Wellington, Brighton College, Charterhouse or Tonbridge??

[123missy]

Hi, My son is currently in Year 5 and I am looking at these 4 schools. We live in central London and are looking at weekly boarding. Either all boys or co-ed. I just wondered if anyone had any children at these schools and what their views are? I'm struggling to see the difference between them all apart from Tonbridge being all boys. I only want to apply for two as we are looking at full boarding as well.

We loved Wellington. It was challenging academically but also allowed fun and had excellent pastoral care. All the youngsters seemed very happy and came out of sixth form buoyant and bursting with enthusiasm.
Lots from central London. Most go home most weekends after sport but not all. I’m not sure they offer weekly boarding as such though. I think they only offer full boarding or day. Very few are day pupils.
Lovely campus. Good parental involvement.

Thanks CherryPavlova that is really good to know. I went to visit and enjoyed the Open Day but then again I liked all the Open Day's so I'm finding it really hard to decide! I have to say though that Charterhouse seemed less impressive...the headmaster's talk was quite boring....which doesn't fill me with confidence. I've heard on the grape vine that Wellington is too sporty and full of flash monied London kids but I'm presuming you could use that to describe any of the top private schools near London! I'm hoping my boy just finds his tribe!

I have a friend who teaches at Charterhouse and it wouldn’t be my first choice. Friends with children at Brighton are very happy but maybe less children travel from London. It’s not got the same campus as Wellington but for older pupils the proximity to town is seen as a positive. Certainly Wellington and Brighton have similar ethos and were both ‘transformed’ culturally by Anthony Seldon who went from Brighton to Welly. I think Brighton has been co-ed longer.
I don’t know anything about Tonbridge.

I have had three children, all very different, go through brighton college. They have all done very well academically but more importantly have all found their individual niche at the school and been very happy.
I think it’s probably more of a mixed school population than the others you mention, partly because of its location and partly because the headmaster is an advocate of diversity.
Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions and good luck choosing !

Charterhouse is changing a lot, and going co-ed which will make it a bit more modern. Already lots of changes with the new head.
I work in the prep sector and general impressions are:
Wellington- quite london-centric families, drug issues and lots of partying in sixth form at weekends (yes all schools have them but particularly bad here), a very 'cool school' for those kinds of kids, lost its charm since the head changed but still a very good co-ed modern yet traditional blend school
Brighton - progressive, quite liberal yet got its tradition too, less public school/all boarding feel. Again London and South West families, usually pretty near the school
Charterhouse - as above, changing lots. Historically quite a school for 'tough boys' and very traditional old money families. Surrey and London families mainly. Has potential - one to watch!
Tonbridge - only non-co ed on your list. Very traditional boys school. All the boys I know who went there are truly lovely, gentlemanly and intelligent.

Thanks fabulous thank you for all the replies. I didn’t know AS was the headmaster at Brighton before so that’s interesting to know. I thought Wellington and Brighton had similar glitzy open days. Does it matter with weekly boarding how far the schools are? Tonbridge and Brighton are further for us. Is the sport similar at all?

Interested in this, particularly Wellington.

Is it very glitzy/flash/Liz Hurley types or are there more old school, down to earth families too? Slightly put off by all the celebs

As long as you are happy with the drive to collect or bus options then it is up to you how close or far it is. Generally Brighton is South East obviously with many living in Sussex. Wellington is very London and home counties. Both, as far as I know, are quite new money (but still inevitably some more old school too). I think Wellington is more likely to have the real flash but both attract very affluent cohorts.
I'd say the distinguishing factor is Brighton being quite liberal and is going through an 'innovative', trying out fads phase whereas Wellington went through that phase 10+ years ago and is more settled and back to being more of a co-ed public school. Its phase mainly involved mindfulness. I don't say 'phase' meaning necessarily negative things. I think it brings a mix of positives and negatives.

Read the tatler reviews for both. They sum up both well and show the contrast in Wellington going 'calm' and Brighton being the one going for high energy innovation!

To add, if you want to avoid new money glitz, Charterhouse historically tends to attract more old school types. Yes, some celebs but not high profile generally. It is more hidden away and traditional.

