Is Westminster School the best school on Earth?

[statesmom]

Just looking at their website and they have 97 places for their students at Oxford and Cambridge this year?!

We have an 8 year old son and want to focus on getting him into this place, just next to the Palace of Westminster. It looks amazing! Any thought on parents with children at the school very welcome indeed, especially any thoughts on the application process. Thank you for someone new to London.

The trick is IMO is to get to Oxbridge standard by stealth. IOW, the kids are Westminster will be coached on interviews, given outstanding teaching, etc. Meanwhile those at a random state comp won't get any of that.

The smart parents will soon be looking for ways to get their kids scoring big points on the 'non-Oxbridge background' indices, while still getting them that culture of success.

Easier said than done though I suspect, I believe withdrawing from private at 16 and moving to a state sixth form college, for example, won't count for that much now.

Aga contextualised offers take into account where an applicant studied for GCSE as well as A level. Oxford, pay particular attention, as they put greater weight on those results.

Yeah I'm aware of that, hence why I said that withdrawing at 16 might not help. I think it depends on the child. My son needs support (ASD) and I think private gives him the best chance for Oxbridge etc., but another child might do better at state when contextualisation kicks in.

They can't adjust for things like 'both parents went to Oxford', but what they can do is look at your home post code and say '£2m mansion', and score you down accordingly.

The best case I suppose is some sort of hard-up academics living in a poor area and diligently coaching their children.

wordfactory
Not sure I agree: it may be that more gifted types are more prone to anxiety, although I must say the cohort that more stands out to me are the clever arrogant types, rather than the nervy ones. I've met as many oversecure overachievers as insecure overachievers in my time, if you will.

But my point wasn't about the pupils and was instead about the school: I was saying to the OP that not every boy who's clever enough to get into Westminster will be happy there. They may be better off somewhere less intense, where the risks of failure are lower (both less likely to fail and less awful consequences of failure). They may not want to go to school on Saturdays. They may not want to be in the lowest quartile in the class.

As to how old the boy doing our tour was, I can't remember for sure; it was a while back. But he was quite clear that he was not certain of a place in the senior school, and he was worried about his future, letting his parents down, letting himself down, etc. I felt very sorry for him

Some of the later discussion reminds me of the intriguing idea that Peter Wilby talks about: having Oxbridge take the top two to three candidates from each school in the country. Suddenly, everyone rushes to get their kids into the worst performing schools! I don't think it could actually work, nor would it have political support in the foreseeable future, but it's a neat thought.

aga I just don't agree with that and this link I posted earlier explains why. They really do go to great lengths to level the playing field. The casualties are not the pupils with switched on parents who will help their bright DCs whatever school they go to, it is those stuck in genuinely poor schools who are left just too far behind for it to be fair for Oxbridge to admit them. www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jan/10/how-cambridge-admissions-really-work

Shooting@, you have to be very switched on as parents indeed I think to overcome your environment. My kids are at private school and fellow parents are in £100k+/jobs, and they are signing up their young children for multiple activities, private signing lessons, etc., the school gives extra lessons for kids who aren't working ahead of their expected NC level, and parents are expected to support that too.

If you're at a school where there are many broken families, kids don't speak English, parents are drug dealers/in prison, then the teachers will have very much lower expectations, and even bright kids are going to struggle to get anywhere near the required level.

So I think that switched-on parents with kids in a low-achieving environment will struggle hugely.

But the non-switched-on parents with bright kids in a low-achieving environment have got almost no chance.

Blimey, that article is stomach churning. Imagine the terrible pressure on the children if the parents are throwing their all into the admissions process.

I did go and have a look round a very academic prep school as a possibility for ds. The Head told me that an increasing number of parents are coming in and thumping the table demanding that their dc goes on to Eton/Harrow etc in order to go to Oxbridge. The Head actually said, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." But I suppose what some people are paying good money for is to manufacture a good fake job.

The process starts very young tbh. My DS has a boy in his class, he's not bright but his mother is super pushy, and he's applied to Eton, Winchester and all the rest, and it's her project.

You absolutely can fake a good deal of it, A GCSE results can be bought, for example - the kids at a third-tier private school won't be all that sharp, but a high proportion will come out with As, they are coached and trained, and spoon-fed, lots of money goes in, and the result that comes out is a kid who might have ended up working in Poundland if he didn't have such resourceful parents, instead getting a place at Bristol or Durham.

