Eton College Boarding Houses

[mumofboys323]

Hi all asking for a friend whose son got into Eton College. Can anyone provide any information on the boarding houses and the housemasters. Is there any recommended ones or ones to avoid?
thank you

Parent of an admitted student who has not started studies yet, so someone else may be able to give you more granular information, but you interview with three boarding houses—only one of which is your choice. Thus, most of your options come from the judgment of the school itself. In that case, it is down to how you feel about the housemaster and the dame. In our case, the one we had picked based on all of our research turned out to be fine, but the one that we loved and ultimately picked as number one came via school assignment.

Maybe I’m naive but considering the boys come from a variety of backgrounds, fit will depend on the child. as to ones to “avoid” I assume they are all held to a high standard and none would fall into the “avoid” category.
exciting times non the less.

The HMs are universally impressive although some more lively than others (eg brand new ones can be super keen/competitive and often carry out refurbs to the house).
A few things to consider:

• tenure of HM - no point falling in love with an HM if he’s only got 3 years left in post
• eat in v eat out
• eat in v eat out in the context of how far the house is from Bekynton
• whether it matters to you if house is near music schools (for early morning practice)
• whether any applicant from your prep school has a brother/s in a particular house (HMs usually don’t like accepting multiple boys from the same school in the same year to the same house)

Yell your friend not to worry about it. Just go along with it, the system works very well. The HMs choose the boys in the end, even though it looks like the parents are choosing.

JMO'B - Waynflete

Down to earth, fair, will alway stick up for you, can't speak highly enough of him.

I was in Wayneflete 2015-20, he was housemaster for all of it. I do vaguely remember, however, that housemaster's position was held for a maximum of 8 years, but that may well be misinformed or instead was just subject to review as when returning in 2024 for an OE sport fixture, the good bloke was still HM.

Bekynton house (eat out), much preferable option having been through it

Position - 20 seconds from bekynton - 20 seconds from masters (astroturf pitches very very frequently visited with other boys in the house) - right between Judy's Passage and Nolan's Crack (alleyways - I know, horrendous names), because of this, pretty central in terms of walking time (not that that really matters for any house and please don't let that inform the decision on who you chose to have such a big role in your son's formative years)

House staff - the loveliest people on earth, sadly the Dame in charge during my time has recently required and I don't know who has taken over, which is a shame because she was great, a bit scary at first, but loved her by the end, exactly as HM said we would when we first arrived.

Very true point about HM choice too, of course genuine advice would be to go for the option you and your lad get on with best, I know its a brief meeting before choices but trust your gut, as it can be a very frustrating experience for both HM and boy to not get on.

Will there be an opportunity to speak to the HMs before we are asked to make a selection this autumn? We didn’t get a chance to speak to any at the tour we did some 18 months ago. We spoke to the boys instead at the afternoon tea.

You are normally given the opportunity to meet a selection of HMs and will have the chance to talk with both them and the dame of the house.
The boys always end up in a nice house somehow or other, and very few are unhappy.

Funnily enough my DS was in JMOB! From a parent's point of view he was everything we looked for in a HM. Both he and the Dame were always on the end of the phone when we needed to talk to them, and Jim was a strong advocate for the boys when they got into scrapes.

DS went back this summer for M'Dame's leaving do and really enjoyed catching up with everyone.

@Artemis126 you're emailed the list of all the housemasters and their bios in the September of Year 7. You can prenominate one that you're guaranteed to get an interview with (no guarantees of a place in that house), and then they'll assign you two others you'll also interview. You don't have to prenominate anyone but some people want to do this if they have a particular connection with a house or a master and want to make sure they get a chance with that one. You'll then rank the three that you've met, and the houses will do the same and they'll try to marry up as many first choices on both sides as possible. Generally if you prenom a housemaster they'll try and choose the other two to contrast eg. if you prenom a Bekynton house they'll give you at least one other eat-in house to see, etc.

When you interview for houses it's not like the entrance interview where you just drop your boy off and pick them up later - with house interviews you must make sure that both parents make the time to go along with your boy as it's really the whole family that's being interviewed (and vice versa). It's as important, if not more important to make sure the parents and HM are comfortable with each other and feel they could have a good working relationship for the next 5 years.

@Xiaoxiong yes, I was hoping we might get the chance to meet them before we had to select them from the lists that are sent out. My understanding is that the info sent is rather scant.

I've just gone back to check what we got, and it was a 13 page single-spaced PDF of HM biographies attached to an email we received around mid-September.

Of course you will get to meet a small selection, enough to get a feel for house life.

The info is scant because, as I said upthread, in reality it's them who are doing the choosing, not you.

It’s a lot more info than you get from any other school.

Does anyone know when the interviews take place? And also, how long do HMs stay in post- seems to be 12 years or so?

HM visits happen between November and early February. Tenure is about 13 years.

Maximum tenure is 13 years but HMs may step down before that for all sorts of reasons, promotion, taking over a department, family reasons, bereavement... almost all stay on at Eton though.

You can't ever guarantee any particular HM will see your boy through, but generally the school picks pretty good successors. You just have to trust they'll pick a good one if that happens.

Bios received earlier this week. We’ve decided to pre-nominate one, which my son, my husband and I all managed to chose as first choice after reviewing the bios individually. It’ll be interesting to see which others are selected by the school and whether they are on the list of HMs that I was drawn towards.

HMs aside, does anyone have any thoughts on how Holland House (DWBA), Farrer House (JD) and Westbury (PRKB) compare? Please feel free to PM me.

We are in the same position, if anyone would like to pm me regarding waynflete (who will have a new house master in 2027 when my son joins), the Hopgarden, and Manor House, I’d be so appreciative.

I’m also intrigued by the feedback I’ve had re Farrer and Villiers. Some love them and some absolutely don’t!

We are considering Farrer, Durnford amongst others. We know they are all amazing. And we trust the Eton process of selection. Any insights would be appreciated if any of you with experience would like to PM us with any useful information.

We have also been allocated Farrer and Durnford so would be interested to hear any thoughts on these two options. From what I can see via maps, Durnford does not appear to have much outside space although it seems to have undergone a major renovation a few years back.

We have now all all 3 house master visits for sept 2027 entry. Please feel free to PM me

Do any parents know what the pool process is? We've done our house visits - really liked one, lukewarm (but not against) the other two. So not sure whether it's better to only nominate the one we really liked or to include all three. I don't feel I can make a decision until I know how they allocate places via the pool if our favourite house doesn't like us (DH was in full comedy flow mood, so a bit questionable whether they'll like him!)

Just another recent leaver parent saying try not to get too invested in the decision. We were only interviewed by 2 as B list place, so also done a bit later on. We all preferred one, and asked for that one. Were allocated the other.
We couldn't have been more pleased with DS's experience- the HMs knew where we would fit in and they were right. Our house had the most wonderful community of parents, diverse in background, and other respects, but universally friendly, kind, supportive and engaged. The house we "chose", turned out, by all accounts, to be much less suitable for DS and our family, not least because of the make up of the cohort (personalities, backgrounds etc) already confirmed. We couldn't know this, but I know from asking the HMs, that they take it all into account.

Purple and white is the only place to be. Oppidan life should be avoided at all costs.

could anyone on this thread please message me if they are willing to share HM experiences as we are doing our selections now. Thanks.