We found a complete mix at Welly ( new head had started before we left). There were definitely very rich (including foreign royals) and ours made some very wealthy friends who offered amazing holiday opportunities but most were quite middle class ordinary. We were accepted quickly and found peers who like us were country bumpkin rather than glitz. Dog walks and sloe gin aplenty. Amongst the friends we made were GPs, Solicitors, small business owners. Celebrity certainly wasn’t obvious or treated any differently.

It was Berkshire, Oxfordshire centric rather than London centric but within ‘our circle’ we’re children from Isle of Wight, Sussex, Surrey, Paris, Malaysia, Copenhagen, Bristol, Wiltshire, London, Hertfordshire and Hampshire.

We didn’t see any evidence of a huge drug culture or party culture. In fact children suspected of drinking were breathalysed by house staff and sanctioned heavily. Our youngest spent a night in the sanitarium with two friends and had to do the walk of shame in their PJs next day for sharing a bottle of 18th birthday champagne between six of them. They were gated and lost privileges for a fortnight and had calls home. Certainly others were permanently excluded for repeated alcohol consumption or the slightest whiff of drugs. Zero tolerance policy.

Ours made lifelong friends despite transferring in at a late stage. They were encouraged to excel and develop skills beyond the classroom as well as a sense of duty and a need to use their privilege for the good of others.

Wow thanks so much for your inputs ladies. I’m not so worried about new money, old money or celebs. I think kids find their tribe. I’m thinking Charterhouse and Wellington might be a good combination to apply to but I’m going with my husband to view them all again. I think Brighton will be too far for weekly. Then we need to decide which full boarding!

I’m also discounting Tonbridge as it’s all boys and I really think I prefer co-ed.

If you want weekly co-Ed boarding have you considered Haileybury? Probably only works logistically if you are North London though.

If you're looking at Tonbridge but prefer co-ed, have you considered Sevenoaks?

I think the academic bar to getting into Brighton and Tonbridge is higher than Wellington and definitely higher than Charterhouse. The latter is good to have as a back up as they don't really turn anyone away and they seem to get pretty good results from a mixed intake which can only be a good thing.

Just to say Re: Brighton - I've got friends from London who send DCs there - they get the train down Monday morning & cab from station so it's completely doable. They are Putney way.

Also have a few friends with DCs at Charterhouse - very good reports of the school but Hampstead area friends were driving it and said the round trip was awful every week in Friday night traffic.

Hello 123. Another Wellington family here with a very positive experience of the school. My advice to you though would be to choose a school that is easy to get to. You'd be surprised how often you will be there, seeing plays, watching matches, having drinks with the parents. Is there a fast motorway/a reliable train line that connects you easily and quickly? Even termly boarding requires more of you than you think (according to my god-daughter's mother!). Make sure the location works for you logistically.

Anyway, just fyi, a quick snapshot of our collective experience of Wellington (our son joined in 2017 as a weekly boarder).

Firstly, and perhaps mostly importantly, the pastoral care is excellent. The school boasts a lovely, kind, warm teaching body who are very approachable, and the communication structures are easy to understand. We have been rather pleasantly surprised by it, tbh, having suspect it might be a rather austere environment. We chose the school because of its academic record. We have a very bright boy and since we live pretty locally figured if boarding didn't work out we could always switch him to a day place. Our son wouldn't dream of it now. He absolutely loves the school, loves the evenings with his friends, and is a fully signed-up card-carrying member of the Wellingtonian community. He lives and breathes its ethos much to our surprise (mindfulness, sleep hygiene, Harkness etc).

There are some very rich and famous families at the school, but actually, in our experience, the run-of-the-mill folk like us are really lovely and down to earth (and some of the rich and famous ones too!). The ones who turn up to the school's social events are very straightforward people, lots of whom are working hard to put their kids through a school that they love.

Sport: rugby is taken very seriously at the school, but it's not the only currency. My son played rugby at his prep but not to any particularly high standard. He has chosen to play a new sport and loves it. It's much less competitive, but it's given him huge amounts of confidence and enabled him to be 'sporty' in his own way. I do think if you had a child who didn't like sport at all, they might struggle at Wellington. Sport is compulsory.

