what should i do my son has been rejected by westminster, shrewsbury, marlborough, winchester and st pauls

[PerkyExpert]

hi guys i am really in a sticky situation at the moment, we thought our son was bright enough for these schools but clearly not so. Any ideas what i should do?

face facts

Ask his current school to help find a less competitive option.

Have you tried Eton?

Charterhouse?

Lower your aspirations.

At the end of the day, you want a school that is right for your son, one he will thrive in. You don't want one where he will struggle.

Maybe try other schools?
And lower your sights

This poor boy - facing rejection at such a young age. Why are you putting him through this?

Giggleswick is excellent.

What have his prep advised you to do?

Ouch. Bright enough? I was the thick one at my state primary school. Now I'm a solicitor. There is time.

Tonbridge School?

Because they thought he would succeed. Parents are seldom intentionally cruel and I doubt OP would have risked this had she known.

That said OP, your school has badly let you down. A boy who wouldn’t walk into Marlborough or Shrewsbury should never have been entered for Westminster, Winchester or St Paul’s, and his current school should have had more of a gauge of which level was appropriate. In short, he missed even his back-up schools which are supposed to be there as … well, back-up .

I think you should ask for feedback from the schools. It could have been an appalling iseb ( bad day); but then not all those schools use iseb, so I think it’s worth drilling down into whether it was academics, attitude, a bad school reference.

In the meantime, what is he like so we can try to think of good fits to approach for waitlist ( ie; do what the school ought to have done ..,) ?

Bradfield and Canford could be good calls. Also Bryanston?

Oh and Sherborne is lovely, but probably more academic than those last three - which is why I think you need to find out what the issue was.

Could Gabbitas advise on this?

https://gabbitas.com/

Tonbridge will be a lot more selective than Marlborough or Shrewsbury.

Exactly. No different to people who tutor their kids to get into Grammar Schools and the kids have to come out because they can't cope.

Radley is competitive - not to pour cold water but just because there’s no point barking up wrong trees at this point.

Hogwarts?

Send your child to the local catchment area high school and stop this weird obsession that England has with "good" schools? Can't imagine the pressure such young children are put under to perform.

Bedales? 😀

Now we have a labour government an option maybe is to look at grammar and good state school options

There must be some decent non selective private schools around. If he’s not able to go to the schools you’ve listed it would be unfair to try and get him into very high achieving schools, he’ll just be miserable.(assuming this is a genuine post).