So Eton, everything I expected and more

[JoanBias]

My DS is at a private school, so I have experience of private schooling, but my word Eton was like another world.

Not just the school, but the people there.

There was one prep school being shown around, all in tweed jackets, and to a boy the spitting image of Draco Malfoy (well there was one Chinese boy, but otherwise....).

One of the mothers doing the tour was not quite right in some respect, I'm not sure how but something wasn't wired up correctly or something. She was immacuately dressed, 6-inch heels (pretty daft considering the confirmation letter warns about having a long walk), but she was just bizarre. The admissions tutor said 'we have a waiting list of 80 boys and typically 35% of these will make it through', and she asked afterwards 'so 80% of the boys from the waiting list make it through?', and it was then explained again, but you could kind of hear the cogs going round and she clearly didn't get it. She had asked several other similar questions; e.g., it was explained that some Houses are catering and others go to a central cafeteria, so she then asked 'so they all eat in the cafeteria'? She pointed at the Fives Court and asked me 'what do they play here?' I said 'Fives' 'Is it squash?', she said. 'No, Eton Fives.' 'So is it squash?' It seemed as if this woman had had the benefit of the 'Finishing School for the Terminally Dim', because she was otherwise every inch the presentable upper middle-class wife.

Another family had a son who looked the prototypical pre-Etonian, and sure enough Daddy spent the tour braying on about his House when he had been there.

The facilities were extremely impressive, although they didn't bother to show us any of the academic parts, and basically the impression was 'if your son is incredibly pushy and self-motivated, send him here and we will teach him to be entitled'. They said 'every year we reject about a third of the highest performers on the test', essentially because they aren't pushy enough. (The House Mistresses seemed quite nice though.)

Fantastic training for future managing directors and whatever, but not for us.....

Well worth it to sign up for a tour, very illuminating. They take about 100 a day from what I can see, so obligation at all....

This is the funniest thread!!

I particularly liked the pink fat pigs analogy

Yuck Eton, if the current government are anything to go by it's a vile camp of overtly entitled twits.

All of my friends that were sent away to school have huge gaps in their bonding, especially during their teens when you can 'lose' your child even if they're living with you.

Why would anyone want to send their kids away? Seriously.

"I shouldnt rise to it but it just drives me mad when people who clearly know absolutely nothing about boarding write such crap!"

Welcome to our world - replace 'boarding' with 'state schools' and you will understand how many of us feel every time Xenia posts on a state vs private schools debate!

I find it best to just assume that Xenia is trying to be funny!

Every child should have the opportunity of a daily hug with someone who isn't paid to do it.

Happy gardening- I am just talking from my own experience.

In my own VAST experience, life isn't perfect, so there is no perfect solution when it comes to the upbringing and education of our children. Even the wealthiest, most privileged people can't buy their way out of that conundrum, albeit that some of them may think they can. And for a fiver, I'll read your palm, too. And look at a few tea leaves, before I pronounce that there are difficult times ahead.

My boarding son is very closed off but he always was. My other son who boarded up until June is the very opposite. I'd say it is more to do with personalities, position in the family, parents personalities etc. In saying all that, I wish I'd never gone down the boarding route but it is what it is now and boarding son doesn't want to leave.

One thing I notice about the Eton parents is that there is precious little objective analysis of the school.

Common sense tells me that there are pros and cons at every school. Yet, Eton projects itself as perfect and very much gives the message that if you don't like a certain aspect of it, there's no room for discussion. Parents seem to buy into this wholesale, becoming almost obsessional about it.

I haven't noticed this quite so much at other schools.

Eton and Steiner, word factory- very similar mindsets! I've noticed that too.

I don't think Eton is perfect...

This is the funniest thread!!

