Eton College

[chimera1]

Has anyone got any information on college

Indrid Can I ask a really silly question? (So I don't have to worry about it for an unbearably long time...)

What the dickens happens to books and files left outside Chapel if it rains? Or does that not actually happen in practice?

I really need to know.

Goodness only knows, I imagine if they do get rained on it only happens once!

The gay abandon with which files and books are flung down excites an awful fascination, doesn't it. I've no idea how they ever find their own stuff again. In fact evidence suggests that sometimes they don't. I'm sure there's an English file outside Bekynton that's been there since DS first started...

Peteneras I think a lot of the time the suggestion brainwashing to consider Eton and other such schools comes once you have started off your DS in certain preps (without really thinking about future options) and there is gentle pressure from headteacher's suggestions about 'how your DS would well there' or other parents or the boys themselves.
Similar happened to us but not having visited Eton in recent years and a certain prejudice against past Old Etonians that we have come across professionally and socially meant we resisted what we saw as 'the Eton brand' including open days and registering. Those with a more open mind would see the school for what is now, in essence, an extremely well funded and run institution that gives opportunities and time for all sorts of non-academic talents to be valued and flourish as well as very good teaching.

a lot of the time..

But thankfully not always summer.....

But Zero I feel that the process I'm describing, especially when the suggestion comes from the prep school or the boys, is loads better than the parents deciding to aim for a particular school from a very young age without knowing whether it will suit their character. However it is true sometimes there may be a pressure that needs to be resisted a bit like the London day school frenzy.

In our particular case, summerends, the reverse was true. DS actually got a guaranteed place at senior school, Eton, even before he’d seen a prep school. This is by virtue of his winning the then Junior Scholarship (now replaced by the New Foundation Scholarship) at the age of 10. Eton literally told us to just go out and pick a prep school, any prep school, day or full-boarding, London or anywhere in the country - with their approval, of course - and leave the rest to them. A list of prep schools was also included for our perusal - Dragon (Oxford), Sussex House, The Hall (both London), quickly come to mind, and a few others.

I fondly remember how very satisfying it was, for a change, to see heads of some of the nation’s top prep schools falling over themselves trying to get DS to register with their school(s).

People talk about the Eton ‘brand’. I don’t understand this concept. To me, there’s no such thing as the Eton brand but for sure, there is the Eton standard. It is the Eton standard that excellent schools and top schools around the world are trying to emulate. It’s the touchstone against which global schools are measured.

Peteneras the path followed by very talented boys in the state sector whose parents become aware of such an opportunity is a different one and certainly more cut and dry once such an award is given.

I agree about the Eton 'standard' but all such institutions are also a brand whether they want it or not. Hopefully with the large number of Etonians exiting in recent years and entering normal life there will be enough to balance out the negative stereotypes of past and some 'not so past' pupils .

There have always been large numbers of Etonians entering normal life, it is just that the media always focuses on the ones that conform to their ideas and prejudices of what an Old Etonian should be. At the moment of course, this is mainly Boris and Dave (negative) and all the actors (more positive).

How often do you hear people mentioning that Jonathan Porrit is an OE or David Shukman (BBC environment correspondent), Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall or George Orwell for that matter? How often do you hear that George Osborne is an OE, even though he went to St Pauls?

I think that people are more likely to think of Eton as a brand because the uniform and the College buildings are so immediately recognisable all around the world. 'Famous school - four letters' was apparently a crossword clue.

As peterneras says, once you have a boy at the school the idea of any aspect of the place or the boys themselves being 'typical' simply vanishes. In fact it is astonishing the sheer variety of boys who are there, all navigating their individual paths within this huge school.

Indrid I agree that Eton contains a variety of personalities and talents. However let us not kid ourselves, most boys there as in the other well known public schools (including our DSs) have a life cushioned by moderate to extreme wealth and mainly frequent (apart from 20% or so) school friends of equal or greater wealth. That does create a type characterised by a detachment from the majority of society, however well meaning they or their family are. That detachment can be combated but many choose not to and some even amplify it into unwarranted superiority.

