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Original poster

Is Westminster School the best school on Earth?

1000 replies

statesmom · 01/02/2014 17:20

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.

OP posts:
MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:17

Tsk. Shoddy mothering. Get onto boarding schools asap.

MrsBright · 04/02/2014 23:19

Golly miteshb. You mean the OP might be wasting all that money for no advantage? Crikey, she'll need counselling.

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:19

Perhaps the ds might need to counselling more...

MrsBright · 04/02/2014 23:21

Actually its a wonder I was allowed to breed at all. I went to ....... yes, a STATE school. You'd think they have neutered me at birth to be on the safe side really wouldn't you.

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:22

I think it is possible that the OP doesn't get that there is a strong meritocratic element in the UK, based, quite possibly, in socialist principles of the last 80 years or so.

So while many children fail, many do succeed, without the hindrance of needing monied parents.

It aint perfect by a long way. But it is not all about money. Well, it wasn't. but I fear it might return to that here.

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:23

Mrs Bright, who let you out of the mine??

MrsBright · 04/02/2014 23:28

Sorry. It was that STATE education you see, it gave me ideas above my station.

[Note to self - always genuflect to all Americans in the SW1 postcode area, and remember not to say 'Why don't you just go home if you don't like it here?]

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:30

And I think Bonsoir can confirm that it is the selective state Lycees in Paris that count a deal more in life than the private secondaries.

(I might be a bit out of date on that one)

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:31

Don't worry MrsBright. I also went to a state school. Albeit a convent. I think we were much more fluid socially when I was at school...I went to a private prep also. All the high schools mixed socially, whether state or private or grant maintained.

I fear it has become a good deal more socially divisive. But I could be wrong.

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:33

None of us felt the least bit disadvantaged....

MrsBright · 04/02/2014 23:37

I just love Gove at the moment. If all the kids at DDs lovely little rural Comp got £30,000 a year spent on each of them, they'd probably all get amazing A level results as well. Especially if the school was allowed to be a hyper-selective as any St Posh-knobs is.

MrsBright · 04/02/2014 23:40

[To be continued. See you in the morning. I'm away to my sacking in the corner that passes for a bed in lower class peasant homes.]

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:43

I expect my ds to do pretty well at his state school. By well I mean have got to a point where he has identified his passions, and have applied to whatever university will support those interests with a career as the end point.

It might be Oxbridge. I don't dismiss it. But its not the ultimate aim.

At the moment it is drama and history that enthuses him at 13. He is even talking about being a teacher (when he isn't talking about being a tv presenter of history documentaries)

Its all dreams and passions right now. As it should be. Not a goal to sacrifice everything to.

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:44

hit the hay, And the sack and whatever stuff strikes you as appropriate.

(all medieval terms arising from the hay stuffed sacking that passed for bedding for the lower orders in a lords hall ....)

mateysmum · 04/02/2014 23:47

OK Statesmom as others have suggested post specific questions about W and someone will answer. But if you insult all working mothers who allow their DC to watch tv and play computer games I fear you will not have many supporters. You may think they are evil but they are the norm.
There may even be Westminster boys who own tvs and x boxes.Shock

MrsRuffdiamond · 04/02/2014 23:48

The vitriol of which you frequently speak, statesmom, was, I might again remind you, brought to the table by YOU, you dunce.

mateysmum · 04/02/2014 23:50

I only wish I could hit the sack Madame but their is a massive storm raging here in Somerset so I'm trying to distract myself from thoughts of the house taking of or floating away.

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:52

Matey, you just need to apply a bit of intellectual rigour...tell the water the go away and it will.

If it doesn't. you just didn't try hard enough.

HTH Wink

mateysmum · 04/02/2014 23:54

It's obviously divine vengeance for letting DS watch tvWink

MadameDefarge · 04/02/2014 23:55

I didn't like to say so, but quite possibly....

Amazing how the God's inflict their judgements, eh?

Needmoresleep · 05/02/2014 00:01

A tube strike in London so difficult for DC to get to their expensive schools. Is this TV as well?

MadameDefarge · 05/02/2014 00:06

When trying to decide where to send ds to secondary, all the privates involved such hideous commutes it would not have worked for him.

Luckily he got a place at our most local school....the most desired state school in the borough (and possibly the nation).

MadameDefarge · 05/02/2014 00:07

ooh, look at me, being all boasty boasty!

TBH, there is one other state school in our borough that headlines on desirability...but it wasn't for ds, so I did not put it down.

Bad Bad mother.

Shootingatpigeons · 05/02/2014 00:22

Mrs B That is where I disagree with you because though we have spent £15000 a year on my DDs' education at a school that is in the top 10 in the country, I do not actually think they have done any better academically or in terms of university offers than they would have done in the top sets in one of our outstanding local comprehensives. These private schools, contrary to statesmoms preconceptions, do not perform miracles, they take clever children and educate them, and so do good state schools. I absolutely do not doubt the state schools would have enabled her to get exactly the same GCSE and A level results because they do that for other DCs regularly.

And my DDs have not emerged entitled brats, they are funny, happy, not especially confident girls. My older one is currently very happily sharing a flat on an East London council estate with uni flat mates that come from all sorts of backgrounds and wants to spend the rest of her life studying the behaviour of particles within cells that can be used to target medical treatment, and the other wants to edit Vogue Hmm (but then Alexandra Schulman is a social anthropology graduate from Sussex and Anna Wintour didn't even go to university so doesn't look like Westminster / Oxbridge guarantee that path at least).

HomeHelpMeGawd · 05/02/2014 06:58

Oh statesmom statesmom statesmom. You actually believe that if you'd posted a thread saying "is Oxford the best university in the world?" And given a similar set of narrow reasons as your rationale it wouldn't have kicked off in the same way?

Despite your facility with words like "limn" and "averring", you appear to have pretty rubbish thinking skills, as demonstrated here.

Here's a clue for you: it would have kicked off in the same way. You could eve work that out by reading this very thread, where discussions about the preeminence or otherwise of Oxbridge have been a part of the debate.

For a lawyer with ambitions to have a DC at Westminster, you appear to be a bit .... you know.... dim. Sorry.

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