Charterhouse

I would have said Charterhouse gets more brighter boys at 13. Radley has a bit of a reputation for being less academic, but it has upped its game of late. Both will do well for their clever boys.
Charterhouse is very London centre and lots of boys go home for the weekend.

EleanorRigby123, thanks for your input. Do you have any views on their academic standards overall vs. Radley?

Charterhouse empties out every weekend particularly at junior levels.
Plus
They don't play rugby. It's a football school.

Hello, we are based in Asia and our DS recently got an unconditional offer from Radley and Charterhouse for Sep 2017 Y9 entry. Radley suggested DS to sit their academic scholarship exam in March based on his entrance exam results and interview with the Warden. DS is quite social and well-rounded, plays rugby and hockey as major sports and cello at Grade 6 level. I have been keeping an eye on this forum for quite some time and would appreciate any input you may have. I understand Charterhouse has a larger cohort of international students than Radley, which is more traditional, but that the school empties out on weekends. Is this true, and are overseas students pretty much left on their own on weekends? In particular, I would greatly appreciate your views on 1) the pastoral care and 2) academic standards (i.e. is one school considered more academic than the other) at these two schools. Thank you in advance!

I 2nd Tonbridge head was a teacher at St Paul's for many years and is excellent and very good results those we know there are really happy. The only thing is that it's known to be very very sporty but from your comments OP this probably isn't a problem loads of rugby fantastic facilities. About 60% board and they would be the first to admit not many full boarders but excellent fast train links into London and slower ones to East Kent!

How about Tonbridge?

He got a scholarship to be a chorister and is loving it. We are lucky that it is in the same area so he can still see his old school friends, as well as making new friends.

It is hard to make decisions and have the confidence you are making the right one. Ds is in year 4 and has turned out to be very musical so moved schools this academic year to one better able to accommodate that.

gallicgirl I'd want to know that.

bah, what people consider when choosing...!

I hear Charterhouse treat their staff pretty shabbily but that's probably not what people when choosing which school to pay for.

By the way as you're interested in these; Harrow, St Pauls, Eton and Charterhouse and my DS isn?t at any of them then the lack of rugby shouldn?t be an issue!?
Fortunately for my DS the lack of rugby rather than restricting his opportunites has in fact opened up sports and other cultural activites that are far more suitable for him. His choosen sport was just a once a week extracurricular activity at his boarding prep, now rugby, football and the much hated cricket (the last two are of course played) are not compulsory and this means he can pursue it three times a week instead and particpate on 4 other sports as well.

Year 3 is pretty early to start looking for a school that starts at year 9! Year 5 is early enough. The risk of looking too soon is that your ds's character and interests can change. The school I chose for ds when he was 3 was completely the wrong choice by the time he was 8. Based on that experience I'm not planning on looking too far ahead (but keeping an eye on registration deadlines).

St Pauls IMO wins hands down if you want an outstanding 21 st century education but very early registration date and very very oversubscribed no boarders left either (well 20 but all in the 6th form).

That's a real mix of schools, all very different. Which year is your ds in? I would expect your prep to be giving you a steer on schools which would be a good fit for your ds.

Rugby doesn't do it for me or my DS so am pretty relieved that his boarding school doesn't do rugby at all!

rugby is a dreadful game.

OP if you and your DS like Charterhouse and think the boys were "very polished young men indeed" and thats what your looking for, like the look of the grounds etc, have hopefully looked at least one other so that you've got something to compare it against and the sort of boarding you want is predominant then go for it. Whatever school you mention it will have its supporters and detractors.

The Rev Witheridge is retiring soon I think. May be wrong.

Thats interesting,met the Head (Rev something or other) at a function,the way he was going on I got the impression that if you werent top in top sets at good prep schools,they would not be interested,60% is not the level he gave the impression that was required,he struck me as a pompous a.. but you pays your money etc.
He also said something along the lines of "we dont have day pupils but some pupils go home to sleep"
Wouldnt trust a school that didnt play Rugby and inflicted Genesis on the world.

"I think they will struggle to become super selective with their admission policy, which is basically put your name down and have an interview with the housemaster. 60% is CE passmark."
I suspect they are being pushed to be more academic because of their location. They are in the same area and competing for the same very bright children as Eton and Winchester, the London day schools and indeed Surrey/Berks day schools, Schools like Wellington (wince) Radley and Marlborough are also increasingly improving their results year on year. This is why I'm assuming they adopted the Pre U in more subjects becasue some of those named above have only adopted it in very limited subjects.
"I would describe their website as slick rather than sophisticated."
Im not sure I can distinguish between a slick rather than sophisticated website!! Most websites make are exceedingly tedious and samish.