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Original poster

Eton visit

37 replies

difficultpickle · 28/10/2013 21:33

We attended today in the hopeful anticipation that this will be the right school for ds. Tour was good, our guide was informative and we saw lots of lovely buildings. We had a film and a talk at the end by the Admissions tutor which was informative and interesting.

During our tour we saw no classrooms, no science labs, no language labs, one teacher (in the DT room), no pupils (it is not half term). The latter was explained because the boys have an afternoon break in lessons until 4.30pm (our visit was 2pm to 5pm). We had a nice cup of tea at the end and there was one current pupil to talk to probably about 100 parents.

Is that a normal tour or were we just unlucky? I find it impossible to form a view of a school without having the opportunity to talk to teachers and pupils. All the schools we have visited this term have fab facilities so what will distinguish our choice will be what attending the school is actually like. We can only get that from meeting people who live and work there.

Interestingly most of the other people on the tour were from overseas although at the end of the tour we met up with other parents whose boys were attending today's assessment and they all seemed to be UK based.

OP posts:
bookluva · 30/10/2013 07:55

It might be that they don't like to introduce visitors to too many students for security reasons - some of the boys obviously come from extremely wealthy backgrounds. The usual route of league tables would provide info but it wouldn't help with questions about pastoral care, etc. Have you thought about phoning the school and asking to go in again? Some schools do private tours where you're shown around by a pupil. That might provide more of an opportunity for your questions. (By the way, if pupils walked out in front of my car, expecting me to stop, I would be straight on the phone complaining to the Head!)

Amber2 · 30/10/2013 00:04

bisjo, (don't even bother with the troll) ....we had a similar experience on the tour although we did get to see a couple of boys in their rooms and have a good chat with one...it was worth it though just to see the facilities on offer ..but we figured out we would have time to find out more if and when DS gets an offer as IndridCold and jokebook said.....I guess their pre-test and interview will help ascertain if it really is a suitable school for one's DS or rather vice versa ...we are registering for more than one school and we put Eton down because the deadline was looming - but it so hard also to decide at 10 what is right for 13+ (and I am sure there are many who are determined to put son down for Eton at before knowing how he would turn out because the allure is to Eton the brand or because they are OEs) but your head should be able to steer you in right direction before applying of course. At the end of the day, i don't care too much about the brand....i want to see past that and would want to feel my DS would thrive and be happy there and that may take the house visits and more in depth insight that that allows to determine that.

Original poster
difficultpickle · 29/10/2013 22:31

Dibbleofficer not sure what point you are trying to make? If you have any knowledge to share about Eton then please let me know.

joke I'm glad we have a bit of time to consider but it does seem as if we'll have to register to find out more about Eton. At the moment I can't make a decision on whether it could be a suitable school for ds.

We have three more schools to see and then we can sit down and hopefully pick a top three.

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Dibbleofficer · 29/10/2013 19:27

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jokebook · 29/10/2013 18:15

the latter. He's also not the oldest so I had experience going through the process with other DCs. I also listened to the Head. IME, a lot of people keep 2 schools in the running through yr7 and then decide in yr8 and thats why waiting lists start to move in Jan-Mar of yr8. So not everyone knows what they want until they have to decide for CE entries (or their DC has taken a scholarship exam in the Spring before yr8 CE and that influences the outcome)

Original poster
difficultpickle · 29/10/2013 18:05

How did you know it was the right school for your ds? Or did you register at a number of schools and go through the assessment process for each and then decide?

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jokebook · 29/10/2013 16:38

Agree with Indrid - we felt it was very impersonal until DS was offered a place and then when we went through the house process etc it was as if "the penny dropped". That's when we felt we got our information about pastoral care, the food, met lots of boys, and could see how our DS would fit in etc. The boys I know who go there are Charming (with a capital C!).

It's fantastic...for the right child. Ask your Head for guidance Bisjo at the appropriate time.

Original poster
difficultpickle · 29/10/2013 13:34

He really liked the facilities but like me would have liked to meet some boys. I'm just loathe to pay the registration fee of £270 just to find out if it could be a possible school choice for ds.

Having slept on it I felt that yesterday's visit was more as a tourist than a serious 'come and look at our school for your son' type of visit. I did manage to talk to our guide about pastoral care and the quality of the food in the various houses. We saw one boarding house but only the entrance and the bedrooms, not the common room.

Thanks for your insight Indrid it is interesting to know that we did have the standard tour. We have another year to contemplate whether to register. Ds knows some boys who have just started at Eton so I'm sure he will be asking them questions.

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IndridCold · 29/10/2013 10:14

We didn't see any classrooms (except DT and art and a bit of music) or classes in progress on our tour either, although we did meet some boys at tea afterwards.

I would imagine that it would just be too disruptive. As you say, there were about 100 people in total and they do these tours every day. I guess this is why happygardening hates the Eton tour so much, and I'm sure it puts other people off too.

The whole thing changes completely if your DS is offered place, and it's only then that the school opens up and shows you what it is really like; you still have two years to make up your mind, and people do change their minds and drop out.

I'm sure that a proper tour of classes and classrooms would be arranged if your DS had a place but you were not sure.

What did your DS think bisjo?

Dibbleofficer · 29/10/2013 10:01

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Original poster
difficultpickle · 28/10/2013 23:01

We live very near too and there does seem to be an expectation that traffic will just stop for the boys!

I'm curious to know whether we were just unlucky or whether we did experience the regular tour. If we did then I would want to go back to see boys in classes. I suppose it is a school that attracts more spectators than most. Our guide was keen to tell us which boarding houses Princes William and Harry were in as well as Boris Johnson and David Cameron. None of which bear the slightest interest for us. I wonder if that is why they don't time it to see classes being taught.

I'm interested in the pastoral care, teaching, food and extracurricular activities. The one teacher we did see in the DT room said that boys could use the facilities outside class time. I asked what he did to manage the numbers that may want to access the DT facilities (assuming you must have to sign up and maybe your time would be limited because of demand). He said that this wasn't a problem as not that many boys wanted to do work outside class time (at least in DT).

Fortunately we are close enough to go back for another look but many of the others visiting were from overseas so I assume won't be able to do another visit until their son comes for an assessment day.

OP posts:
Musicaltheatremum · 28/10/2013 21:51

I would want to see classes in action. That's the important bit. What facilities do they have for science etc. can you ask to go back and see this. If you're going to spend that much money they should bend over backwards for you. They obviously don't teach road safety as my brother lives about a mile from the school and a lot of the boys think they own the place, walking into the road and just expecting cars to stop for them.