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.

Bonkers I have no idea about the overall numbers of bursaries in private schools. Apart from anything else you would be including chalk and cheese, since there are some private schools out there who exist entirely to make money for their owners / share holders, . I don't know for instance why anyone would be paying for their children to attend one of the schools run by GEMS who are very open about their mission to make as much money as possible out of the UK market and are lobbying the government to be allowed to make money out of their participation in the Free School programme (hopefully the D of E have realised or will realise there is little reason to send money their way as well).

However at most of the top schools there really is a commitment to have as diverse a student body as possible. As far as bursaries go this would be a representative example.

"Over 2012/13, some 131 pupils (15.2% of total number of pupils) received financial disbursements, at a cost of £776,100 (6.1% of gross fee income). Of these, 42 receive financial support through bursaries, of which 21 were full bursaries. For 2013/14, bursarial support has been increased to £936,765." There is a bursary appeal aimed at increasing that pot. That would be in addition to the cost of involvement by pupils and staff in activities in local state schools, sharing initiatives such as the Model United Nations with local state schools, there is a formal partnership between local state and private schools for that purpose, mentoring schemes for state school pupils and offering the sports etc facilities to local state schools for free. I don't think this is an unrepresentative example, indeed it isn't one of the schools that is particularly wealthy compared to a school like Eton, nor is it a direct grant grammar where ex pupils who were given a chance of social mobility tend to be more generous in terms of providing the funds for future pupils to get the same sort of chances.

My DDs school is far more diverse ethnically than the state school in the area because pupils travel to it from a very wide catchment. A lot of immigrant parents for instance are willing to stretch themselves to fund their child's education and there are significant numbers of Asian and Eastern European pupils. In my own DDs friendship group her friends are from families from Sierra Leone, Tamil Sri Lanka, Kenyan and Ugandan Asian, Poland and Singapore Chinese.

Domedary Can I counter with another anecdote. The pupils in DDs' friendship groups whose parents I perceive as poor are the ones whose father is driving a minicab 14 hours day and night to make ends meet or the mother living on benefits (and when they get delayed/ messed up using the food bank) because her husband has walked out and refuses to contribute. The school reacted very promptly to provide support in that case, and parents who were friends helped with all sorts of practical realities.

Another anecdote to illustrate it isn't just results that count. My DD spent Year 4 in the French system. The work was indeed heavily reliant on rote learning. A topic was covered usually via worksheets then tested and she always got 100%. She was bored rigid. However that wasn't the reason we got her out of there, that was more that the lack of pastoral care would actually have left the school open to being closed down in the UK system because of the lack of safeguarding. It wasn't that there wasn't any TLC at all. The final straw for us was when she was sent home on the school bus after she had been knocked out in the playground. I am all for not pandering to drama about bumps and scrapes but concussion? Her younger DD who is dyspraxic and dyslexic had an even worse experience. It is certainly not for the fainthearted.

An 80% pass rate at Bac level is anything but a sign of success in the French system.

I have "chaired" Bac exam board meetings and have taught in French HE for over 15yrs and the statistics are not what they might seem from outside.

saintly, I know of an Eton boy who got a 100% bursary, had his uniform paid for and was given termly pocket money by the school. They also paid all his travel costs (he lived in Yorkshire).
I'm sure this is rare but it happens.

I do wonder what it would be like to attend a school in those circumstances though. So many Etonians are rich beyond any sort of norm that you must be constantly trying to join two very different worlds.

If ds2 still has his heart set on drama I'll suggest the drama scholarship to him for 6th form though :)

I do love some of my old Etonian friends but they do tend to see me as a slightly different species because I'm not loaded (and believe me we are well off by any assessment is remotely in touch with normality).

Like GCSEs and A-level, all bacs were not created equal.

Well, why should we (husband unemployed for nearly three years, just back to work) struggle to pay even higher school fees so that more bursaries can be granted? It's different for schools where there are old endowments, but for some schools, particularly girls' schools, there are no such large funds. Just fee income.

Bursaries are a lovely idea but it is not fair to ask the not-rolling-in-it parents to fund other people's children past a certain level.

Shooting,

Your DD is obviously exceptionally bright. 100% in all subjects is extremely rare in any system. It wasn't just in English language worksheet, which is an MFL in France? But it seems the worksheet system works - the pupils learn and retain knowledge. Why was your DD bored?

My DD is in her 7th year in the French school system, DSS1 is out the other side and DSS2 is approaching the end. The three of them between them have been in state and private sous-contrat, both Catholic and secular-bilingual. So I think we have a bit of experience . Like any system, schools vary. The private schools' pastoral care has been way superior to the state schools' pastoral care because fee money largely goes on extra "caring" staff, be that teaching assistants or management. School is far from being all about rote learning - indeed, DD, who has a history test tomorrow, was up at the crack of dawn as her class went on a related site visit this morning. She has constant cross-curricular work.

Sorry can't hold back the fingers- Dd has been in a private French school 8 years - now Y7
Pastoral care - don't get me started it is non existent - not the schools concern.
Learning style - mainly rote, achieves fantastic results but no scope for smart kids who want more breadth in a subject. Main concern the weekly tests in almost every subject.
No x curricular or at most extremely tentative.
No marking done by teachers- done by pupils in class hence so much homework as the curriculum can only be covered with extensive homework. Y7 almost 3 hours per night.
My daughter is climbing the walls she feels so hemmed in. We are actively pursuing another alternative.
On the positive side her French is fluent

Sorry above was to bonsoir!

