Alternative boarding school to Win Coll?

[Titwillow55]

Deciding on schools to visit for my 10 year old son who seems to be a text book win coll boy. He is academic, quirky, very musical, Aspergers, polite, not a “boys boy”, hates football, likes coding and reading.

we live abroad so looking for full boarding that doesn’t empty out at the weekend and isn’t only Chinese students at weekends like some are. I boarded and loved it. Son is keen to board. Before anyone starts down that route…

he’s not at a prep school so the current school can’t help. We don’t want Eton just due to our own preconceived ideas (!) which is a shame as I know ton is very academic.

any insight into Radley at all? Or Harrow? We’ve been to rugby and it didn’t quite fit the type of boy our son is. Marlborough was too full of flash cash I felt. Thank you for any helpful steers.

The head of Ampleforth was interviewed by the telegraph yesterday, he agreed that currently about 1/3 of the pupil cohort have SEN.

@tennissquare I read that, interesting. I thought it was a red flag that he said he would pass none of the costs of the potential VAT increase onto parents. What else are they going to cut? If it's staff costs/benefits, it's going to be increasingly difficult to recruit and retain talented staff. I suppose they're desperate to get bums on seats.

@doglover90 , yes I agree I thought it had a slightly desperate tone. I do know of someone who has recently sent their dc there as it's a family tradition but to get back to the pupil roll back to 450 it sounds like they will continue to have an astonishingly high % of SEN pupils.

@Titwillow55 take a look at Oundle. My DS1 sounds very like your son and absolutely thrived there. The learning support was excellent and very child focused, looked at what he needed. That included a teacher who happened to call at the house just before each sports lesson, to make sure he had the correct kit, as DS1 would strategically lose his trainers....

DS2 now in sixth form, very different to elder brother but blossoming into a wonderfully quirky young man.

There is no Oundle type, each child is encouraged to be the very best they can be, whatever form that may take.

DM me if you need to know more.

@Titwillow55 - can you explain why you have totally ignored the 3 posters endorsing Christ's Hospital which is absolutely ideal for your son given the description. About 25% of the children are on full bursaries and are therefore very very clever. They also have the Kings Maths School (established by Charles II which offers its own scholarships etc meaning that there is a big STEM focussed contingent there. Also many of these very bright kids come from deprived backgrounds so talk about money is pretty taboo at school - which seems to tick your boxes about worrying re wealth at Eton.

Personally the fact you're focusing now on the PPs talking about Eton suggests that you are actually only interested in schools that offer social cachet (although the list of Old Blues is pretty impressive). If that is the case please say so in your OP and stop wasting everyone else's time???

Go see Radley whilst you are over too- it feels really modern and great for rowing. Definitely full boarding.

Your son does sound like a WinColl boy, @Titwillow55. Whether Winchester is currently what he needs might be another matter though. There seems to be more unhappiness about Winchester from current and recent parents than any other school, in particular around (lack of) pastoral care, disastrous change management, terrible university application support and the widespread reliance on additional tutoring. Of course there are also plenty of posters on here who advocate strongly for the school. Given that you are overseas, and with his Aspergers diagnosis, it might be that you need to prioritise pastoral care over any other consideration, after all where this is lacking other areas of school life will also suffer.
In terms of alternatives to Winchester you might consider King's Canterbury, Oundle and Tonbridge, if you are open to co-ed. I don't think your DS sounds like an obvious Radley or Harrow candidate- both excellent schools undoubtedly but maybe a bit more in the 'boy's boy' mould than you seem to want. And that brings me round to Eton- it really does offer everything and you never see the levels of buyer's regret here as at Winchester. Some boys are put off by its size- it's a very big school, which might take a couple of years to grow into. Its size and resources mean it can cater for whatever interests a boy wants to learn or develop. The outside world is increasingly hostile to the Eton brand but the education is second to none.

At my DS' prep, the two largest groups on departure were to Eton and Winchester. The Eton boys fell roughly into two camps; those who were A-listed weren't the cleverest, but the more extrovert and Alpha types, who would make a strong impression during a very brief interview. The quieter boys tended to be wait-listed and went through later. Several of these were holding Winchester places, which they relinquished when Eton places came through. The boys who went to Winchester were probably a higher IQ group, and they were all from the Far East (mostly Thai, some Chinese). The most obviously privileged went to Radley and Harrow, super boys for the most part, but not how you have described your DS, @Titwillow55

Chill, she doesn't owe you anything.

I didn’t see it as desperate at all. Far from it, I read the words of a humble, good man who is committed to making this great school even better.

