Are ABSOLUTELY EVERY child's parents at Garden House School (Chelsea) very rich?

[Xashax007]

Are there any ordinary working parents?

An insight from a parent at GH would be appreciated.

Cherokee - I don't think anyone has said "everyone" tutors - Babybarrister and I were merely making the observation that tutoring has become endemic amongst the inner London crowd sitting for 7+, 8+ and 11+.

I think you correctly identify insecurity as one of the reasons why people turn to it and this means that a very large proportion do tutor - just look at the plethora of half term, holiday, weekend "revision" courses for all these exams. The exams are so competitive, and becoming more so, that people don't want to leave anything to chance and if a large proportion of applicants are doing it, then they perceive their child will be disadvantaged if they don't. It's a crazy situation.

At 13+ it is harder to tutor because you are examined in every subject not just maths and english and reasoning like the 7/8/11+ (all very easy to tutor for) and the pre tests tend to be computer based (for which it is hard to prepare) followed by a detailed interview.

Given GH's location, by definition it is going to have a very high proportion of wealthy parents (as are all the schools located in that postcode!).

This thread made me laugh. I don't have time to respond to all the points about Garden House school (because I'm a working mother and not a billionnaire jet-setting lady who lunches) and, thankfully, fellow Garden House parent Cherokee has. Just 3 quick points:

-unlike other pre-prep & preps, Garden House doesn't cram. It doesn't need to, because its encouraging and motivating teaching style works ridiculously well (our son joined from a French school, where he hadn't started reading or maths, and is now - less than a term in - glued to his books on the weekend and begging us for more maths quizzes! Suddenly, after being bored senseless in his former school, he loves learning).

-Second, both its pre prep (until 8) and prep (8-11) get some of the top exit results in the country: the headmaster recently published where all the boys ended up at 13: most were at Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, etc.

• third, for his assessment my DS spent a whole morning at the school (in another pre prep he was given 10mins and just quicky tested in reading & maths). They really took the time to get to know him. Feedback at the end wasn't 'he needs to work on his subtraction' but rather 'look at the drawing he did in 2d, what great spacial awareness' and 'he is really curious' and 'he got on well with the other boys and was polite'. I suspect (but I can't speak for the school) they're just looking for children who are respectful to others (the Kindness Code is a priority at Garden House), curious and eager to learn. They can't possibly be looking for billionnaire parents as so many of us clearly aren't (the headmaster thought it was great we don't even own a car and would be taking the children to school on the bus every day): flashiness is, subtly, discouraged.

I went to one of the gels schools in the inner SW postcodes that regularly pops up on here.
I was poor as a church mouse - my fee money came from abroad.

But the 'lifestyle' that goes with such schools precludes all but the top 1% of earners - who comprise about 20% of the population round there

the selection test - I was 3 when I took it - was all about thinking skills, aptitude, stuff like that
not reading and writing but POTENTIAL
and the school still consistently gets gels into top schools, often with scholarships

and YYY to the 'bargains in charity shops'
if your uniform was NOT handed down at least third hand you were considered awfully nouveau

"There are so many children I’d love to offer places to but I
can’t. It’s horrible"

This just means they are oversubscribed.

Prep school parents use tutors because if you want to send your child to a very over subscribed school, what matters is not that you achieve a particular mark in the entrance exam, but that your mark is higher than x% of the other children applying. Basically, it is a competition.

TalkinPeace your post made me laugh. Whilst I agree second hand clothes were de rigueur in our day (Oxfam mostly clothed me and now my DSs) I fear the fact private schools are becoming increasingly international makes second hand clothes a rarer sight. My foreign friends just can't fathom the British tendancy for moth-eaten, colour-worn, stitched-up clothes. Especially when combined with an obsession for properly polished shoes.

Domybest
Less Oxfam than the private hand-me-down network.
We all knew who had owned the clothes before.

So the moth-eaten ballet cardigan was valued because it was one that had been worn by the girl's aunt when Miss Vacani was teaching the Mitfords in that crazy studio on the top floor.
Or the summer dress that was the first pattern ever chosen by the head.
Or the winter hat that had been rebuilt many times.

But, getting back to the OP

Yes, there were girls I was at school with who were only ever dropped off by the housekeeper and chauffeur - I never saw their parents in 7 years.

