Hi duckweed,
I went to King Edwards for both school and sixth form (I left in 2001 so I guess my impressions are a little out of date).
In general I would definitely recommend the sixth form. There were problems with bullying at lower school but it mostly disappeared with the move to upper school and there was none in the sixth form (even for me and I was always one of the prime targets ). I didn't notice any problems with kids from elsewhere having trouble fitting in, we had absorbed a couple into our friendship group by the end of the first week.
Ofsted are right that Art is one of the weaker subjects, at A-level we were very much left to get on with it without an awful lot of guidance (unless we specifically went out of our way to ask for it). I think you need a lot of motivation and good organisational skills to succeed in it so your daughter might find it quite difficult. If she is as disorganised as I was it might be a problem (I did one of my final pieces in the lunch hour the day it was all due in - not good.) but then that would probably apply at the college too! My sister also studied Art a few years later and the projects she was doing seemed to have improved. She did a lot better than I did, mainly because she was much less disorganised. She was also doing a lot more digital art if your daughter is into that area of things.
Another thing about the art department is that it was always underesourced. They had usually run out of white paint by the second week of term (Someone was sent to the shop to buy some in the middle of our final A-level art exam ) and by the end of term there was only yellow ochre left! It did get rather annoying at times. On the other hand the atmosphere was very good, we were allowed to have the radio on while we worked, the other pupils were always helpful even if the teachers weren't and there was usually a room available for us to work in in any free periods.
The other departments were all excellent, especially Chemistry, which was my best subject (I should have got an A, but again the disorganisation let me down...) and the teachers in general are very good at their job. It was good preparation for Uni - once I got there I finally got my act together and I've got top marks in everything ever since.
