Falkner house boys vs Garden House

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My DS is offered a place in these school. We would live near the choosen school so commuting is not an issue.
Any ideas on these school? Do not know which one to choose
Thanks a lot

Falkner is more rigorous and academic focused. But small school, cosy feel.you have to get on with and agree with the head. I found sisters were at Falkner girls, Bute, Glendower.

Garden House is less academic. Quite a few boys leave at 7 or 8+. It is very smart Chelsea feel and quite gentle.

Both don't have much outdoor space. Garden House does have the Royal Hospital gardens and fields very close. Both are owned privately. Falkner's owners are more involved as Heads. Garden House has recently got lots of new, more innovative staff in management.

Pretty much comes down to what atmosphere you want and think would suit your son.

I’m in the same position does DS, offers for both schools. Everyone always says that Garden House is less academic than Falkner, but their leavers destinations are equally good if not better.. so I’m not sure what people mean by that. Is GH are less English and math focused? More well rounded?

Garden house all the way. Better result without hot housing. Better governance and facilities. Not to mention its track record.

I am in the same situation.
But GH new policy from next year reception pupils is that they do not prepare pupils for 7+ and 8+ at all and that they will discourage parents who tries to do it on their own.
Any parents with boys who attended GH have some comment about the teaching?
We are still very unsure

Falkner house would be my recommendation. We have many friends at GH and all their boys left at 8+ and had to have tutors to get up to speed with 8+. The school is very nice, the teachers are nice but that’s the word for everything there - nice not amazing considering how much you are paying. My friends loved it as the school is very lax due to the types of parents at the school so they could have their say on their children jetting off on holiday early or coming back late from holidays and there were many social events. But once the excitement of going to a parent coffee morning is out of your system then they were left wondering if their children were in the best school. It is great for the first years of school for a child and if you live near that school then it would be great but not in the long term. Also if you compare the length of time teachers at GH are there vs Falkner House you will realise that Falkner House is a most secure consistent school

FH 7+ and 8+ results are not that good really given the selective nature of the school and the widespread tutoring.

It also doesn't even have 11+ result out. It may be more established and an academically stronger school in the future with a track record. But it has a long way to go especially compared to GH, Wetherby or it's sister school.

We were in similar shoes last year and this was the advice we received from 2 x school consultants who used to be head or deputy head in the nearby preps.

Garden House definitely more about putting on airs. Brimming with rich russian families. Not academic.
Falkner more regimented but also more nurturing in comparison, like a smaller version of Wetherby

Indeed difficult to decide also from the very opposite comments here.

We also hired an educational
Consultant who said that FH is more academic in the sense that prepares the pupils better for exams, makes them more "crunchy", but that also GH is very good and still academic. GH have apparently a well established reputation in the school environment and the new headmasters are planning to improve the academic side of both girls and boys sections. She said that Schools like hill house or Knightsbridge school would be indeed easier and less academic, but comparing GH and FH both are good from am academic perspective.

Other than this she mentioned that FH apparently is more looking for boys who can sit still and indeed you need to agree with the headmasters.

I then asked to a friend who is professor at Oxford and she advised us to choose GH as it has a wider curricula and does not focuse only on English and math, wherever these are the subjects kids are assessed with at the seniors schools

Also, GH is where the kids of our nursery headmaster are attending, so also this tell something as the nursery is made of 3 sisters and it is well know in the area.

About the kind of families attending: It is true that at FH o noticed more grounded families in the sense of a lot of busy working mum, but I also noticed a lot of very competitive American and Indian mums at FH (couple told me they are "of course" tutoring their kids, and we are talking of 4yo...).

On the other hand the mums heading to GH from our nursery are all rather grounded as well.

Personally, we do not consider relevant the kind of families as we will have to teach him to deal with much more wealthier family in any event as in this part of London there will always be someone wealthier.
We still have couple of days to decide, at the moment we are more attracted to GH as it feels safer (our kid does not sit still) and facilities are indeed more attractive, also he is very much into music and art, but because of the labels these school have, putting down FH feels not catching some opportunities for the kid to deliver better results at the exams.

Hi moms, we are struggling to decide whether Wetherby Notting Hill or Garden House School is better for our DS. Wetherby’s all known head Snell is leaving, (he is know for his reputation to get your child into petty much the school you want if he feels your child is 7+ material) so we are not sure how the school will be from here.

GHS stopped doing 7+ / 8+ entirely and seems to be more of a “happy” school and any serious exams prep is left to parents / tutors.

our boy seems to be academic enough but also objectively not a geeky genius. So not sure at this stage whether we should use his full potential and go to Wetherby or go for happy childhood in GHS… but then prep him ourselves for exams…

any experience you have made with either of the schools recently? Any help much appreciated.