Exactly so, Indrid - you put it far better than I could have done.
Also, I think the number of OE, or public school actors, is exaggerated by the media. The same names always come up - Damian Lewis, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne and Dominic West - but 5 privately educated actors is hardly an over representation.
My Godson is at drama school and he is the only privately educated student in the school - in his year, the year above and the year below.

summerends I don't disagree that children from wealthy backgrounds, who attend the big public schools will live lives very different from ordinary people, and will be totally detached from the majority of people in society. However, I do dispute that 'most' of the boys at Eton fall into this category, although obviously there are quite a few.

I know maybe 10 Old Etonians, mostly in their 40s and 50s. A couple run local businesses near me in Devon, one has a shop selling junk antiques and the other took over his family horticulture business. One is a vicar another a doctor specialising in a very unglamorous field of medicine (two brothers, sons of a university academic). One is an artist (not very well known) one is a novelist and writer (again, quite successful but not hugely well known) one is a director of a well known publishing company, and one younger one works for a big brewery and drinks company. Two scratch around as small farmers, living off money made earlier jobs in the film industry, and one went into the city and had a lucrative career, and is probably the only one that people would say is a typical Old Etonian.

Having said all that, there are probably far more very rich children in British public schools now than there were in the past. I read today that school fees have increased by over 400% since 1989, putting a private education out of the reach of most middle class families.

We are certainly lucky (and a fair bit of luck was involved!) that we can afford to send DS to be educated privately. If we had two children it would be a stretch and three would be impossible. I have no idea what DS will become, and he may not know what it is like to go hungry or to live in fuel poverty, but he certainly knows, from his father, that to get on in life you have to work bloody hard.

Hope this doesn't sound too ranty

Indrid your posts are never ranty . I do think though you can't judge the relative wealth of old Etonians from the time when their parents would be paying much lower school fees than for this generation. Your part of the country may also attract a different more grounded type of Old Etonian than the SouthEast.
I use the term 'cushioned' because I suspect that most of these kids at Eton and other such school would be rather appalled if it was proposed that they attend a normal state school, even a grammar school .

That's good summerends, I was worried that my post-gardening glass of cava might have gone to my head.

Well, DS would certainly be horrified to go to any school that wasn't Eton!
He does know how very fortunate he is to go there.

I suppose because he knows several boys who are on scholarships and bursaries, maybe that has skewed my view about the percentage of 'ordinary' families who have boys there.

Indrid ditto for my DS, he would be very sad to leave W and knows how lucky he is. However I am very aware what a culture shock it would now be for him changing to state and that is why there is a detachment or cushioning attending these boarding schools. I think that is true for the boys who are on bursaries as well, apart from those joining the sixth form. BTW my impression is that many if not most boys on scholarships, exhibitions etc at these schools are n't from 'ordinary income' families (DS included).

Did you see last years CBBC documentary? I think those boys are pretty typical Eton bursary/scholarship boys. Two of the previous year's batch are friends. The sixth form scholars are a much more varied bunch.

When I was a child I always imagined that one day, near the beginning of adulthood, I would arrive at a state of being with no mistakes or mis-steps or excruciating foot-in mouth incidents. Several millennia later I still, given days or week to choose an outfit, almost invariably pick the wrong footwear for any event, and I have perfected the art of typing total bollox on MN.

A few days ago, stone cold sober, I posted this on another thread:

^Eton (and others of its ilk) is entirely out of the reach of any child who is not clever and robust enough to get through the selection process, or whose parents don't know about, understand, approve of, or have any interest in the various routes to entry.

For anyone else it is probably more accessible than any local selective school. You certainly dont have to move to a different area or buy a house at an inflated price.^

I re-read it and thought "hmm, should have had the word confidence in there somewhere."

I now realise it's absolute rubbish. Any family that manages to encompass all the "positives" of the qualities I listed will be very far from (even the MN understanding of) "ordinary", whatever the state of their bank balance.