Aga I think some private schools really do work wonders with mixed ability pupils. DD's school churns out amazing grades, as I say.

I'm not sure how they're fake though ...if good teaching was provided and the girls worked their arses off, then that seems to me the definition of real.

But what no good school can do, private or state, is spoon feed a pupil to an A at A level. And many offers coming out now, especially from Cambridge, include one, two or three As.

Agrees with wordfactory. Our dd is probably at a school similar to yours. Scraped into one of the SW London high Schools and we declined. She works hard, she's wired for maths, she'll get A/A* for GCSE - wants to do medicine but I think she might have to reassess once she starts A'Levels but in my heart I've always known that. I'll be delighted if she surprises me rather than disappointed if she doesn't make it. She's a girl who could have ended up at the Priory to be honest.

And it should be emphasised with those contextual factors flagged in the article then an A from a poor school may well be viewed on a par with an A* from a good school, state or private. Indeed Durham were using some complicated formula in my DDs year that weighted their results via the overall results for the school (I presume they were clever enough to somehow weight for selective schools having a higher ability range.....)

Aga You are quoting extremes. I am sure Oxbridge Colleges can bring to your attention to the many bright students they have recruited from difficult backgrounds, from traveller communities, poor inner city backgrounds etc. I am involved in a mentoring charity and we work with the clever pupils identified by inner city schools in London. Usually what is holding these pupils back is the fact that they don't know anyone in their family or community that can see the value of academic work, it isn't cool to work hard, and the schools don't necessarily provide them with the best quality information on how and where to apply. The charity achieves a great deal just by giving those students alternative role models, by taking them to special days which universities like Oxbridge are only too happy to lay on where they are equipped with the motivation and information they need to apply, and they don't just get in, they thrive and they get firsts. Frankly it is a job the schools should be doing themselves. Some of those young people have experienced real trauma in their pasts as well, even overcome being parts of gangs, taken drugs and all the other perils of growing up in a disadvantaged area. Those experiences don't necessarily write people off.

The biggest challenge to evening out access is reaching those young people and giving them the motivation and information that will get them to apply.

I have also seen many a parent make their child a project with the aim of getting them to the best schools and universities. In one case the Grand parents were in on the act as well. It didn't come off. That girl didn't get into St Pauls in spite of all the tutoring. Can you imagine what the weight of that expectation must feel like to an 11 year old?

At my DDs Prep that does admittedly get all it's pupils into at least one of the highs all the money poured into fierce schedules of extra curricular and tutoring didn't make any difference to the result. I am sure many of the parents could not work out how my dyslexic dyspraxic child could have possibly got into one of the most selective schools with such a laidback (presumably statesmom would say negligent) mother. However those of us who were airlifting our DDs out of the playground to get them away from the miasma of parental anxiety and competitiveness at pick up time really didn't have any detrimental effect on our DDs' capacity to demonstrate their potential to the senior schools.

I'm not sure about 'many'.

For example, this 2011 report talks about the first traveller to attend Cambridge. She graduated in 2011, not 1911. www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2348061/Showmans-daughter-Zoah-Hedges-Stocks-traveller-attend-Cambridge-University-graduates-FIRST-History.html

If you look at gypsy/traveller educational outcomes, they are incredibly bad. The number getting 5 GCSEs, even (which isn't close to Oxbridge standard) is something like 25%.

The successes are there, and there are definitely people from disadvantaged backgrounds, but life is hugely stacked against you.

OTOH, parents who send their kids private will pretty much all go on to higher ed of some description. There will be some of course that find learning a struggle and end up at at a special school, but at those schools most still make it, if not perhaps to Oxford and Cambridge, but certainly to a less prestigious university.

I would be interesting to find out if, in the future, Zoah earns more as a journalist than her parents who are self employed and own what sounds like a thriving business.

My sister is a journalist with a degree from Cambridge. She's very poorly paid, whereas you can find people doing building/driveways/etc. around in every town in Britain making a very nice living.

Aga But the point is that with a directed effort these pupils can be enabled, and are from some schools, indeed just one inspiring teacher can make all the difference. I think the issue of buying privilege is a side show, maybe it makes a small difference with a few pupils at the margins of the ability ranges, and a lot of that is to do with motivating pupils to apply to the most selective universities and equip them to make the right academic choices. I am quite sure that if my DDs had had the chance to go to the local outstanding state primaries and comprehensives they would have done just as well as they have from very selective indies. What needs to be addressed is why so many pupils in state schools are not being equipped with the motivation and knowledge.