For 11+ entry to super selective and selective London secondary schools, all kids are prep at home to some level . Extra outside school activities are sport clubs, private music lessons and grading, maths camp, coding, drama schools or creative writing.

Do you know when Mr Snell is leaving? DS is registered to start at Wetherby NH too.

@gaston25 I think it is the headmaster of Wetherby PREP (Marylebone) not Wetherby Notting Hill who is leaving.

We are in the same boat. Not sure if Wetherby will be the same after Snell leaves.. he is leaving after next term.

@Monton81 That's a real shame! Do you know who is going to replace him? We did a tour and he was such a character! The boys seemed to absolutely love him.

Above all please use the school closest to home.

We went to GHS and left after the lower school ended. We feel the school is excellent and the exits are good including last summer. Friends who stayed for the junior school are enjoying the school still.

We are at WUS now and I promise you the kids from both wetherby schools didn't get there solely on school work and a letter from the head (as @hawaiiwake says). The experience DS had at GHS without the hot housing was preferred for us.

So much of attainment is the home environment and having a school close to home with a good environment beats everything.

Prep for 7+/8+ specifically at WUS/SPJS is very different this year verse historically. Preparing for exams isn't the play anymore.

@elij what do you mean by the last sentence? How different are the exams vs historical?

would you attend GHS if when you entered it you were not offered 7+ prep and were actively discouraged to do it yourself as well ?

From my experience all of our friends who went to places like Thomas' and GH eventually hired tutors to get their kids into places like W & SP. If your child is naturally somewhat geeky, I would recommend Wetherby or Eaton House or Falkner. They will nurture him properly and he'll get into a stop institution sooner instead of waiting till he turns 13 and would have to compete with all of UK (and beyond). It's absolutely crazy at that stage. I didn't like Falkner because of the head but they have fantastic exit results. Students from Falkner were the most well-read of the entire cohort of boys who joined when my sons did. Both years.

The assessment is online with a longer in person assessment. In the past the paper involved a large amount of writing with a shorter in person second stage.

For context GHS never prepared for 7+ they prepared for 8+ and actively discouraged 7+ prep on pastoral grounds.

Compared to Wetherby/EH the definition of prep is different. It was closer to exam season as a mock with feedback from school (if you're tracking progress at home you will be ahead of most feedback). Wetherby/EH start work loosely associated with 7+ from day one.

If we were making the choice again today yes we would attend GHS. Outside preparing for exams the educational progress is perfect with a wider focus outside the world of 7+.

As we would only accept a commute maybe from 14 the main targets were WUS 7+/8+/11+, SH 8+ and maybe a fallback like WCCS. Based on that the only option would be EH at face value which we didn't want. So we would have to consider other aspects than exit.

I guess key difference is maybe we would have weighed up SH vs GHS more if we didn't get WUS. And as the upper school is bigger now GHS would be good.

Both wetherby schools are too far from us to use for 3 years.

Does someone know better about leavers destination at GH?
Website page is confusing, does not say how many students are sitting at the exams and results seem very mediocre especially considering every friend we have with kids there went trough a massive tutoring.

Does someone have infos about SH?
We heard pastoral care is not the best, but leavers destination are very good.

of 14 8+ leavers from GHS last school year there were:
2 WUS/SPJS (there was another at 7+)
Couple Ludgrove
rest an even split between SH and Wetherby.

Doubt there was any tutoring in that cohort and I suspect those who went to WUS/SPJS were the only ones who applied but can't confirm. The results are fairly consistent over the years.

I don't know the 11+ exits.

We have always loved SH (but never used it just know people there). The only thing I know is how many get into Westminster greater school (which is a respectable amount). They also secure a scholarship every once in a while.

GH does not prepare anymore for 8+ and mums with oldest kids said they noticed the difference between this year at the reception with a much lower level of academics and 2 years before

Oh wow that's sad, it was great when we were there but if that's the case fair enough I have no context anymore.

With 4+ it's always hard to know but it's always worth checking in with your friends around FMC results in MS1 as those are usually good vs other school Y3s. The Olympiad results (though internal) also shows stand out pupils.

Mr Snell is leaving after the summer term.

Ms McLaughlin is starting in April at Wetherby Kensington, she was formerly at Falcons Boys (part of Alpha Plus) and parents there rave about her and apparently pretty upset that she's been 'poached' by WK.

Not sure who will replace as Head at Wetherby Notthing Hill yet since Mr Snell's new was pretty recent.

In any case both WK and WNH (DS in one of these) are very academic and as previous poster said start prepping with 7/8+ in mind from Day 1. I doubt this will change whoever the new head is. The parent cohorts are very demanding and driven, and actually the school asks a lot from the parents in terms of homework. Tutoring for 7+ not uncommon.

We have close friends at FH and GH, both loving it, I'm sure whichever school you choose will be good, so go by distance if you're at a loss, convenience at such a young age counts for a lot.