Drugs: we've had no worries there yet (as far as I know!). The school's impressed us though with how openly it talks about all those things, so it's definitely an ongoing conversation. The Deputy Head has also made it very clear on a few occasions that these are expellable offences. I suspect any misdemeanours are taking place at weekends (at home!), when quite frankly it's the parents' job to step in and police the situation. I think it's more of a London problem than a school problem, IYKWIM.

But I think - one year in - we've been most impressed by how well our son is being prepared for the future. Julian Thomas is a hugely impressive headteacher, who thinks very deeply about what education should be and how it should change to meet the needs of adults hitting the workforce in 8-10 years time.

Good luck with your decision. I think instinct plays a big part, so do trust your heart whenever you engage with the schoolchildren and the teachers at your various choices. If you do decide on W, don't hesitate to drop me a DM if you need any further info re: houses etc.

Thanks

123missy I think that's a smart move not going single sex.

I attended Tonbridge, as a boarder. The teaching was exemplary, and I credit my attending a good university to the support I had from some very inspiring teachers. The pastoral care was neither here nor there. The pupils, by and large, were dreadful. And it's funny, recently speaking to a few people I was at school, but they didn't enjoy the experience either (low level bullying and just a general sense of 'these people are not my tribe. 5 years will go by slowly'). It had at the time quite an old school feel, (I attended late 90s early 00s) so it of course may have moved on.

I would echo brisklady - Sevenoaks is a pretty decent school, and as it's co-ed it's a better proposition than Tonbridge. Wellington, being co-ed, is probably a good bet, and my only nervousness would be if it had a similar ethos to Tonbridge, namely 'If you've not played for the 1st XV, and/or secured a place at Oxbridge, you can consider your time here something of a failure.'

Tonbridge is very sporty, but also sets a lot of store by music. Academically, I can have absolutely no complaint (although I remember at the time I was there it had the worst fees/exam scores ratio of any of the independents!)

I’m sorry but this chain has some utter rubbish written about Wellington, seemingly based on hearsay or gossip, not facts. I had a DS who attended, he never came across any drugs, he played lots of different sports, including rugby and had a simply brilliant time while being pushed hard to excel academically. There is no drug problem at Welly, nor are you considered a failure if you don’t play for the first XV or get into Oxbridge. They excel in a range of sports and arts, it is an exceptionally difficult place to get into, they want to recruit students with character and with an interest in extracurricular activities, as well as being exceedingly smart. They don’t want pure geeks and bookworms; St Paul’s, KCS and Westminster are welcome to those.

But surely when you have an idea that there are certain types of children you 'don't want', then that suggests an ethos where some children are going to feel excluded and potentially be treated unpleasantly? I had a friend at one of the schools on this thread who was a very mild-mannered, non-sporty, non-alpha-male bookworm, and he had a hideous time.

This chain is a year old. Wellington is full of ordinary kids and some extraordinary kids in a very extraordinary environment. I do worry that it isn't very 'real'. They do seem to love it though, lots going on, totally exhausting. Pushed academically and extra curricularly, they want them busy, busy, busy.... except on Sundays when they either all go home or just chill out at the school. Which seems to work for those that stay in and those that go home, they all get a bit of peace and quite to re-fresh. I do think it really is an amazing privilege for these children to have such opportunities of such an education. I just wish every child could have that, it seems so unfair that only the lucky sperm club and the odd lucky talented tike that can get a great bursary gets to go. I wish all children could have so much investment in their education. What a world that could be! MInd you... real adult life might feel a disappointment after that!

There might be drug issues as my kids boarding house had sniffer dogs go through it once. Not sure if they found anything...... not heard of anyone getting chucked out yet. If it goes on which I am sure it does with teens everywhere, I imagine it is mostly out of school as they do get to escape quite often. The children do seem to respect the school and value and appreciate the opportunity to be there, or maybe that is what they tell me. Tell em what they want to hear eh!