Berks/Ox prep schools with senior schools in mind

[Whichprepfords]

DS is almost 3 and thriving in nursery but we are considering moving him to pre-prep, and also just generally looking at prep admissions. We’re thinking really long term about senior schools too, which is influencing our prep choices. I appreciate this might sound mad because how will we know what school is right for him at 11 or 13 vs now, but we need to plan our finances and also don’t want to necessarily pay for something we don’t need. I’d love a bit of guidance because as you can see, these schools are all quite different!

Things to note, we don’t want DS to board from 13. We might consider a flexi boarding environment but we aren’t considering Eton, Marlborough and so on for that reason. No preference on mixed or single sex at this stage.

Options we love and are strongly considering:

1. Elstree - our top choice from open days. We love it, love the grounds, the ethos and feel it would suit DS really well. However, looking at their leavers designations gives me pause because understand they all go onto full boarding schools. Is it “worth” paying for this if we know we won’t use a prep boarding set up?
2. Moulsford and St Andrews - similar to the above but we don’t like them quite as much. About evenly ranked, would appreciate experiences of all three of these
3. state primary then trying for MCS at 7+ We really like MCS, although have reservations of the move to co-ed and how that will go. Interested to hear experiences of people at any stage in MCS, I know the commute could be a pain and am familiar with Oxford traffic since I used to work there.
4. Abingdon prep - we don’t know much about this school and don’t know anyone who has been through it.

Senior schools we do like the idea of at this stage are MCS, potentially Abingdon, Wellington (day). I’d be interested in any experiences of people sending children to Wellington particularly as day pupils. In my school days it had an iffy reputation and some questionable morality, though I appreciate this is all schools to a degree. We are not considering the Oratory or any of the Reading schools. DS at this stage is kind, fairly relaxed and a happy little chap, showing some interest in sports and absolutely loves all outdoors based activities. We go camping and hiking as a family frequently and he seems happiest doing this. He enjoys reading books with us and has always been very good at independent play even from being a very small baby.

I appreciate this may seem like insane forward planning but I can’t be the only parent wondering about senior school when choosing prep, it all feels like such a big decision and neither of us are living in the area where we went to school ourselves so our knowledge feels lacking. Are there other schools we should look at?

At present-prep I don’t think it matters much - just choose the school you think your child would be happiest at.

For prep - obviously the landscape may have shifted by that time, but I do think it can feel odd for a child at a very traditional prep if they’re the only one not talking about moving on to a traditional public school. And it’s a bit of a waste of the expertise of the staff! But that’s not an absolute reason for not choosing a school you particularly like.

I know you ‘know’ the Oxford traffic - do not dismiss it as an afterthought!

@NorWouldTilly good thoughts, thank you. And that’s precisely what I was worried about. In the same way I was concerned about St Andrews and Bradfield as we aren’t considering Bradfield, so I wouldn’t want DS to feel left out.

Re Oxford - is it really that bad? There’s a joint bus from where we live I think as DS gets older so I assume he would get that most of the time. If we chose Abingdon we’d have to get to and then along the A34 which can also be snarly during rush hour.

We had a good experience at MCS and I wish we had started DS there at 11. (He was just there for Sixth Form). He was previously at an all boys public school (boarding).

My (very outdated) experience is that the country preps will discourage a move to secondary at 11+ and don't provide much support for entrance exams at that stage. This may have changed.

The traffic to Abingdon isn’t too bad in the morning coming up the A34.

@semideponent thanks, that’s really interesting. What was better about it that you preferred to where you were? My understanding from the website is they do have a 13+ intake as well as 11+ so it would be interesting to see how many that attracts. Did you find integration for 6th form went well, was your son welcomed into established friendship groups? And how did you find the teaching? Obviously it has a reputation as a hot house academically, did you find pastoral care and extra-curriculars were decent?

Teaching was excellent; pastoral care was good/excellent. It's a bit difficult to encapsulate the pastoral care as my teenager never appreciated a heavy handed approach. MCS used a (to my mind) lighter and very human touch that worked well - e.g. a quick dog walk to calm down.. Common sense rather than Pastoral Care.

He integrated well into the friendship groups. With it being a day school there are so many ways to make connections through e.g. travel to school. Also they were opening sixth form to girls at the time which may have meant groups were more malleable.

I rate Helen Pike as a headteacher mainly on the basis that I never needed to meet her! I got the impression she gets on with her job and lets her colleagues get on with theirs. It's not an ego trip.

(No idea what my phone thinks ‘present-prep’ might be. Sure you got the gist!)

I do not know MCS from the inside (we only looked at it briefly) But I pass by the school several times a week, often as the boys are spilling out to wait for buses - and my general impression is that they seem relaxed and happy and reasonably full of beans even at the end of the school day. And (absent the traffic pollution on the road side) I often think it must be a heavenly place to be at senior school.

(I daresay Summer Fields is still the most fun place ever to be at prep school - but I guess you have perfectly sensible reasons for not putting it on your list. It is very traditional.)

@NorWouldTilly re Summer Fields I’m not opposed to traditional and we have an outdoorsy boy so their “lighter” timetable appeals. I don’t know if lighter is the right terminology really but they make a big show of having room in the day for play etc. The issue is more that he would be day and we are totally the wrong side of Oxford, it’s an hour in no traffic so just unrealistic for us.

Thanks both for your thoughts on MCS, this is really encouraging. We will take another look at 7+ because that could be a nice way to enjoy a prep environment and prep schooling but have him start in the local school and save a little bit of money. We’d only do this if it was the right fit for him though.