Sorry about this - I don't feel I've wasted anyones time, the title of my post was Winchester College and I then mentioned Eton, Rugby, Harrow, Radley and Marlborough

I think it's quite clear the type of schools we are looking at and I haven't hidden that. I'm truly sorry if you feel your time is wasted, that was never the intention :( There are about 500 boarding schools in the UK but we are not considering all of them. We also want something higher in the academic league tables than Christ's Hospital which features quite a bit below the others in GCSE results.

As a past parent of Winchester I would urge you to look elsewhere. Pastoral care is so important at a boarding school. Some boys do leave after GCSE'S or earlier if the opportunity arises, they tend to be families based in the UK as it can be difficult to organize. The process would have to begin in year 10 , Winchester won't make it easy.

They are very impressive when selling the school to prospective parents and they make a little effort in the first term or two.

The families who eulogize most about the school usually live close and are on burseries, they often have connections to the school. In my opinion the families who have buyers remorse due to the lack of pastoral care, widespread use of tutoring and appalling university application support have every right to feel aggrieved.

A boarding school with such poor pastoral care is a grim place to be. You have so many options open to you, the poor choice we made will have a profound effect on our family for many years to come.

Seems to be quite the negative attitude to Winchester here. I would always urge these comments to be taken with a large grain of salt.

I find it really sad that your search is quite clearly being driven by the prestige of the school rather than your son's special needs. I have an ASD son who sounds very similar to yours and our search is entirely based around finding somewhere which explicitly accommodates Autistic children. This takes priority over the academic outcomes of the school. A intelligent child will do well academically in any independent school. The pastoral side is so much more important.
Also you should be aware that the term Asperger's is not used in the UK anymore. It is all considered to be part of the Autistic spectrum.

I’d take issue with

“A intelligent child will do well academically in any independent school.”

It’s simply not true! Known quite a few children get very distracted at boarding school and not do as well academically as they should have.

You do have to choose with care. And independent schools are not all good by any means. Quite a few of them rely on old reputations of which they are no longer deserving.

@Waterybrook
Regardless the OP's choice should be driven by the school that can best cater for her Autistic son.
Many academically capable Autistic children find the pressure of an academically focused school far too much to cope with. Things can really start to fall apart in the teenage years, particularly for a child who is boarding in a different country to his parents.

No doubt that’s all true - big decision!

Posts about negative experiences of Winchester have been appeared on various threads recently, under several different usernames but containing very similar wording and expressing very similar thoughts. Creates the impression of a wider issue but I agree that a large grain of salt may be in order.

My DS is at Winchester although we are looking for an alternative, the posts bear out our experience. Several senior boys have been expelled this past term for drugs , my DS witnessed very heavy alcohol consumption in his dorm as early as the first of 2nd year. I would have thought a housemaster or matron would notice if boys were being ill at 1am. I expected my DS to be looked after while he was at school.

Perhaps this is boarding school life if so it's certainly not for us.

Gaslighting much, @Wimbledonmum1985 and @Hilmian ? It makes me quite uncomfortable to read posts about how profoundly unhappy some people have been with Winchester in recent years. But it's much, much worse to see their experiences dismissed in this way.

@LochDuich, no-one has questioned the veracity of the information that has been posted about Winchester; it is clear that there are parents posting on MN who are very dissatisfied with their experience of the school.

Even with the best intentions, no school has a 100% track record of entirely happy pupils and parents, so the scope of negative experiences is relevant when trying to form an impression of a school. It isn't gaslighting to point out that it can be difficult to get an accurate sense, from anonymous posts on an internet forum, of exactly how widespread issues are at any given school.

I'm glad you're not casting doubt on the veracity of information posted by unhappy Winchester parents, @Hilmian ; your reference to a 'large grain of salt' does give the opposite impression. But to be fair it's not as bad as a poster on another thread who suggested comments critical of WinColl were written by 'Tiger mothers' trying to bump their own sons up the waiting list by encouraging other prospective parents to relinquish places...

@Watchinghercook I do wonder if it was ever thus. My Ex-dp’s much younger dsis was telling me in the 90s about them all smuggling alcohol back to school in shampoo bottles. This was at Westonbirt and she was only 12.

I'm sure it goes on @MissHavershamReturns , but I would say it's rare these days to turn a blind eye to the extent that Winchester does. The pastoral care is woeful. Apparently historically Winchester's pastoral care has always been poor, I wish that I had know this. It seems it is as it always was in that respect.

I have recently read some very disturbing articles regarding Winchester, I admit we bought the admissions nonsense hock line and sinker.
More fool us, it's very upsetting when it's your child though.

Can you share links to the disturbing articles here? My son is applying to Winchester for 2026 and it was our first choice school, I’d like to be able to read these articles, if possible. Thank you