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.

It is also rubbish to say that the private schools do not use better versions of the tests. Ask any reputable Ed Psych or Occ Psych, these tests need to be constantly developed and maintained to keep them from being predictable, so they are a robust test of ability, and people cannot improve their scores beyond doing a handful of papers for familiarisation.

If you want them to be tutorproof you have to invest in that process which private schools do and Tiffin manifestly does not.

Whilst I'm glad that schools like W expend a bit more effort on their entrance tets, it does get fecking ridiculous.

IIRC DS had tests (several), interviews (several, including one in French), school reports forwarded together with sample work.

I mean there's cautious, and then there's something else .

My DC went to the local cofe in a naice area. They then went to the independent sector with a small hiccough for dd. When dd went to an exceptionally high performing comp there were girls there who will achieve incredible GCSE results - better than DD will get after 3 years at an independent because they have huge amounts of raw intellect.

The difference imo is between well qualified and well educated. Well educated is something this country seems sadly to have forgotten about. A person can be extremely well educated without being academically clever and I think it's very important and sadly, it's something that nowadays tend to have to be bought.

(although... apparently at his private school today one of my sons was telling his friends it's aitch not haitch and some did not believe him and said it sounded funny (!!) - they made him look it up on his phone to prove the correct (whatever correct means of course) pronunciation)

Good God Laura Bridges! That would never have happened at Westminster surely. Although I have girl young lady person of about 32 who works for me and who went to WHS who can't hold a knife and fork properly - always makes me chuckle inwardly because she's so "ya, ya know, so brilliant and a natural leader and everything". I so we wish there was a ROFL emoticon - is one allowed to grin on education threads? .

wordfactory, please don't piss on my opinions simply because they are not aligned with yours.

FWIW, my ds has been in both private and state. If I had thought he had the stamina to manage a selective secondary, I might well have gone for it (if I could be assured of the fees). My decision was to go state for secondary, based on what was available in our area. In our area, we have outstanding state secondaries, who regularly send pupils off to Oxbridge. Indeed, all the children in year seven go to Cambridge for the day, are shown around by current students... they know that if they work really hard, this is within their grasp.

I can also see quite clearly that the children in my family who have been privately educated from start to finish have an advantage. That is a mixture of school and home. And an educated home, actually an educated mother, is a better indicator of academic success that money alone.

And of course the self selecting that occurs when you have to pay for education.

So while I completely get that a private education can work to the advantage of most competent children, I also see how excluding it is...nobody too SEN...nobody too stupid.

Of course your results will be 'better' but then perhaps one would do well to inform oneself of added value!

My ds' core sets are of grammar school standard. For the rest he mixes.

Lets see how his school does this year, its first gcse year. In one of the most deprived areas in the UK.

I often wonder whether all the analysis and dissection of admission test results and then school results and uni admissions and pros and cons of each school and uni and and and and and... is a uniquely (greater) London (and also NYC) characteristic? I grew up surrounded by the old New England prep schools was the only one in my family NOT prep school educated to my mother's dismay and Ivies/Little Ivies and honestly, all people say when discussing any of that is,

Question: "Where are you applying/going/graduated from..?

Answer: "Groton, Phillips Exeter, Harvard, Brown, Middlebury, fill in the blank"

Response: "Good school"

It's the same up here in Edinburgh, IME. The independent schools seem to be much of a muchness and there doesn't seem to be this angst surrounding the whole process!

Actually madame the current evidence that the education of a child's mother is the biggest determinant of a child's educational outcome is being questioned.

There's research underway to see if that still holds. And also to see if it matters whether the mother works or not. Interesting stuff.

I just think that if you have a broad enough experience of state and private, you are entitled to make your choices and your rationale public and stand by them.

To slate all state schools, and laud only private, is just silly. There are hundreds of poor performing private schools whose function is not academic excellence, but shielding the pupils from the RL and ensuring the social environment their parents want for their children.