I keep saying so-one of the funniest I have seen-if anyone wants to send up MN it is a gift!

seeker unless you either been winding everybody up and are not really sending your DC's to state schools, or you've finally resigned yourself to the fact that youre DS's school is crap and recently moved him to a boarding then your experience of boarding does not relate to your own children so I doubt you are in as an informed position to comment it as the parents on MN whose children are boarding.
rabbit and Talkin I'm one of those dreadful mothers that Xenia is so quick to condemn who decided to stay at home with my children until they were 7 and not even send them to nursery but keep them at home with me till reception and "sacrifice" my career. Perhaps that is why we are such a strong family and why my children are neither distant from me or dysfunctional sociopaths incapable or forming relationships with others.

But exoticfruits - it's the fact it can be so funny that makes mumsnet so addictive. If mumsnet were merely full of worthy parents trying to help each other, it would be so incredibly dull. Things that are dull are not worth sending up - only things of interest are worth sending up...

Happygqrdening- I do have friends with children, god children, my children have friends (I don't forbid them from associating with non- state school children!)

Eeeeewwww. Are we saying that people who loathe boarding schools and would rather stick pins in their eyes than not live with their own children are not allowed to have an opinion on boarding schools????

How very unMN.

I do wonder how, if one loves and enjoys their children, they could pack them off to boarding school.

Posie,

I was sent to boarding school - because, as a poster further back in the thread said "boarding school is less damaging when children can see clear reasons for it. "

When I was secondary school age, the only state option available to me was the local ex-secondary modern. Although, with hindsight, this was capable of providing a suitable education for exceptionally bright children (both my brothers went there, and as I have said before on MN, we all ended up in Oxbridge and got great degrees) that was not clear in advance (just as an indication, there were 24 - in total, from over 60 children - O-level passes from the year above mine).

There were no private schools in non-boarding distance that offered 100% scholarships, which was what was needed for me to attend. Moving was not a financially viable option.

So I boarded. I am, as it happens, very close to my parents BUT I agree that it is again not possible to predict this in advance and so sending me to board was both an opportunity and a risk. I know that my parents hated living without me - but as with many things in life it was a balance of risks and a balance of pain.

Parents move though to be near good schools lal the time rather than send children away.

It is not funny that countless children have been psychologically damaged by boarding school. It is not something I invented today. It is not a joke. Obviously as I said many do fine there too. I am being pretty neutral on the subject.

..and Eton is a very good school. There are a lot of boarding schools which cannot fill spaces or have to take girls or pack places full of people from abroad to such an extent the school changes or which get bad exam results. Eton isn't like that. It's one of the better ones.

But Wordfactory is it that there is no objective analysis, or is it that rarely do any set of parents have to deal with more gleeful sanctemonious and universal criticism than Eton parents.
Eton the school and Eton the byword for self interested elitism are two different things. If I were a parent I would probably be pretty defensive.

Ds1 played rugby against Eton often. He liked the school, the staff and the pupils. He would have liked to go there I think but we couldn't have afforded it. He has a fairly sensible attitude to life

And fwiw I think a 'humorous' thread taking cheap shots at Eton is shooting fish in a barrel isn't it? Laughing at the dim witted, ditto.
I am not exactly charmed.

dapplegrey and Indridcold - thanks very much.

I'd have said the last thing CM was was 'scary'!

Posie, I wondered that too (I am a SAHM, and mine never went near childcare; they didn't even start school until Y1). But while it's relatively easy to go with your own principles when they are small, it becomes harder once they are older and have their own opinions and their own particular needs. Only one of mine is even countenancing boarding, and there are very good reasons why he is doing so. If he can get his scholarship and bursary, I will be delighted for him. I have my own reservations about boarding generally, but I still think that being open minded about my particular children, their particular needs, and the needs of our family as a whole is more important than closing off one particular avenue on principle.

How often are those children at boarding school allowed to come home, or have parental visits?
I agree with Xenia, in that if you do not have prolonged periods of parental or I suppose guardian involvement with your children, then they are not going to willingly open up emotionally. And that can lead to problems.
I can only think of one child that I have ever met, who may have been ok at boarding scholl for prolonged periods of time.
She was always 5 years old, going on 10.