13+ boarding SOS

Might be worth thinking about IB boarding schools like Sevenoaks as entrance criteria may be more flexible from international schools or you could leave it to sixth form, joining from an international school, or he could potentially join at 11 (if that was n't too early for you).

According to my DS, CE is a lot easier exams than Winchester own entrance paper.
He is good at Maths and English, and being in Int'l Sch he is also Ok with German and French, and Science teaching in Int'l Sch is at par with UK curriculum. He found those subjects are pretty easy to handle. I don't think history and geography is his strength, all he did was read a few text books from Galore Park, and tried a few past papers. He found those exams are a bit like comprehension, just need to apply common sense. I think the subject he dislikes most is Religious Studies, but he had to sit the CE for that.
With Winchester, we got exemption for Latin, but he did an extra Maths paper. He still has to learn Latin in his spare time.
We live overseas. He got a place in Westminster, being weekly boarding, that mean DS has to go and stay with SIL every weekend, and his place in Winchester was subject to entrance exam, they only confirmed his house after the exam. So we had to keep both applications going! At the end we went for full boarding option.
I think the best is go for the pre test. Also ask Your Ds where he wants to go, make the decision a joint decision. He is the one who is going to spend his 5 years there. If his is very bright and ambitious, and he wants to go to that school, he will be motivated to work hard and prepare for the exam.

You will have the Int'l Sch as a back up, may be he finds that IB MYP is more suitable for him, and he prefers to stay with you. Your DS will also learn a lot of different cultures when living abroad.

Brighton College, for example, definitely has a non CE 13+ entrance route and while a mix of boarding, includes o/s students who could not return home for a weekend but may have a guardian for exeats (or could you return for the occasional weekend visit) . There are others, too numerous to mention.

I remember agonising about entrance to UK boarding schools some years ago. But (with the possible exceptions of Eton, Harrow and Winchester) our experience suggested it was a bit of a buyers market. If your son is a well rounded boy with the academic ability to enter MGS, is a good sportsman and has developed his language skills during his time in Switzerland, he will be snapped up by most British boarding schools. He is precisely the kind of child they are trying to recruit. This will apply at 13 plus and (assuming he continues to develop in the same way) at 16 plus if you decide to go down the international school route for a few years. So you do not have to limit yourself to those schools which pre test at 10 plus. You can keep your options open. (Almost) all schools offer a non CE path for students whose schools do not specifically prepare for CE - if they did not they would be limiting the pool of talent available to them.

Not sure if I misunderstood, but if you are indeed contemplating regular weekend commuting to Switzerland for your son, I should reconsider. Our children have flown back to Europe for the occasional weekend but it is fraught with worries. Once they are at senior school, they have sport and prep at weekends and are tired. A ten hour round trip ( if all goes well) is just exhausting. But the worst thing is when the last flight from Heathrow on a Friday evening is cancelled....

One other option that you haven't mentioned (so I am guessing you probably don't want to do it) is to board your son for prep. He'd have 3 years (?) before senior school, plenty of time to get ready for CE and used to boarding.

The other possible advantage is that he'd potentially move up to senior school with a cohort of boys he already knew. 3 boys went to DS1's senior school from his prep (one to the same house), and he ended up in the bed next to a boy he'd been playing rugby against for several years (and now plays rugby with!).

Lots of good schools have lower CE cut offs than that, and will put more emphasis on interview, especially if they are coming from an overseas school. I would keep talking to admissions departments until you come across a more reasonable one IIWY.

Personally, having seen the life of boarders in a mostly day school and heard accounts of the life of day pupils in a mostly boarding school, I want my DC to be in the majority. So if you need full boarding, I would pick a school where full boarders are in the majority, and certainly not one where most are weekly boarding - that would make for some grim weekends, IMHO.

SPS is basically a day school with boarders only suggested it because your DS could I suppose come home every weekend as they finish at 4 ish and Heathrow is only up the road (although as I said matches are often on Saturday) and if you happened to be in London in the week you could take him out to a restaurant/theatre etc. most full boarding school won't let you take them out in the weekday evening unless it's a very special occasion and even then schools like Win Coll won't let you. A different type of boarding but could suit some.

firstboard we were expats for four years and full boarding was really important to us (we were too far for a weekend trip).