There would never, EVER have been an event on a Saturday because everybody was out at the Family Pile in the country for the weekend

And the "connections" among the families just in my year were eye watering - Royals at Sports day, just to visit - was nothing odd.

Many children at GH wear second or third hand uniforms - without knowing who owned them before or having a lovely Mitford/U story to go with them - because it's cheaper. So, to answer your question, GHS has many parents who don't find paying the fees easy (I wouldn't say that makes them "ordinary"! Or that in all cases both parents work - some, for example, are doing extended studies, some are full-time parents, etc). And they don't all live in Chelsea (there are several school buses which take children to various other boroughs).

buses are since my day :-)
is old

Interesting replies from the fellow GH mums.
Thanks for joining in this discussion. I do love the school, already booked an Open Evening.

We are not rich, but for my son, I can even work a double shift if that is what it takes. I just want it to be a place where he can learn, thrive, but also be happy.

If you have to work a double shift to afford garden house I promise you, you will be the only one.
I would say that it is probably the school with the highest average parental wealth in London. That would make it one of the richest in the world.

Actually yes, you are right, the fair is on a Friday, my mistake. My point was the large amount of Philipino nannies, well known as the cheapest.

Baby -- why do you think anyone is being "economical with the truth"? It is perhaps more likely that someone who doesn't have a child at a particular school might imagine the truth than that someone who does have a child at a school would be "economical" with it... The uneconomical truths are that I was one of the few mothers in most of my children's classes who did not have a paying job and very nearly all the children wore second-hand uniforms (the "rich" often being even more careful with their money than the "not-so-rich").

The Op asked whether "all parents are very rich". Clearly, by almost any standard, a parent who can afford independent school fees in central London is "rich" (and "very rich" by the standards of most people in the world). It is true that there are some parents at GH who are extraordinarily wealthy. Most, however, are "normal" (for London) solicitors, bankers, doctors, etc.

The richest family I know (billions! sigh) send their children not to GHS, or an independent one, but to a local state school. School fees are an indicator but not a sure bet.

Interesting thread...

I have two girls there. I would say that most of the children come from wealthy families with one or two working parents, which for this part of London is the norm. Very few are not working at all. To offer some statistics, about half the mothers in both our classes work, either full or part-time. Yes, there are a lot of nannies around, even with families that have one parent at home, but still, mothers tend to do the pick up most days. Buying the uniform second hand is not at all frowned upon by anyone, I would say it is about 50/50 new to second hand! My guess is that they select children based upon if they think that the child will be happy there, if they show a "spark", as some others have mentioned above, at the interview, and if the families seem to "fit in" (the parents have to attend it too), as all the girls in my daughters' classes are very sweet with lovely parents. My daughters love going to school, not even once have they said they would rather stay at home. What more could you want?

children are greeted by lovely music (from CDs) when they arrive in the morning.

Love the need to qualify (from CDs).... so no string quarte then to ease them into their day

Very interesting thread.

"all the girls in my daughters' classes are very sweet ....... What more could you want?"

Somewhere far less saccharine, and with a less limited type of girl.

The girls uniform is hideous - why would you put a modern daughter in that? Mine would refuse to leave the house in it. She's 5

Somewhere far less saccharine, and with a less limited type of girl.

What an incredibly bitchy thing to say about children.

What an incredibly bitchy thing to say about children

Well perhaps squirm does not value polite sweet children, preferring rude obnoxious ones!

It wasn't a bitchy comment about children. It was surely just a reference to the way the girls were viewed? I would prefer confident and assertive myself. My DD is not sweet!

I find 'sweet' a derogatory term, and would prefer girls to receive a sound education not social conditioning.

Politeness is not 'sweetness', and there is no need to assume that if you are not 'sweet' you must be either rude or obnoxious.

If the aim, or the prized characteristic , is sweetness then it is highly limiting to a narrow range of behaviours. I think children do better in schools which support the normal range of characters.

Sweet, as in likeable. Doesn't mean they are not also confident, polite, well spoken etc. They all are. Doesn't mean that all the girls have the same personality. They don't.

Clearly, those having problems with good manners, or hating teal coats and grey skirts etc, or wanting co-ed, or not finding it important that their children really enjoy going to school, would probably be happier with another school.