choirstership in one of the oxford prep/junior schools

[gingerbread01]

We are taking the admission exam for all the three schools as choir admission. I would like to hear more about the real life as chorister in Y3, 4...all the way to Y8. Thanks.

Mine were CCCS choristers. There's a couple of big differences for Christ Church. First, it's the only one that's full boarding. Second, it's a cathedral not a college choir, and there are a lot more services. The boys stay in school right through Holy Week to Easter, and from the end of term through to Christmas Day. They make it fun for them with outings and treats, but do not underestimate what a huge amount of work it is for them. They are 8-13 year olds with the expectation on them of being fully fledged professional musicians.
The training is outstanding and you can expect them to win a music scholarship to a major public school at the end of it. If you're going to do it, I recommend living close by so you can go to services during the week and get them out briefly for exeats on the weekend. It's a lot harder on you and them if you live far away, although nearby parents will take out boys who don't have their parents nearby. But I always felt really sorry for those boys.
CCCS tours internationally a lot, so that takes up holiday time too.
New College is also renowned and the expectations are equally high there, but the number of services is less. New College is probably a better prep school than CCCS, but CCCS is a wonderful small and nurturing school. Magdalen doesn' really have much of the reputation these days as a major choir school. It's definitely the "also-ran" of the three. But it's a good "in" to Magdalen College School, which makes it popular with local parents.
As far as the voice trials go, probably the most important thing is a good ear. Practice singing the middle note of chords, or the bottom line of a two part melody, or singing a phrase back. Prepare a hymn and another song, and play something on your instrument. The expectation will be one instrument at this stage, but once you're in the choir it's one instrument plus piano. So as well as morning and afternoon rehearsals, services, and prep, there's also at least an hour of music practice per day. Don't underestimate what a gruelling life it is for a young child. But for the right child, it's amazing.

Thank you for the advice, Skipandwhistle. I agree that for the right kid, it would be a brilliant experience. How demanding would the academic load be when the kid takes up two instruments and vocal training? Would the extra instrument training cost be borne by the family or the school?

Well I'm a few years out of date, but when mine were there the instrumental lessons were part of the scholarship, so there was no cost for that.
The academic load gets more as they progress up the school obviously, but I would say the crunch point comes as they head towards Common Entrance in Years 7 and 8. That is a huge amount of work on top of choir responsibilities. And their choir responsibilities do take priority. There's also scholarship preparation if you're heading towards a music scholarship. It's a lot. You need to be very committed as a parent to support them through it.

The three schools are quite different.

Because CCCS is boarding the instrumental practice was timetabled twice a day (they play two instruments) so the boys didn’t have to fit it in themselves. They also have a Saturday morning music school on the weekends when they’re staying where they do music practice, theory classes and scholarship prep. The school pays for piano lessons I think but parents pay for the second instrument. All the boys (eventually) seem to get into good habits with music practice, and the scholarship prep is good as they all get one! The kids go to a range of schools afterwards. Almost certainly the best experience musically.

MCS is going to be more demanding on the academic side, and parents choose it as it’s an excellent school and the boys will stay on through secondary. Less singing, but if you’re more focussed on the academics, this might not matter too much. Best experience academically, and as it’s a bigger school it’s got more facilities.

i know less about New - they start their choristers earlier there, so if your son in Y3 you may have missed the boat.

Thank you for sharing. The architecture of CCCS is truly beautiful, and I'm sure your son has many wonderful memories from his time there. I'm curious about how competitive the choristership program is. All of their websites mention that they are open to discussions at any time. would it be a dozen application every year?

It’s difficult to say. All the choirs offer informal auditions which will help you gauge what your chances are.

But on your first question about the real life experience. The probationers are taught to read music, they are acclimatised to the practice schedule and how to sing with the choir. As they go through their probationer year they will sing more and more with the rest of the choristers although the older boys will have most of the solos and the little ones won’t join in some complicated sections. By Y5 and Y6 - the middle years, the boys are confident singers even though they will still not be doing everything. At this age, they’ve usually progressed on their musical
instruments enough to take their practice seriously (and not just mess around. Although a messing around phase is normal, it will come to an end when they see other kids getting their grade 5 and grade 6.)

In Y7 and Y8 they have matured musically and their voices are at their best, they have a lot of responsibility in the parts they’re given and they also show an example to the younger boys. Some of them will find their voices break - depending on which school you go to, they treat it differently. At MCS you’d leave the choir, and CCCS you’d sing the lower parts with the men.

We had a very negative experience at Christ Church Cathedral School. It did not feel particularly wonderful or nurturing. I would urge parents to pay close attention to the safeguarding of the choristers, as our son experienced concerns in this area.

I am a current CCCS chorister parent and I really don't think that's fair, unless your experience is a couple of years out of date. I haven't heard any of the chorister parents worried about safeguarding and they're all happy.

I’m also a CCCS parent (former) of two choristers. I consider our relationship with the school to be one of the most important, formative, nurturing and wonderful musical and personal experiences for our whole family. Sorry to hear you report a bad experience @Bellaven but your CCCS experience does not resonate for me at all.

Our experience is recent.

It is fair, as this was our experience, and we handled it with the utmost discretion to protect the boys concerned. What is not fair is to disregard another person’s negative safeguarding experience.