Papplewick or Lambrook for son moving to Ascot from London

[Poppypimlico]

Papplewick or Lambrook for son moving into y3 in September. Currently in boys only school in London. Is the compulsory boarding in y6 an issue for boys by the time they reach that age? Is Lambrook as good academically as pappelwick. Any thoughts much appreciated thank you!

What is your target destination school at 13? Do you want all boys or mixed? Also Lambrook is predominantly a day school, there is no Saturday or Sunday night boarding so maximum is 5 nights a week. Lambrook is also much larger. I would visit both and decide which you can see YOUR child being more comfortable.

Thank you. The usual suspects between Eton Wellington

My son absolutely loved Papplewick. Wonderful school in every way.

There was one boy who struggled with boarding in my son’s year but he warmed to it in the end. They get great results with moving up to the next schools - predominantly boarding schools but one boy went to Westminster as a day pupil.

I'd visit both as they are quite different. We loved Papplewick and our DSs have been very happy there, whereas we didn't warm to Lambrook - it's very shiny and when we toured, they kept telling us how much all the facilities cost, as if that was what worked to impress other parents. That was very much not what we were looking for.

Academically Lambrook is fine, gets kids into Eton and the usual places but Papplewick is unquestionably more able to stretch the top end both academically and musically. I don't think Lambrook has ever got a boy into Eton on a KS or an MS - I'm not sure if they even have a scholarship set to pepare kids for scholarship/election, whereas Papplewick usually get one or two each year and a couple years back they got 4 KSs in one year - which out of a non-selective school of 200 boys total from year 2 to year 8 is exceptional.

That being said, for some families the lack of scholarship preparation is a feature not a bug - to each their own, for sure.

The boarding for Y7 & 8 was also a feature for us. If our DSs had had an issue with boarding in summer of Year 6 we wanted to know about that asap to reconsider whether aiming for a full boarding school was sensible. In the end it was fantastic boarding those two years, being away from screens in term time especially with all their friends, and having a screen-free existence at school - as well as being properly ready for senior school boarding and able to hit the ground running from day 1. There were 2 boys in DS1's year who left at the end of Year 6 because they didn't want to board, but all the rest remained and about 5 additional boys joined at the start of Year 7 as well.