Westminster School

[LazyMum123]

Am visiting the school soon and so I am doing my homework and preparing questions to ask on the day of the visit. Any experience or comments ( both positive and negative) would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

I think Westminster is a fantastic school. It was my number one choice as I was looking for a school that felt like the best of Eton and Winchester combined. Unfortunatley my son absolutely hated it and he had the final say. I still wish he was going there.

I have a son at Westminster and I am glad to say things appear to have changed a lot and certainly for the better. Our son (a day boy) is blissfully happy both socially and academically. Pastoral care is excellent with a housemaster in constant contact and who returns emails/phone calls immediately. My son also has a tutor who is more an 'adult friend' . There is also a form tutor although they are minor in comparison. There are academic reports half termly and all in all as parents we feel we have excellent open communication and the teachers all know him well and have 'read' him correctly. The pastoral care is very individual.
We haven't experienced or heard of drugs yet - may be we are lucky, maybe he isn't interested but certainly there is no pressure in that area. Likewise no experience or reports of bullying.
I have been surprised how relaxed the school is. They are less obsessed with exams than other schools I know in London. The relationship between teachers and students is one of collaborative scholarship. In terms of homework there seems to be a lot less than St Paul's but they do have Saturday school, which takes some getting used to.
It is definitely a school for the very bright and academically applied boy who likes to get into subjects at a deep level. It suits the quirky or the child who likes to debate. I'd say there is no real Westminster-type in comparison to St Paul's for example where there is more of a 'sort'. I would be careful not to send a borderline boy or boy who required tuition to get in as they may feel unnecessarily inferior and could be near the top elsewhere.

Let'sEscape: what do you mean when you say St Paul's boys are more of a "sort"? What is a typical St Paul's boy like, then?

In my husbands experience those who send their children to St Pauls are exceedingly successful business men (he works with them) he has many clients in London who send their DC's to St Pauls all are eye watering driven and ruthless successful not one has a DC at Westminster. These people want results in all aspects of their lives and St Pauls as I've said before does what is says on the can thats not to say Westminster doesn't but St Pauls is not subtle if that makes senses. This ethos is bound to reflect in their children. Where as he's found that those that send their DC's to Westminster are a lot more celebrity/art/lovee/music types equally ambitious and successful but in a more discrete way. i'm sure this is a bit of a generalisation but like all genralizations has a ring of truth about it.

The really extraordinary aspect of letsescape's post is that I've never heard a Westminster parent spout the party line before. It could almost be verbatim from the current HM's speeches! There does eem to be much more "group think" these last few years and not an especially welcome aspect, but we all hope the school will survive it, as time goes by, and people move on.

Thirdhill I didn't like the tone of your message. Those were my views and my experiences.

letsescape those are my views and experiences, and if this is your first experience of Westminster and as a parent, that my experiences are a tad longer than yours. I don't care to form an opinion of the tone of your message, and don't mind at all if you don't like mine either. Certainly things have changed recently, and this little exchange demonstrates it somewhat. BTW, I wasn't referring to you, you don't count as a group by yourself...

I am also confused. Our experience mirrors that of LetsEscape. Our son is blissfully happy at Westminster.

To respond to other comments, I agree that as a parent you cant always know what teenagers are up to. Sometimes I assume you might prefer not to know. But in a "crests of the waves" sort of way parents do hear of parties and other stuff going on involving pupils at various London schools. My experience is that there is less talk about Westminster than some other schools, which I have assumed reflects our experience that any significant drug culture that may have existed a decade or two ago is now reasonably under control.

I am also not sure that I follow the comments about the Head. There does appear to have been a bit of a clampdown on some of the "quirkyness" and it is a pity that some traditions, like house singing, have been lost. However the food is genuinely good, which sounds like an improvement. And pastoral care seems very strong. Beyond what LetsEscape has described, there is a school Councillor, regular Parenting forums, and a school chaplain. Even matrons for those in boarding houses. All perhaps standard in a boarding school, but unusual for a day school. I have no idea if he or his predecessor are responsible, but from what others have posted the school is a better school for these changes.

Hi All! Thank you sooooo much for your comments. Most insightful! Sorry it has taken me this long to respond but as indicated in my name, I am lazy!

We have now finally visited the school. We were shown round the school by an English teacher who was very impressive but obviously had a bias towards English as we spent more time in the English building than the Science facilities. We were shown around with 5 other families and so it was not easy to ask too many questions but overall impression is favourable.

We were most impressed by the teaching style/methods (from observing lessons and asking questions), if what we were told were true. Very informal teacher/boys relationship to encourage the boys to really speak out their own thoughts and to participate. Very close to university tutorial style is the impression we got. However, I am slightly unsure about the compulsory requirement to do 4 A levels.

We were not shown the old or the old old gym or any sports facilites but we were told about the newly acquired gym and were given the chance to ask all the sports questions we wanted to ask. We got the impressions that, although sports facilities are not the best, there are enough on offers for everyone. The really sporty ones can do lots but there are enough of other non-mainstream sports on offer for the less sporty ones.

Although we were impressed by the old buildings, I was less impressed by the size of some of the classrooms or by the fact that one have to walk up 3 flights of stairs to get to some of the classrooms. I do not particular like the fact that the boys need to leave the main buildings and cross roads to get to some facilities although I was reassured that no one has ever been run over by a car!

DH is convinced that this is the right school for DS. I am still doing my homework. Thanks again for all your comments. Most useful.

I think the only place that can rival it intellectually is Winchester. Other schools are more, well, school-like whereas West and Win are like Oxford Colleges.

"when i was there (mid 1980s) the joke was that there was no drug problem because you could get anything you wanted"

If this was the local comprehensive we'd all run a thousand miles, not to mention pay for the privelege!!