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.

Whilst I understand that the OP has peed people off, (tbh OP has annoyed me I send my DS to W and will send my DD in sixth form)...I think pretending that it is all one and the same in the UK is middle class clap trap.

There is almost no social mobility in the UK. It is not a meritocracy.

There is the rich.
There is the middle (which IMVHO includes both the trad middle classes and working classes).
There is the working poor.
There is the excluded class.

And our education system reflects this system. Sadly.

Pretending that hard cash doesn't impact upon a child's outcome is middle class ostrich behaviour at best, right wing rubbish at worst.

OP, I'd suggest that if you don't let your child watch TV/play video games etc that you'll be putting him at a disadvantage socially when he does start at whatever independent school he possibly ends up at. DS is at a private school Scottish, so it might not count in your eyes! and I can assure you that every single boy in his class is just as engrossed in Minecraft, YouTube videos, Sherlock Holmes etc as they were in his old state school. I think DS would have really struggled to bond with anyone if he were the odd one out- chatting about all of these things is how they make friends!

Wasn't Amy Chua a lawyer as well? OP, no originality. Is this your first time trolling?

OP, Etonians are better lovers than Westminsters. Etonians are more spontaneous. Westminsters tend to overthink sex.

Hope this helps.

Fallaces sunt rerum species et hominum spes fallunt

Scarlett Johannssen came out with that, or part of it anyway, in Iron Man so it must be clever 'innit.

I can't let this pass.

1. It was Iron Man 2

2. It (or her off-the-cuff translation) actually had a place in the plot, as it inspired Tony to re-examine his father's work.

As Wordfactory says, it is nonsense to pretend that a child at a standard state school has the same chances of exam success as one at eg Westminster (assuming same child). Those who say that their child would have done just as well at their local comprehensive as at their £30K selective independent know perfectly well that they're talking rubbish - half the children at private school would not be sent there if their parents believed that it would make no difference to their exam results and university prospects.

I went to Westminster. I watched TV and played video games too. Then I went to Cambridge. These days I call myself ArsePaste and piss about on the internet. Where's my motherf*cking medal?

If top private schools were as selective but free of charge and maintained by the state with same funding (say £30000 per pupil) - would results be the same?

Both my two watch TV. In fact, when I was pregnant with DD, now 15, and DS was a toddler, my husband used to park him in front of the tv for half an hour when he left for work so that I could have a lie-in. DS would toddle up and find me when he'd had enough.

He also liked x-boxes, Wii, etc.

He will be applying for university next year--and has set his sights very high indeed. I can't see that he could have fulfilled his potential any more than he has.

And the hand-eye coordination the games have encouraged have helped make him extremely good at a particular sport: county-trials level.

Top private schools don't make top pupils unless the rW material is conducive - Prince Harry, anyone?

I don't think that many people doubt that if you have lots,of money to spend on your dc education, your dc will have a greater chance to get into the best universities.

However, in spite of this, the UK is far more meritocratic than most countries, most notably the US but also many countries in continental Europe.

Ultimately, a bright, motivated, hard-working child is very likely to do well. Going to Oxbridge may help, but it is not necessary. There are also plenty of Oxbridge students who disappear off the radar, so Oxbridge cannot guarantee success.

All this is in flux now. Very rich Europeans and Americans will increasingly be outcompeted by mega rich Chinese and Arabs for places at the most renowned institutions. Many private institutions will go after the money. Many of these places get massive donations from abroad. Remember the LSE with the PhD for one of Ghadaffi's sons more or less as it seemed in exchang for a large donation, the LSE seeming intolerant to people who may be seen to insult or ridicule their powerful donors (those students who were banned wearing T shirts of Jesus and Mohammed shaking hands).

The times are changing. That is why it will become increasingly important to ensure that all schools provide good education and in not to near a future this will also become an issue for those Americans and Europeans who now believe they are different as they consider themselves very rich. They will be overtaken soon. Mark my words.

OP, I must warn you that my principal memory of Westminster (drugs and alcohol and pupils, both male and female, having affairs with teachers AND fantastic teaching) is the pupils (day and boarding) slumped in front of the TVs in the boarding houses after school.

Jobs are very hard to come by for even bright, hardworking young graduates these days. I have recently met graduates of good universities (in 2 cases in the top 10) working as respectively a canteen assistant, a cleaner and in Tesco's on the check out machine. I'm guessing that these young people would have found things easier if they had rich parents living in London and with good business contacts, so they could do unpaid internships for instance.

From what I've heard of Germany it is far less socially divided. There are different tiers of school (similar to grammar, secondary modern), but there doesn't seem to be the angst about getting one's child into the equivalent of grammar. There appears to be genuine respect for children going into the manual trades, as against professional careers. And private schools are almost unknown. There appears to be no sense of social class there.

