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.

i think they do get more leeway these days...though obviously not if it is a private school that "generally produces poor results" and there are some of those though they tend to be non-selective.

Even though I'm waiting for Jake's tea TROLLey, just in case it's for real, can I ask you, op, if you have such rigid and specific expectations of your children, is there not a danger that if they cannot, or do not wish to, live up to them, then they are going to feel the weight of their parents' disappointment for the rest of their lives?

I agree kids from comps should be given consideration.

Where does all of this cynicism come from? Why all this inferiority complex about justifying sending children to state schools? There is nothing wrong with that.

I was just asking about one school, which seems to me to be an outstanding place. The personal vitriol is unnecessary.

Can we return to topic?

Any first hand knowledge of Westminster School? TIA

Gosh, someone's got a Telegraph deadline to meet, haven't they?

Not what you said further back regarding state schools is it?

It can never be 'the best school on earth', it can only be 'the best school on earth for some children'. It wouldn't have suited mine and since they didn't want to go to Oxbridge the number they get it is irrelevant.
You need to fit the school to your child and not fit your child to the school.

The personal vitriol is unnecessary.

You started with the vitriol about dunces and prison-like state schools etc.

[yawn] emoticon required I think.

I didn't see your deleted threads, OP, so can only imagine ... I went to Westminster, albeit a while back. It is a fantastic school in many respects, certainly in a different league to the allegedly stellar girls' school I attended previously, where I felt a lot of the teaching was lazy and unstimulating. But as others have mentioned, it's super-selective, its intake would probably win Oxbridge/Harvard/whatever places whatever school they attended.

There are many outstanding teachers (though there were still a couple of duds). There were some very creative and interesting people in my year and many of us have gone on to extremely interesting, though not necessarily lucrative, careers.

The downside was the pastoral care, which was dire. Many people were very unhappy. A lot of drugs. A few nervous breakdowns. But a lot of this wasn't just the school's fault, it was the fault of parents who were determined to send their children there when they quite obviously were bad fits, in order to win a Harvard/Oxford place.

MrsRuff If I had been holding a drink last night when I read your first post my keyboard would have been finished. I was actually wheezing with laughter.

And now you've said exactly what I wanted to say.

Well....

I personally do not think it's all about how clever someone is.

Iv met lovely people who have no gcse's

and

Awful people who have 20 of them, with A levels and degrees and everything else

and vice versa of course!

Isn't it more important for a child to be brought up with love, security, warm, affection and have a good sole rather than be in 'the best school ever'

Just my view.. sorry

Btw, op, did you see the other Westminster thread in this topic? (The Under school - 7+ entry - just right for your ds)

And to think, before yesterday, it was all completely under my radar!

My husband went to Westminster. Assuming things haven't changed his view is it is excellent for a particular type of child - academic and self starter. It is not good if you are highly sports orientated and are not a self starter

Zero

It's so hard though to decide what is best for a DC, I see a few schools out there (not Westminster) which are very high on the league tables which can get your child a clutch of A at GSCE and A/A at A level, but which have a very traditional approach to teaching and an obsession with league tables, with little opportunity to go off-piste, that DCs will come out with top A levels but have a bit of a shock when they get to top uni and realize that they actually haven't been equipped with how to think....

Dromedary - I went to a v poor comprehensive (unlike my husband) and was one of those people who got into a good university. However, I thought your post was a bit unkind - you could have just been pleased for you colleague. Anyone taking exams has to work hard (yes some of us had to work a bit harder...).

Apparent conclusions so far: it's the best school on Earth for drugs, nervous breakdowns, obsessional parents, lousy pastoral care, and academic self-starters who would get into Oxford or Cambridge from pretty much any school if that's what they wanted. And it's not much good if you're sporty. But it is next to the Palace of Westminster and it looks amazing.

Reading threads like this always makes me marvel at the fact that, by some absolute miracle, my friends and I seem to have made happy, successful lives: we were burdened with a comp. Bleurrrrgh. However did we overcome it??

@ rabbitstew

I must confess to being a little confused. You say today that you need to wait and see if your son is academic, but yesterday you stated he was 8yo. If that is the case, you must surely know by now whether or not he is.

Which school is he currently in? (or what type, if you don't wish to name)
Prep Heads will surely tell you by age 8 which schools your child would be able to try for?

At undergrad level UK Russell Group universities are more demanding than the Ivy League in your chosen degree subjects.

And undergrad at Oxbridge is another level altogether.

Striped - we have such a hugely unequal education system in this country. It does frustrate me that some people can more or less buy good results for their children. I think they should at least recognise that that is what they're doing!
Obviously, I didn't say anything to the colleague, but it would be interesting to know how his son would have done if sent to the local comp. A child who does well from a poor school gets my full respect.
It's a shame to read that Oxbridge now tell people not to apply unless they're predicted top A'level results. When I applied to Oxbridge many moons ago they asked me at interview how well I expected to do in A'levels, and when I explained that there was a problem with one subject (the teachers didn't bother to show up to lessons), they made sure I was offered grades that I could achieve despite that. That doesn't seem to be happening any more.

"Some people can more or less buy good results for their children".

In what way are these children's parents buying good results? Do they not have to do any work? Are the exams being taken for them? In what way are these children more advantaged than those children who are in "free" education whose parents are actively involved in their education and purchase external experiences for them? I suppose that they are also being purchased their results?

For those people who scoff at Liberal Arts degrees, I suppose it is a lack of understanding of what Liberal Arts entails. It simply means a high quality broad based education with a specialisation in one subject. I believe that it is a preferable degree for the future as it allows for flexibility in study and experience. A Liberal Arts education allowed me to read the equivalent of PPE whilst being able to spend a year in Paris studying Art History, and also allowed me to then go to medical school. However, if university degrees are simply seen as vocational courses, i can see how people might think that a Liberal Arts Education is us useless.

I can appreciate Dromedary's comment in one respect; it just takes a completely different kind of child to excel in an environment where it's not relentlessly drilled into them that they must - an exceptional child (both literally and figuratively).

That aside, I don't think the accomplishments of privileged children are for purchase.