Best academic boys boarding school.

[Nantucketsummer]

Hello everyone.

This is my first post. I known that many of you are very knowledgeable and wondered if you may me able to advise me. We are from the U,S. but live in the U.K.

Our 8 year old son is showing signs of being academically gifted and we are considering sending him to a British Public School. We love the thought of a traditional boys boarding school. How difficult will it be to gain entry ? I am aware that the boys start at 13 but how many hoops will we jump through before then?

Thank you all in advance.

My DS went to a non-selective prep school from 5+, a long way from Eton. The school was great, but not remotely a 'feeder' for Eton. DS sat the pre-test in Year 6, and was offered a place subject to passing CE. There was no way to prepare for the pre-test.

Gruach
Village primaries do nothing to prepare kids for exams, for the potential to be in a big exam hall full of other unknown children. Nor do they prepare them for interviews. Pre-tests vary by school/region but round here most pre-tests, including interviews, are in Y6, with CE only being for setting purposes. Children may have to sit several sets of exams, depending on if the parents are targeting more than one school. Y6 is pretty full on, not the gentle year you consider it.

I would not want to move my child in Y6 and put them straight into doing exams while they were settling into a new school. I would prefer to move in Y5 at the latest.

There are only 5 all boys full boarding schools.

Winchester
Eton/ Harrow
Radley
Sherborne

I have listed them in order of academic prowess.

They all pre-test in Y6, so I would suggest that in Y4 or 5 you visit them all with your son to see which feels right. They are all very different.

While some tests are easier to prepare for than others and some kids will do well without preparation it's nonsense to claim that you can't prepare for the test. In some cases the preparation will just be giving the child an academically stimulating environment in which their used to thinking outside the box, articulating themselves, formulating arguments and defending those arguments and generally being stretched etc.

Are you set on boarding? A highly competitive grammar is often more competitive academically than public school (and will send a higher proportion to Oxbridge - especially in more technical subjects). A school like Judd for example. This has the advantage that the child can stay at home, and mix with a broader range of children. It is unlikely to compete in terms of facilities and sport and music opportunities though. (Note that academic UK universities are concerned only with academics - being a great sportsman won't help with entry).

/their/they're

Op you talk about what you want, but does your son want to go to boarding school? Have you looked at your local schools? State and private? With A level results announced yesterday most will have a piece about how well their students have done. If your son is academically gifted then a supportive environment will nurture that and help him achieve top grades, you don’t have to go down the boarding route to achieve that.

OP Also remember that registration for these schools has a cut off point much earlier than the entrance exam. For example, we had no idea that Radley was a lot earlier than we had thought and completely missed the boat.

IceCream, yes, you are quite right about preparation. I meant just in terms of past/practice papers (the Eton Test is all done by computer, and there's no way to see past questions before a boy sits the test itself). But there are of course loads of other ways that children are 'prepared' for entrance tests/interviews.

Guess we have different experiences? (I only know about yr 6 pre-tests.)

I was speaking of moving to very well known boarding preps from where boys go on to the most well known public schools. (Outside London ...) So ‘gentle’ was relative! And I wouldn’t be keen for a child to board in yr 5.

Honestly, no specific interview prep beyond judicious conversation at home and with kindly friends was necessary or encouraged by the senior schools. No doubt it’s different in London.

I'm a firm believer a child will do well wherever they go if they put their mind to it, that includes state schools!

And there are endless threads on mn, vulcano, that discuss exactly that, and conclude it's nonsense. A child cannot so their utter best without some modicum of support and vaguely decent teaching. A child will not do their best in a disruptive, noisy, environment, with transient staff and pupils. Whilst there are many excellent state schools, there is certainly nothing approaching universal access to them.

Mine didn't/don't board. They are/were at a (mostly) day prep. There is a huge range between village primary. The point I was trying to make to the OP about moving into a public school at 13 is that if her son is in a village primary at the moment, it may well not be an appropriate environment for preparing for the exams to get there. She doesn't have to go all the way to the extreme of boarding from Y3/4/5, but her DS may well benefit from moving to a good day prep.

Ah ... Sorry Punt I thought you were talking about the decision regarding which year to move to a prep (before or after pre-tests) to prepare for CE.

But a child at a village primary school that only goes up to 11 years old still has to move to senior school for two years anyway. Some of the most ‘successful’ public school students I know gained entry from state schools. That’s certainly doable - and public schools offer an exam tailored to the state school curriculum in that case, rather than CE. But from what I’ve seen it is probably more fun to prepare amongst a cohort of schoolmates who are doing the same thing. This and the expert knowledge regarding choice of senior (boarding) school, are two of the main advantages of a prep.

OP, look no further, there are effectively only two schools that meet all your criteria. You are specifiically asking for "best academic boys boarding school"; a "British Public School"; "a traditional boys boarding school". How on earth Harrow managed to sneak in as one of the possibilities is beyond me - falls at the very first hurdle!

Seems to me some people do not know the difference between "boys" boarding school and "mixed boarding school". Likewise, the difference between "traditional" boarding school, i.e. full-time and "weekly" or day (boarding) school, i.e. part-time, etc by uttering all kinds of names of schools.

The two schools that meet all your criteria are: Eton and Winchester. In reality, there is only one school that matters. Contrary to popular belief, it is even more academic than Winchester. Just look at the past few years' league tables to see what I mean. And yet, this school is famed for much, much else without even having to mention its academics. If interested, please register your son's name without much ado and certainly before he turns ten-and-a-half.

