Academic AND sporty boys/co-ed Pvte school

[Nextstep123]

Seeking thought and experiences on schools in South East/Oxfordshire/All homecounties. Day/Boarding - weekly or full.
Have an academic and incredibly sporty DS who loves long actives days. Used to 6 days per week Prep school with 2 County sports. Prob I find is when i find a school with strong enough sport with County and Regional connections they never seem as academic as they make out once I do some research! Not interesting in Winchester as so outgoing and sporty.
Short list -Wellington College (loved but is it really selective ? And expense!)
Brighton College -not sure have enough good sport
Epsom College
Harrow
Abingdon
(KCS Wimbledon and Hampton -can’t afford to move back to London !)
Where stands out that I have missed ?
Thanks

Berkhamsted

Whitgift?

Or Merchant Taylor’s in Rickmansworth. They are the two schools the boys from our prep go who are clever and sporty

Radley sounds ideal from what you've said

Tonbridge

Radley, Tonbrige, Harrow, Eton if you want all boys.

Wellington, Brighton College for mixed.

But don’t attribute the stellar sports results in these schools to the schools themselves. If you have six scholarship academy rugby players in your first team you are always going to do well against other schoolboy sides.

Whitgift

Eton dont give out sports scholarships.

Radley. Mixed academically, but the top few sets are as bright as Abingdon. They now have a sports scholarship too I think. Plenty of national and county boys there. And the sports facilities are excellent.

I think Wellington is your place really.

Why are you bothered if it's super selective? Your DS can only be in one class, so as long as the top set can stretch him, you really don't have to worry about what is going on in set 9.

@reefedsail. I have elder son who has lowered his expectations and therefore effort as all his mates who are sporty are in much lower sets and it doesn’t appear to be ‘cool’ to be clever in his snr school. The two boys are very different but that is why I would like an ethos of learning and valuing actually working hard !!

My DH was working at Wellington when they made the decision to stop rugby participation for boys not keeping up their effort grades. They were interesting times!

FWIW, appearing to work hard can be 'uncool' at very selective schools too. My DH has worked at another, very selective, school mentioned here. It was not cool to be seen to do any work, but also not cool to fail tests. Just led to lots of secret work and tutoring at home, which was presumably stressful for families.

This is my son and the best schools for him would definitely have been either Wellington or Oundle. We wanted co-Ed, otherwise as others have mentioned, Radley or Harrow both would have been good options.

Or for day - Abingdon

I have a sporty ds at Oundle doing well. It IS cool to work hard there. People messing around get looked down on and almost ostracised. They do not however give out sport scholarships and do not buy in any talent so lose to the big guns that bring in academy players (Harrow, Haileybury and a ton of other schools). I’d say it was a nerdy school foremost and a music/sport/whatever secondary. My ds is having a blast. Working like a Trojan and having extra 1to1 sports coaching to develop him. He won’t be a professional sportsman but he’s having a brilliant time at school pretending to be one

Eh? Oundle certainly do have sports scholars ...

They also bring in talent at sixth form..nothing wrong with that but to pretend they dont is nonsense..

I heard that Wellington get poor performers to sit A levels at a local school so not on their results ?!?!?!

Anyone heard that ?....

It is not unusual for there to be alternative exam centre numbers .

The three children I knew at Wellington were very sporty but academically on the lower end of average. They had a fab time there but did always seem to be partying.......

Merchant Taylor’s in Northwood. 76.4% A*/A at A-level and 88.5% at GCSE. 14 Oxbridge places last year. They excel in their three main sports - rugby, hockey and cricket. Links to each as there’s a lot to say about all of them!

www.mtsn.org.uk/life-at-taylors/sport/rugby/

www.mtsn.org.uk/life-at-taylors/sport/hockey/

www.mtsn.org.uk/life-at-taylors/sport/cricket/

Our prep consistently sends boys there on sports scholarships. Tough to get into. Does also have a great reputation for things like art, drama and music too.

Any Tonbridge inside experience ??

Bromsgrove. Good sports and academics

Bromsgrove is a great school with high pastoral care and which gets the best out of a wide range of students but I wouldn’t say it was in the south east or highly academic. A lot of the sporty kids would also fall into the category of being in the lower sets.

It depends on the sport you want. Personally I would say Whitgift (although it is not coed) or second choice Wellington (although the latter it buys in its rugby players at 6th form with scholarships) would be the most recognised for sport. Would Marlborough be of interest? The school is relatively academic and they have fantastic sports facilities and keep the DC very busy 7 days a week. The boys sports however is patchy but they would support a DC who wants to take a sport to higher levels.

I know Bromsgrove isn’t in the south east but OPs area is wider than that: she was including Oxfordshire and Bromsgrove is not a million miles from there!
Whilst I would agree some sporty kids are in lower sets, it tends to be those that are brought in for their sporting prowess ( and who may not have got in otherwise). I know kids who have represented GB in a range of sports and still obtained A*s across the board.

If you have an academic child you want him or her to be with similar children they push each other on,a school that does BTECS is not an Academic environment.