StressedbutBlessed - you are describing a bad school. There are French schools out there that are nothing like that. My DD's French teacher does all the marking herself and, indeed, is so detailed and precise in her feedback, both on the exercise books that come home each Friday and on her termly reports, that we know exactly what DD has mastered and what requires additional work (which is up to us).

Oneglass All the private schools we are talking about here have bursary funds funded by donation and endowment and not fee income. However when you decide to apply for a private school you sign up for a particular ethos and in the case of almost all these schools the ethos goes back hundreds of years, even in the case of a lot of the girls' school. That ethos and the schools mission is made very clear in all their publicity so you have ample chance to decide you prefer another school that is less inclusive. For us it was essential that our DDs attended a school that would teach them the responsibilities that come with privilege and put those values into action. I have every sympathy with your financial situation but not really with the morality of your position.

Bonkers Irrespective of my DDs ability she has a photographic memory, so she does do well when the teaching is a matter of completing a worksheet on grammar or whatever and regurgitating it (it wasn't English as an MFL). She does also to be fair have a particular talent for Maths but I don't think any teacher should be setting children tests that do not challenge even the most able pupils. She was bored because the lessons were monotonous and the teacher disengaged and she was not being challenged or stimulated. We moved her to a British system International School regarded as a bit hippy and 70s and she absolutely thrived. Lots of variety in the teaching methods, she and the other able girls were set extension work (and allowed to dissect the fish they were given to draw in art ) and above all there was humour and fun and she felt valued. She was inspired and happy and actually came home almost after the first day a different girl, and was more than well enough equipped to get into St Pauls. Any shortfall in the curriculum (because they were like most state schools not yet at the end of the Year 6 curriculum) wasn't in the least difficult to cover with a child who was so enthusiastic and engaged.

I am not saying that every French School is like that, or that every child is unhappy in a school like that. I am just pointing out that not every school is the right fit for a pupil, and their family, even if it is the best school in the world according to whatever arbitrary criteria you wish to set.

I should add that stressed and I are talking about the same school .

And I think it is right stressed that it is run by a Paris prefecture, and the French Head and staff originate from there? Or was back then anyway. Their strategy documents were always a work of erudition but with absolutely no content

Give me an example of one trade, industry where the Brits outperform the French, or better, the Germans, based on education and skills?

Motor racing (built largely on and by British engineering excellence, with many Britons occupying key positions in foreign teams) and aircraft engines (Rolls Royce).

I have to say that I have never, ever heard of any of our DCs having to mark their own homework in class. On the contrary - work is marked and returned exceptionally fast for both DD and DSS2, and this despite DSS2, in Première, being in a class of 37. You have to admire the teachers who return marked Devoirs Sur Table (every Wednesday) on Friday. DD's teacher either marks the same day (at lunch time) or returns work the following day.

That ethos and the schools mission is made very clear in all their publicity so you have ample chance to decide you prefer another school that is less inclusive. For us it was essential that our DDs attended a school that would teach them the responsibilities that come with privilege and put those values into action. I have every sympathy with your financial situation but not really with the morality of your position.

The morality of my position is that if our fees go up any further to allow for further bursary support for other girls, the school will have to pay us a bursary because we won't be able to afford it. Or, my very clever, very gifted daughter will have to leave in order to allow another very clever, very gifted girl who may be slightly worse off than us to attend!

How does that make any sense! Actually, very few girls' schools are more than a hundred years old. Ours is more or less exactly that.

We live in a former farm labourers' cottage. We are not that well off.

So I was going to work this morning and asked the driver (English) whether he had ever heard of Westminster (he hadn't).

Chatting today with a barrister friend of a friend, he was nearly breathless about the place.

So it seems it's kind of a school only in the know with certain classes, which I think is great. Eton, a much worse school, is known by everyone. I think being part of the elite is even better when no one knows about it!

My girlfriend introduced me to a "super tutor" and we are going to have him come over 5 hours a week, he has great success with getting kids into Westminster (although his fees are murderous!).

I've decided: our goal is Westminster, and we're going to do it. 4 years of preparation will give us a fantastic shot and it will be a family commitment.

We start on Monday!!

Oh and it's not just me thinking this:

Why Westminster School is the most successful academic school in the country

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/harrymount/100054709/why-westminster-school-is-the-most-successful-academic-school-in-the-country/

I think all of the moms sort of nod at each other at the gate, knowing that they are part of the most exclusive academic club in the land.

Well, the joke is on us - a troll! It's been an interesting thread all the same.

I wish she were a troll but, going by the Americans I know in Paris, I think she is for real...

Private schools in France don't necessarily have more funds than state schools- but could have higher costs. Private nurseries tend to be underfunded. The Private schools sous contrat charge a termly fee in the range of Eur 300-1300 , so obviously you can't expect anything like Westminster for that money...

I think all systems have schools of variable quality. I am not particularly fond of the French system per se, but I do think that structured learning and homework is the way to go. This helps to develop work habits and self regulation skills. DS at grammar school gets 3 hours of homework per day and does not expect school to be a form of entertainment. I can't see any evidence of the 'progressive' 'child led' teaching style being able to produce any results. It makes the study skills, discipline and focus the responsibility of the teacher (the Entertainer), while IMO it is the responsibility of the pupil and should be instilled at early age. The stimulation should be in the internalized learning, not in the external circus.

If you teach little darlings to only attend to the lesson if its 'fun', no wonder they leave school at 16 without qualifications and watch Jeremy Kyle show.

I really don't understand how a bright child could be bored and need hand holding to make cross-curricular connections. You can't spoon-feed the thinking. It should be developed as a skill.

Good lord, I never thought I'd hear the phrase, "Eton, a much worse school"