You are thinking about this at the right time - I believe that year 4 is when you can easily visit open days prior to planning individual school visits / registering for pre-tests during year 5.

My feeling is that emotional maturity and confidence plays a significant role in admissions to these schools - if your son is more of an "introverted academic" then over the next couple of years aim to encourage him to talk about his interests with others, help him become confident talking with adults.

Boarding schools were suggested to us when my son was in year 5, but we were slow to follow through, so didn't get to actually visit till early year 6. We didn't talk through boarding vs day schools in great detail with our son prior to pretests (wanted him to have a real say in any decision ...) and only after that realised we had some work to do! It's all come good as he is about to start as a scholar at Winchester, but his last year would have been easier with some certainty as to destination!

It is scary trying to find the "right fit" for a boy so many years in advance. Good luck on the journey!

We're a few years behind you but will be starting to view a short list of prep schools for our two boys next term. Personally, I wouldn't attempt to get your son into any of the top public schools without him having had at least a few years in a Prep with a similar ethos and peers aiming for the same leaving destinations. So rather than focusing on 13+ I'd advise you work backwards and look a boys' preps with academic reputations. We're looking (primarily based on location and overall reputation as opposed to pure academics) at Papplewick, Sunningdale and Woodcote House.

Note that there is no obligation to board at prep to go to the big trad boarding schools. Most don't

Why boarding OP? Most Americans are fairly against it so I'm surprised to see that's your first thought. If you want a back up option that takes quite a few from state primaries try Abingdon. They do have boarding but it empties out at weekends and most don't board. It did send 20 or so to Oxbridge last year plus half a dozen to the American Ivy League schools. It has a broad curriculum that feels more American in some ways. They also have an associated prep with an automatic transfer to senior school unless they advise you the fit isn't right in year 5. It could save you a lot of headache.

Peteneras speaks very good sense, OP. If my DS hadn't got in to Eton, Winchester would have been our second choice (and I don't mean that it's inferior to Eton - just that our DC1 was dead set on Eton, and if we had needed a second choice, it would have been Winchester). Pete also makes the same point as me re. Eton, namely registering your son before he turns 10 years and six months.

Just read Jellycat's post, and I am not entirely convinced. I think that if you have a bright boy who is dead set on Eton, you don't necessarily need a 'standard' feeder prep. As I said upthread, my DS did go to a prep school, but not one with an Eton track record. He was, however, 100 percent set on Eton. We said he could go (despite the hugely long distance) if he could get a scholarship - which he did. It has been the most wonderful thing all round. I can't fault it in any way. DS (who is a very difficult child - my others put together are easier than him) couldn't be happier.

You should use an advisory service like Gabbitas and Thring in London. They've been helping families select the right boarding schools for their children for generations.

I believe they have a website but they will offer a personalised service to help you find exactly the right school for your needs and to suit both your budget and your child.

Obviously people will give advice on here but no individual on here will have as wide ranging a knowledge of the schools, as we will all only know about a few schools with which we have been involved.

Good luck.

Eton have changed their registration deadline to 30th June in year 5.

"Why boarding OP? Most Americans are fairly against it so I'm surprised to see that's your first thought."

Not only are most Americans fairly against it, but it's reasonable to say most British are fairly against it too. In fact, most of the world is fairly against it. Boarding schools are essentially a British phenomenon. The British were the pioneers of this concept in the modern era but historically the idea goes back many centuries. Eton, for example, was founded in 1440 where the scholars had (and still have) to study and live at the school. It is not surprising, therefore, the rest of the world were not used to this concept - they would be extremely lucky to have any school of any kind at all, never mind boarding schools. But the idea soon caught on in the 19th century especially in other British Commonwealth countries and/or colonies where Britain had her empire - largely due to British civil servants who were sent there to rule over the natives.

But boarding schools were, rightly or wrongly, given a bad name for a long time until the early 1970s for a number of reasons or a combination of reasons, e.g. the bullying culture, the state of their accommodation, the stale food, and even the abuses committed by the adults on their charges, to name but a few examples.

However, boarding schools have reinvented themselves in the last 30 or so years. With the emergence of stringent rules and regulations governing adults' association with children in particular, and the rights of parents and children in general, the modern day boarding school is a complete transformation from its past ghosts! In many of the top-tier boarding schools of today, their standard of accommodation and food can seriously embarrass those of a 3 or 4-star hotel's!

As for the Americans, the only British school they know of is - yes, you guessed it - Eton! No other British school matters to them. Eton has always had a "special relationship" with America. In fact, there have always been American boys boarding at Eton for as long as I can remember. from almost 80 years ago (1942) gives a little idea to this relationship. And I've personally assisted some American families with their sons' application to Eton and helped when they began boarding here. As a matter of fact, there is an organisation called,'The American Friends of Eton College' (AFEC) based in the USA to promote goodwill and friendship between Americans and The School.

OP

Where will your son be happy?

Miserable children often don't do as well as they could academically.

Does it have to be private? State boarding schools exist, the education is provided by government and parents pay for the boarding.

I'd suggest looking at Caldicott for prep and moving him maybe for the next academic year. They have good leavers destinations. Wellington although co-ed is worth looking at as well.
www.caldicott.com/AcademicResults201718.aspx