DH went to a day school that took boarders, but had the best of both worlds as a boarder with parents close enough to visit for matches, Sunday lunch etc. But he says it was very much the boarding house vs the rest of the school.

Not that there is anything wrong with your initial list, but none of my suggestions pre-test in Y6. Your boats are by no means burned if you don't choose right now, that was sort of my point.

You could easily get overwhelmed with suggestions. In the beginning we only looked at those that pre test in yr 6, which then wasn't probably as many as do now. Decide exactly what you want and which location will work best for you, so for example we never even considered Harrow because for us the location is impossible, I loathe North London and from where we live at the time it might as well have been Mongolia, we also decided we wanted super selective, and proper full boarding so that narrowed it down in our case to 3-4. If my DS hadn't got a provisional place at one of these we would have then considered others who didn't pre test at yr 6.

Oundle? Rugby? Shrewsbury? Sedbergh? All good schools with excellent cricket reputations. Do you have family in Manchester that it might be useful for DS to be in striking distance of (who would be his guardians while you are abroad?) ?

Win Coll also writes it's own entrance exam rather than using CE.

You could also try Cranbrook which is state boarding with an 13+ intake. Don't know about ratio of full/os boarders though as boarding intake seems relatively small.

I agree with the suggestions of looking at Uppingham, Oakham and Oundle - they are not far from each other (and play each other at sport), but each has a slightly different feel. I don't know Rugby as well as those three, but it was also suggested by our prep HM as a possibility for DS1.

Also worth looking at Oundle. Full boarding, sporty and academic. Good luck in your search.

Realistically International school in CH will in no way prepare him for CE or any other competitive UK entrance exam, so do look at alternative assessments for o/s students. However you have the advantage of having got him to Year6 in UK system. Many of those schools you mention will offer 13+ places on the basis of a pretest, then you could use the Galore Park books to supplement the education he has for next 2 years so he isn't entirely out of the loop. Whitgift is the anomaly in your list in that it uses its own exams anyway rather than CE.

Those schools that are really full boarding schools Eton Win Coll Harrow Marlborough et al will not let him home for a whole weekend unless it's an exeat or holiday. All full boarding schools have lessons on Saturday morning till lunch time and then compulsory activities in the afternoon generally sport, matches are on Saturday afternoon as well. Usually children at full boarding schools can go home/out of school to friends on Sunday but normally after attending a religious service or they have to be back early evening to attend one.
If you want more flexibility, and closeness to an airport what about SPS (you may have missed the registration)? They have a small boarding house, no Saturday school, fab facilities, awesome results, a true 21st century education, you can take your DS out in the evening in the weekday if you happened to be in a London.

You can also arrange to sit the CE in the Int'l Sch, (if you are going to one) so you don't have to travel to the embassy everyday during the exam week, as the embassy may not be in the same city you live in. We did that for our DS. All the CE and Wincoll papers were sent to the Int'l Sch., they gave us the exam timetable! And the boarding school will ask for a reference letter and latest school report from your current school Headteacher. As Int'l Sch are used to student moving on, and very ready to help.
I don't think it is very practical to fly him over every weekend, he will miss a lot of sports activities on Saturday. I think best wait till Exeat weekend, and very doable to fly to Switzerland, normally every 3 weeks. And you can hop over to see him on some weekend too.

Westminster won't work. First year boys aren't allowed to stay at weekends and all boys must go home for exeats until sixth form. The prospectus specifies that it is unsuitable for overseas borders with no v close other family. At least that is my understanding - check with them. Even if you can stay the school empties at weekends as most boarders live in London.

Could all be academic anyway... Perhaps after a year or two in Switzerland OP you may wonder why there's any need for a change.

Much as I love the things the present government hasn't yet managed to eff up, England can seem rather twee and insular with the benefit of a few months distance. (Admittedly Switzerland might not be the best example of an all-welcoming society....) If, in a couple of years, your DS is speaking fluent French and German with other people who do the same would he really want to come back to pre-GCSE classwork?

Switzerland used to have quite a few boarding schools - have you taken a look?