what proportion of the y8 kids at your child's prep school gain scholarships and awards to senior schools?

[malefridgeblindness]

Trying to find out what good looks like -10% or 30% or 50%

A little over 50%, including sports scholarships etc., not just academic awards. This prep is not selective at main entry points (other than by ability to pay obviously) but those who come in late do get assessed to make sure they're at the same level as the classes they'll be joining, I think. But this figure is going to be very difficult to do anything with, because what it takes to get an award varies so much from school to school. You really need to be looking at awards to specific destinations you're interested in.

If I was looking for scholarship for one of my DC's (which I'm not) I'm not sure Id be looking at the actual percentages but which schools the scholarships were awarded and then Id choose the school that has a high rate of success at the school(s) I was interested in.

At DS's school, most of the boy's got awarded scholarships if they chose to move on. DS chose to leave in year 7 to go to a different secondary school but most of his friends got into the senior schools with sports, academic or a few with music scholarships.

Surely it's completely the wrong question? Do you want your child at a prep that has an 80% success rate at scholarships to the worst senior school in the country?

If, on the other hand, you compare two preps with a similar degree of selectivity who both regularly send children to the same seniors you might then be able to arrive at some judgement of which is the more effective school (for that purpose).

There are too many variables for your question to work. It's going to depend on the type of prep and the type of senior schools involved.

Agree with Zero and sittingbythefire. Also be aware that for some schools awards may be more a reflection of extra parental efforts than what is achieved by the school. That is less likely to be be the case when the awards are to boarders.

Another thing to look out for is whether the published figures is for number of scholarships, or number of pupils getting scholarships.

Though there's probably more scope to mislead at 11+ (where multiple competitive entry is the norm) than 13+ (if most are heading down CE route).

This leaves me wondering if being top cohort at your senior school (i.e. A scholar) is preferable to being in the mIddle of a more academic school.

I can't help feeling that very high scholarship numbers leaving preps can reflect the successful pot hunting skills of the headmaster rather than the brilliance of the children. Is this just glory for the school or is it also good for the pupils too?

Obviously not a dilemma for top scholars at super selectives or music schools etc

Pricrastina I think generally prep schools enter DCs for academic scholarships to schools they feel comfortable teaching to that standard and have links with (again assuming that the academic drive does n't come from the parents). For people like the OP looking at schools, the number of awards may impress. That will skew the advice they give so your comment is pertinent.

Wow, some good odds posted here.

Our is more like 20%. I guess that's probably 40-50% of those who go in for the awards but, of the whole cohort, nothing like 50%.

We are totally non selective though.

So far this year we have - 2 academic, 2 music, 5 sport and 1 all rounder scholarships.
Hoping for another 2-4 academics, an all rounder, a drama and 2 art but will obviously depend on the competition.

You see, as a contrast to Manic, we are a selective prep school with 28 boys in y8. Out of this 14 boys already have scholarships (8x academic, 2x music, 2x sport) or exhibitions (1x academic, 3x music, 2x drama). Art results are yet to come…..These awards are to pretty top schools as well, but really, it's mainly to do with being selective in the first place! Taken out of context, results like these could give a really unbalanced view of the schools success.

If you are trying to gauge how successful a school is, then I think you need to consider the intake criteria, the exit schools, and amount of awards to which schools. Thats just measuring one aspect of success though. Are the pupils happy? Challenged? Given lots of opportunities? etc etc.

Hugely depends where the boys are going. My boys' prep sends most of the year to one, related school (or about 50-55 boys), around 8 to 10 to another and about 3-4 elsewhere. As a result there are only so many pots to go for, so whilst last year was a banner year, there were "only" 13 scholarships , 2 exhibitions, and about 4 music awards. Normally scholarship numbers are more like only 7-8.
So nothing like the stats variously mentioned, but as they are to westminster, Eton and Winchester , I think they are still pretty good.

Whether there would be more glory in sending fewer boys to westminster and instead them targeting scholarships elsewhere is I guess an debatable point.

In Ds' year it was around a third to half. The school would advertise that they get around 25/30 awards for the year of 35-40 but some will receive more than one offer.

Be careful to check how many boys, not how many awards. Some schools count up the number of awards/offers which in reality could be very bright/talented three pupils all getting 4 awards each rather than 12 different children getting scholarships.

Yes Claire has just made a point similar to what one i was going to make. Which is beware of double or in some cases triple counted awards! i know our prep are guilty of this, when reporting scholarship offers and say total of '10' but fail to clarify that this was 10 scholarships between 4 children.