Different Profiles.
I went to Oundle and know Canford ish.
Oundle is full boarding, full on and honestly I thought the education was pretty incredible.
Big school structured through the house system, eating and living in groups of 60 helped it not feel too big, and you had a smaller network of people to hang out with. Advice would be, understand the vibe of your child and speak with School because the houses were quite different in the profiles of students in them (musical, sporty, scottish etc)
Academically, can't really fault it at all. It requires you to work. Like seriously hard and it is normal to work very hard. The school gets excellent grades given it doesn't have as high a CE pass mark of other institutions which get the same grades. Love the new addition of off timetable Trivium and Quadrivium. Teaches you to be curious, self starting and understand life is full of learning, not just things in the classroom.
Sport clearly important and amazing facilities, but I think it understands, which I agree with, unless youre wanting to make a career out of it, it's not that important sport on a competitive level, more so on a fitness and health, so the school won't make you die on that cross at the expense of your academics or other interests. Wanna chill in the E team or just do a gym for an hour you can. Want to be in the England rugby team, clearly Tom Curry shows you can too.
Pretty Wealthy but understated. People care more about where you're going than where you're from. Was totally shocked at Uni at some other schools (cough, Marlborough) whose sutdents were way more 'affected'.
Big school, loads of kids, socially I preferred. Popular groups don't dominate, kind of fits any type of student and any interest.
It is not an educational nirvana, drawbacks for me were - Not a place for people who need watching over what they are doing, some struggling types can find it intense. Not somewhere that asks you to step up, you must step up. Can be a bit too obsessed with academics. Socially, it sounds kind of strict now with phones too and general socialising rules which I think is short-sighted. Could do more for helping students with interests to pursue them out of the school, whether it's wanting to be a Music DJ or Actor. Food was crap.
Hope helps, if you want more info just PM me.