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.

Ummm I'd be pretty surprised if they waived selection criteria for cash....but they certainly waive fees for the uber bright....one close friend was a Queen's Scholar but didn't pay any fees at all.

At my DDs International School there was a whole wall of the names of donors to the school's building fund. It was fascinating since not one actually had children at the school, but they had tried.......

Just found this! ROFL as statesmomwould say. I wonder if this would put her off or add to her ambition www.thelondonmagazine.co.uk/people-places/schools/londons-coolest-schools.html

Wow what a hilarious thread! Fwiw £2k a year isn't going to cut it, when not particularly high achieving (boarding) schools charge £30k+ a year. Per term it might though...

I have been lurking on this thread for days now. HILARIOUS. Agree with Crowler and harassedlondonmum that I am spending far too much time on it and should be applying myself to OTHER THINGS…. But statesmom, do come back - we are gagging for your next post….

What a vomit-inducing article, shooting.

my money is on an actual westminster pupil....having a chuckle with mates about crazy mothers...

Apropos of that very good list of where to find people to be put up against the wal, come the revolution, is anyone able to identify the uniforms of these delightful sprogs?

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/our-nineyearold-was-just-being-antiestablishment-say-parents-of-girl-who-climbed-on-10m-tate-modern-sculpture-9098440.html

The lime green trim on the boy's blazer, is that cool?

How fabulous it must be to spend two million quid on a house in Murder Mile, sorry 'newly fashionable Hackney', then pack your kids off by chauffeur-driven car to a prep school where there is no need for metal detectors or police presences.

I think I've found statesmom jr.'s super tutor! www.thelondonmagazine.co.uk/people-places/schools/the-rise-of-the-super-tutor.html

(courtesy of shooting's link)

Super tutor quote: “I do offer instruction in manners and etiquette."

I should sit in on the classes. statesmom

aga, its actually a local academy. I don't think it fair to name the school

Ah, they are that kind of trendy rich parent.

I see.

I am fascinated how this thread keeps on rolling. On and on! I dip into it now and again for sheer novelty value.

Presumably it is perfectly ok to seek to buy a place at the school despite not being offered one on academic merit, as long as it is done above-board - so a formal offer to the Head rather than a quiet bribe? Sneaking in a few pupils like this each year, on the basis of strict confidentiality, would only lower the level very slightly (assuming they were not actually "dunces"), and might well be worth it if the additional payment was a high one? Surely some schools do do this?

Read the cool school article almost slack-jawed in amazement. Cool? School has to be cool? Or article making by daft journo? Probably a bit of both.

Our local outstanding primaries and academies are full of the children of oarents like that. I worked that out when pulling 6 year old boys apart at a birthday party The children from the notorious estate were sitting politely at the side and saying please and thank you and it was the newsreader's son and the television producers son who were behaving like feral animals. When the newsreader wafted in all glamourously made up she didn't make eye contact with her son, not once, straight off to schmooze the other mejia types leaving me a sweaty stressed mess, hair everywhere after two hours of wrestling her son off the other children.

Obviously I am not generalising this to all newsreaders sons, or children from the Council estate before anyone has a go, just an "anecdote"

I actually found the vomit inducing article while googling the Abromovitch Godolphin church thing. It seems that whilst clearly 8 figure bribes may get you somewhere Westminster Abbey is probably safe for the nation www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1583841/The-limits-of-Romans-largesse.html

Nice quote from the cool schools article:
"‘Non-selective’ is a compound to make any parent’s heart leap"
Prob not those parents interested in Westminster though.

"You must have missed the part where they are both American. So it's not naive at all."

Doh! Of course Americans are so rare in London that the staff member will fall over herself in a rush to aid one.

Well, at least Westminster are not running to their Libel lawyers about thes thread, unlike a certain school in Yorkshire does!

shooting, I get where you are coming from.

DSs school is very strict. And they make no bones about it. Still, its a fab school and def no 1 choice for meeja parents here. But they still moan about it being too harsh for their little darlings.

Er, you chose it. Suck it up.

Talkin

To all those who got snotty messages re the other thread : so long as MNHQ have our proper contact details (under section 5 of the act) then our defence can be section 3 of the Act

apologies for the hijack