities for Visually Impaired
SpLD - Specific Learning Difficulty
VI - Visual Impairment

Who came from where

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