The traveller issue is a difficult one, but one of our local comprehensives was recently complimented for the initiatives it has taken with the local traveller community, especially directed at the girls, which have resulted in some success . All over the country there are schools that do some things right for some of their pupils, it is just getting the best practise out there into all schools.

Well it is to be hoped that Zoah might be able to take a risk in trying journalism as a career, despite its competitiveness and poor material rewards, knowing that she is able to fall back on the financial security provided by her supportive and hard working parents.

With regard to admissions, deciding who deserves what kind of support, is a complex undertaking.

Journalism is poorly paid unless you are at the highest echelon and have all the right connections....even with a degree from Oxbridge ....and there is an oversupply of would-be journalists ...just like would be lawyers coming out of uni/college who can't get a training contract .... the amount of post grad/conversion third rate courses offered to hopefuls who will have scant prospects of a decent paying career in these is a bit of a scam in my view.

Showmen are not the same demographic as travellers and gypsies. The level of disadvantage, cultural and institutional barriers to HE are of a much different order of magnitude for traveller-gypsies than for the children of Showmen. One graduate from the show community doesn't add up to much. Just sayin'.

It is interesting to read all different point of views on highly selective school and how they achieve successful Oxbridge and other top universities entrance.
I believe my DS is extremely capable and has what it takes to try for Westminster and another top boarding school. I don't think I'm tiger mum or pushy. We needed to consider options as we lived overseas as expat and wanted to ensure he had an uninterrupted education, so boarding at 13 was what we were looking at.
Like some of the mums said, that became my little project. I was a lot more involved, as I didn't have much supports from the Int'l school, the curriculums were different. I just encouraged him to read a lot, and help him out in Maths myself. Anyway, he must had done well to gain the places from both schools. He found that the 13+ Common Entrance from Westminster was not that difficult and more straight forward in comparison to the other boarding school own entrance papers.
When final decision had to be made, we turned down Westminster because the school could not provide all the things we looked for, on top of academic achievements, we also wanted top pastoral care, safe and spacious environment, and facilities for full boarders. Every time we visited the school, we had to fight through all the crowds, tourists and traffic jam, never felt relax, whereas the other boarding school ticked a lot more boxes.
Do I feel bad turning down the 'best school on earth'.... Certainly not!
He is extremely happy where he is now, and doing really well too, he is in an excellent school which is right for him.
I think schools like that are looking for raw talent, not over tutored kid that can not think outside the box, they want independent thinker. Recently, My DC had mentioned to me that one of his subject teacher had commended him on his unique answers to the entrance exam of that subject, (as this teacher did the marking). Apparently, DC provided the most original answer, and a total different approach compared to all the other prep school students coached standard answers. He could not even remember what he wrote, that was few years ago. I find that quite funny, obviously he'd been to various Int'l schools and his experience had helped him to look into matters quite differently.
And OP, if you think Westminster is the right school for your kid, by all mean go for it. Do what you think is best for you child.

Haven't we gotten a bit off topic here?

Look, it's not revelational for someone to say that Westminster is not for every child, OK?! That was not my question nor my point.

And it is knocking down the flimsiest straw man to say: Oh, you are so worried about school, you should be worried about your son being happy!

Hello? Thank you I think we can all agree on these points.

This is a school with a clear claim to being the best institution of its kind on the planet, and if you have a kid that does not have a below average IQ it seems pretty clear to me that other things being equal it would be hard to find a better place for someone to go to secondary school.

You have a 50/50 shot at Oxbridge and the Ivy League, no place else accepting boys can claim this, anywhere on Earth. It is sui generis.

XpatI think you made the right choice, if you're looking for full boarding. IMVHO it's better for full boarding pupils if everyone is doing it.

What I mean is most pupils are day pupils and those that do board (less than a third) mostly go home at the weekend.

"if you have a kid that does not have a below average IQ it seems pretty clear to me that other things being equal it would be hard to find a better place for someone to go to secondary school"

You do realise that a child of average IQ doesn't stand a chance of a place there? It's highly selective within the top 5%.

And it's not hard to find equally good places - St Paul's and KCS have a similar (highly selective) profile and equalyl good leavers' destinations. No one of these three is "best" in terms of academic London (mainly) boys day schools.