But do at least be prepared to admit to your ambitions for your kids. I might not respect a desire to ensure your child only mixes with white middle/upper middle class children, but I have to acknowledge you can absolutely do what you want to do, make the choices you want to make (dc and money permitting).

Statesmoms sin, if I might express it so, is to assume that all parents, across all socio-economic classes, are fuelled by the same desire.

We know perfectly well that within each socio-economic group their are norms and expectations based on education, money and social status.

But that EVEN WITHIN THESE SOCIAL DIVISIONS parents will still make choices based on what they think will support their child best.

Therefore the idea of one particular school being the best in the world is a non starter.

Well, I'll no doubt have done it all wrong word because I'm only human and I make mistakes.

word, did you not read my post? that is exactly what I said.

'' And an educated home, actually an educated mother, is a better indicator of academic success that money alone.''

Yup?

And I see nowhere where this is being questioned.

Do please cite your sources.

But good on you word, for sliding away from the central issues.

Anyway, I can only bear testimony to my personal and familial and wider acquaintances experiences, backed up by the odd bit of stats.

My personal opinions about state v private are indeed private.

But not reductive to the extent that every state school is full of the dregs of society just awaiting to embark on their careers of fecklessness, drug taking and general anti-social behaviour.

Perhaps high schools in NY are particularly polarised. It would be interesting to hear Statesmoms thoughts on this, as I think it would go a good way to explaining her disbelief at the acceptance of state schooling in the UK.

In 22 pages of thread I have not seen 1 (not 1) strong argument that another school is better than Westminster.

St. Paul's, King's, Eton, Andover, Exeter, Le Rosey, Charterhouse, Groton, Dalton, Stuyvesant, et. al.

None of them compare to the results. Not even close.

There surely IS one best school on Earth for a smart young person who wants to learn and succeed.

Is Westminster it? Tell me another school that has comparable results. I haven't seen any.

(btw some of the posters here need to take this a bit less seriously. I'm just asking a simple question)

Statesmom, take it from me, someone who went to that school, that it may be the best for some children but it is horrendous for others.
Is that enough? Will you believe me?

St Pauls Girls' School, 53 Oxbridge offers with half as many pupils. First music master was Haydn, beautiful organ and the and a royal might drive by en route from the West to Kensington Palace. Will that do? Did mention it before.

take it less seriously?

What is more important that your dcs education?

But now you are being silly statesmom, because you do indeed know that there are numerous schools who route through to your desired tertiary education outcome in the states, let alone the UK.

Given that you refuse to answer the questions regarding where your child is currently as school (ie, private prep, or whatever, feeding to whatever private secondary in the US).

No smart US mom would be swayed by the idea of being at school right by the Palace of Westminster.

They would be digging like fuck, under the FOI act to find out the real story behind the 'success' or otherwise of any school they considered for their dcs. Even the most driven, neurotic, moneyed mom, would have a pretty good handle of UK schools by now.

So a fail from me.

And, let's be honest, at £10,830 a term (if you're boarding, a cheap £7,500 for day), giving your kid a 50/50 shot at the best universities in the world is quite a bargain.

For the rest of their life they are "Westminster and Harvard" or whatever.

It is not only work. People ask these questions at parties. For some, it defines others.

It is not nothing, people.

statesmom you are missing the subtilities of irony from the other posters. Nobody is taking your comments / question seriously just enjoying the opportunity to go off tangent as the fancy takes them.

Sorry, but bollocks do people ask that at parties. Maybe in the snobby nouveau riche circles you mix in, Statesmom, but not in those I mix in. What a pile of crap.

well, you know, my DN is in his first year of History of Art at the C O U R T A U L D.

for me, blinking waste of money of his entire history of private education, including one of the most selective private sixth forms in London.

But who gives a fuck? He is studying what is a passion for him. Good for him.

People ask these questions at parties.

I have to tell you, you're going to the wrong parties. And I speak as an old Paulina (who went to Oxford subsequently). Nobody has EVER asked me where I went to school at a party, I'm pleased to say. If they had, I would have assumed they were a very dull person and made my excuses in order to find someone more interesting to talk to.