Word Factory and others? If that was directed at me. I said very clearly that I believe my DDs would have done just as well " in the top sets at the local outstanding comprehensives". I believe that because they do indeed enable DCs to get strings of As and A* and to top universities including Oxbridge. I really do believe that given my DDs ability and work ethic (and I really don't know where it came from because neither parent was ever so motivated, not that we needed to be, it seems to have skipped a generation from some grandparents who really did achieve social mobility via hard work and ability) they would have been amongst them.

We sent our children to private school because we live in the wrong road to send our children to one of the three local schools that achieve that regularly (by a matter of metres) and who have just in the latest allocation each been oversubscribed at first preference by several hundred. Our only option was a comprehensive that has been taken over by Scandinavians to see if their idiosyncratic educational approach will work in the UK, and that offers a choice of 7 A levels and 2 BTEC pathways (in healthcare and IT). The Council call it "Choice and diversity" I call it inequality of opportunity. The result is that competition for places in local selective schools is fierce, and they really are full of pupils who would have gone to the good state schools given the "choice" . Our experience has frankly not always been positive either.

I am very active in local organisations that seek to challenge the LAs educational strategies, and a Free School that aims to replicate the model of the best local state schools has even risen from those ashes. So you are absolutely right that currently the state system does not give equal chances to all but that does not mean it can't.

No not you shooting more madamedefarge and mrsbright, though also with reference to a lot of folk who seem to think that their DC will do well anywhere because they're like, ya know, middle class, and listen to radio four and all that shizzle...

I think it's deluded and absurd to imagine that the top sets of outstanding comps are as good as Westminster or other top private school.

An outstanding comp will spend less than £5k/year on its top set (less money is spent on the brightest even within the context of the highest-performing schools generally getting less money), whereas private schools are spending over £15k.

If you look at top private schools they are not concerned about 5 A-Cs, but about % of As and As.

Different standards.

Yup my niece is in top set for everything.

Last year's GCSE maths cohort produced a couple of A*s. No girls! A handful of As. The rest Bs.

So crap. It annoys me so bloody much.

I am and I do Word Factory but my DDs never cease to amaze me that in spite of me and my Radio 4 listening, not to mention aiding and abetting the watching of Geordie Shore, and my "schools thing" (as in "oh Mum, you're not spending time on the schools thing again, you won't make any difference") and my uni thing (I am banned from being seen on the same campus) they have grown up to be really motivated by academic study for it's own sake, so they work hard and do well.

I think it's deluded and absurd to imagine that the top sets of outstanding comps are as good as Westminster or other top private school. What do you mean?

I think it's deluded to believe that x3 times more money makes Westmister DC x3 times smarter or somehow teaches them x3 more useful things. In terms of ability, the intake is probably similar to top grammar schools. The career outcomes are different, not because of knowledge and ability, but because of parents' money and influence and the 'old public school boys/girls' networks.

The 'extras' that they teach them in those schools are not substantive knowledge, but more like packaging, how to present themselves as being part of that private circle that makes them accepted at Oxbridge and in top companies. The people in power who run top companies where those youngsters want jobs are mostly from those public schools. They want signals that new recruits are of their own.

Actually a quick look at my niece's school says they did better than I said in maths.
5 got an A*...still no girls.
2 got an A* in Eng.
2 in Eng lit (no girls).

No A*s at all in history, Spanish or German.

Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhh.
See I just don't believe that there aren't clever and hard working kids there. I just don't.

Bonkers

I think one of the things that goes on at W is that the atmosphere is extremely scholarly. Very challenging.

So bright boys who might find school really rather easy elsewhere are still expected to work damn hard. They will still find things difficult.

And I think this stands 'em in good stead.

Aga I am not deluded, I base my opinion on DDs peers who went through these schools and have indeed got As and A*s and have gone on to top unis, including Oxbridge. I also base it on the fact that at one of these top schools it has not been all plain sailing for my DDs, indeed my younger DD has moved to a less top school and, without having to deal with a bunch of attention seeking alpha girls (who disrupted lessons because their ambition is to be bunny girls, although now they are in Year 13 they are compromising on personal trainer but haven't dropped the gangsta act) is blossoming academically and socially. Disruptive pupils are not confined to state school, a clever attention seeking (and constantly hungry size zero) alpha girl with a sense of entitlement is indeed a scary thing.

Sorry DDs peers who went through the local outstanding state schools.

So shooting you really believe that none of the girls at my niece's school are good at maths?

Or they just didn't work hard enough?