Hello everyone,
I am new to Mumsnet and in need of advice!
My son is in Year 5 and we have just started the senior school discussion with the head at his prep. He described my son as "very bright", "a deep thinker" and "as enthusiastic as it gets". However, his academic results are inconsistent. He can range from 65% to 95% in all subjects, depending on the day. This is often because of bad time management on his part (e.g. he'll do 2/3 of a paper really well but will run out of time to complete the remaining 1/3) but sometimes because he has too many ideas buzzing in his headand fails to focus.
While my son is keen to do well and would be devastated if he went to a school where he bumps along at the bottom, he is not especially motivated by achieving top grades (and therefore wouldn't be particularly well suited for a result-driven academic hothouse). What drives him is a genuine intellectual curiosity, an urge to delve deep in whatever captures his mind—whether it is discussing theology or simply talking about superheroes. He's an avid reader and his interests are very wide-ranging, although perhaps he is naturally more drawn to humanities (especially philosophy/theology) than sciences. His music and sport are nothing to write home about (he's sitting Grade 1 for two instruments later this year on the music front and on the sport front he is good, but not great, at rugby, and dreadful at pretty much everything else). Art is a little better but not by much, although he loves drawing.
The school thinks that, on a good day, he could be Winchester College material. On a bad day...goodness knows.
Prep's head is, quite sensibly, advising that we step up the efforts to help him with time management and re-evaluate in a few months (my son is young for his year, as he was born in late summer). But I am not very good at waiting, which is why I am here picking your collective brains.
For those of you with children at Win College: were your boys all straight 98% in Year 5 or did they develop slightly later?
And for everyone: if Win College is a no go, what alternative would you suggest? My husband and I are pretty relaxed about day/boarding and co-ed/single sex, so long as the school is right and has a track record of exit to good universities.
All suggestions will be much appreciated!
Thank you so much!
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.
Secondary education
Winchester College and alternatives
44 replies
Justatiredmum · 12/10/2013 10:02
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.