So I'm half way to wisdom - finally.

Zero

Indrid indeed I did. I would classify those boys as bursary / all rounders rather than straight academic or music awards.
What struck me most in that programme were:
The amount of money spent by the boys or school on mufti costumes.
The delightful Chinese boy, who had been to a good Essex grammar school and was obviously extremely bright in maths, saying how far in front the other boys from prep schools were because they had been taught in a much better way (paraphrasing).

Actually the prep school "advantage" is frightening. (If it's one of the brilliant ones...)

I had already been astonished at the oportunities offered at the prep I know best - but for the final year they really, really step up the pace. I'm beginning to feel quite redundant; every book, news article or trip that I suggest is dismissed with "Oh yes, we did that last week..."

summer I think it was you who suggested on another thread (I don't have a spreadsheet but it touched a nerve...) that boys from certain preps might sometimes have less enthusiasm for learning once they left. I'm beginning to understand how that might happen - when you already feel at 13 that you've learnt everything.

Not all boys who get bursaries are Kings Scholars or Music Scholars, not by any means. I noticed this little film that Eton have recently added to their website which outlines what they look for.

Zero I would agree that using words like ' normal' and 'ordinary' to describe people is unsatisfactory. I consider our family to be both of these things, but I suppose there are others who would consider us rich and posh.

I just would love for more boys from all backgrounds to try for Eton, if they like the look of it, and not be deterred by the idea that it is full of braying toffs.

Zero I agree and further experience continues to back up what I said before. If your DS is in that set up I suppose I would reinforce that in a lot of subjects they will be learning in greater depth, analysis and with more maturity once they move and the exam / scholarship in year 8 however important should n't become the relative summit of their achievements. I think with some of the boys their competitive nature provides sufficient motivation thereafter but it is a shame when that becomes the major motivation for learning rather than zest for the subjects themselves.

My DS1 is a KS at Eton, and has started his second year and adores it. I thought I'd just say to any mothers considering Eton to go for it, it's a fabulous school. With DS1 being KS, he counts the son of Ethiopian immigrants, the son of a dinner lady and a boy who hails from a council estate in southeast London a a some of his friends. The cultural diversity at Eton is brilliant! It's. No longer the preserve of royalty, Arab sheikhs and Russian oligarchs (albeit there are numerous boys whose fathers are billionaires and Lords of Whatever and the like at the college). The best thing about Eton is that it does what it says on tin, gives bright boys an education that last an eternity, and allows them to believe they can achieve their aspirations, whether that may end in an Etonian becoming Prime Minister or just a car salesman. Every boy is valued. Also, the boys on bursaries and scholarships aren't just music and Kings, I'm so sure Sports and Languages scholarships are also on offer- albeit hard to come by. And the bursary boys are plentiful, apparently, 40% of boys have some financial assistance! A great school, and all the boarding houses are fabulous IMO, although Kings is in one of the closest proximities to the schools amenities.

Interesting violets. Did your DS already have a chosen house, and thus have to choose between that and the scholars' house or was he a purely KS entrant? If the former what swung his decision? And do you think it would have made any difference either way?

violets it's great he is so happy. I am confused though, you did say up thread your DS is is an Oppidian house so he is an Oppidian scholar? As far as I am aware there are no language or indeed art or sports scholarships to Eton despite the fact they will have some of the highest calibre sporting talent there.

Hah... I obviously didn't re-read the thread. Tell me what you think now anyway (so I can look clever in front of a child.)

summerends you seem to have uncovered a bit of an enigma!

You are right about scholarships. Apart from the Music and Kings scholarships, there are the New Foundation Scholarships for boys who have been educated in the state system. Those were the boys featured in the My Life documentary, and there three per year. I believe. There are also some Sixth Form Scholarships. One is sponsored by Andrew Lloyd Webber for example, and there is another one for boys from the Middle East.

Everyone else gets in via the standard entrance test, and then applies for a bursary if they need it. Most people get half the fees, but some boys get the full whack.