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.

ainsley I absolutely would consider Westminster for a bright child. I have two dds, both at a fairly stellar London prep that feeds to a fairly stellar London senior school, so am very happy with their education already.

If by sixth form they're restless, I'll certainly let them take a look at Westminster and see if they like it (though the fees would kill me), but it would be to give them a change of scene, not because I think Westminster offers them a something like 2 per cent chance of getting an Oxbridge place than their current school.

I have to confess the reason I wanted to go to Westminster was to meet cool London boys (I boarded there). I couldn't have cared less about the academics, though naturally this isn't how I sold it to my parents. When I arrived I discovered the boys were nothing like the glamorous creatures I'd been imagining. The teaching, however, unexpectedly blew me away and I'll forever be glad I made the move.

And far from ALL boys/girls are sensitive and unhappy - I never said that. Many are very happy there, more so now than in my time - I believe - since pastoral care has improved.

Westminster normally does very well by very bright but sensitive boys, and probably much better than St Paul's or Eton. The pastoral support is strong, and the druggy reputation of a generation ago is long gone.

I was on this thread earlier, now NC, as I do regularly

saganoren if your dds are already at a great prep feeding through to senior, that must be very relaxing in a way for all of you. But I agree that 6form can be an obvious break point in education esp if dcs have been in one place for a while.

My dd is y10 but she/we might think about it for 2015 by which time she'll have been at her current supersonic but all girls school for 9 yrs. similarly we're waiting to see how ds3 shapes up. Won't consider it unless it's the right fit nearer the time.

I think it's the sort of school which stays with you for life.

Agree Needmoresleep. The bright quirky boy or girl would be nurtured there.

Oh and did anyone read Educating Oleg in the Sat times this w/e? Eye watering account of how the super rich are employing mega tutors to coach offspring through the admissions procedures of UK selective schools...

Crazy.

'the druggy reputation of a generation ago is long gone.'

The several Westminster boys I knew were druggies, except for one, who was bullied.
Good to hear it's improved.

I graduated from Oxbridge last year and met many Westminster students, who must have been at the school about 4 years ago. The druggie reputation has most definitely not gone, unless there's been an astounding turn around in the last couple of years. I can't remember any of them being particularly pleasant either, but maybe I was just unlucky with the ones I met.

My experience is: Friends and acquaintances who either went there or have sent children to 6th form there.

Most are fairly positive about it, the former attendees I know are all very nice but a remarkably mixed bunch in terms of post-Westminster achievement (including a very druggy pair, it has to be said). The child who left most recently did 6th form only, loved it, got into Cambridge.

Your children will have to be the sort that manage a heavy academic load plus extra-curricular stuff very well both intellectually and emotionally though. The type that in the US would be cruising at the top of the class at St. Albans in D.C., something like that. If they aren't, forget it.

wordfactory

1. I didn't say all the boys. I said "a lot". This is a meaningful difference. I am perfectly relaxed with the notion that there are many happy boys, many thick-skinned boys, and many happy thick-skinned boys at Westminster. But there are also many unhappy boys, many sensitive boys, and many unhappy sensitive boys, which isn't really surprising given the extent of academic selection, the degree to which the school (and parents) push the boys, and the focus on intellect above all.
2. My knowledge stems from having done the tour and seen and spoken to several current pupils; spoken to the head at our son's primary school, which is a feeder school; and spoken to many friends who went to the school - both my job and social circle bring me into contact with a fair number of people who went to Westminster. One boy who spoke to us on the tour talked at length about how he found the pressure very difficult and wasn't doing well, and had been off ill with stress, and was at risk of being asked to leave for not keeping up academically. This is a boy who was presumably selected to present the school's best face to prospective pupils + families on the tour! He simply added weight to the facts I'd heard before. It may not be definitive knowledge, but it's good enough for me!

The boy who took you on a tour of Westminster told you he'd been off of school for a stress-related illness?

There's never been a drug problem at Westminster. You can get anything, anytime.

Sorry. Old joke.

As for reality, it's no better or worse than other London schools as far as I can see. The kids are much too busy doing 'stuff' from my experience.

I thought Westminster tours were carried out by a retired staff member, not the boys.

(and IIRC, one of them is the author of a book on the history of vibrators).

'This is a boy who was presumably selected to present the school's best face'

This is unlikely. My children often take parents around their well known schools. They are not prepped. The idea is that they tell the truth as they experience it so that parents understand as much as possible before applying. Intelligent students are unlikely to feed parents a line anyway.

Most parents realise that there will be a range of experiences and feelings. It sounds as though this experience confirmed an opinion you already held.

I think the druggie reputation is a distraction. Just as in my northern town in the 70s drugs are around at teenage parties. Teenage boys in particular seem to be attracted by the risk taking, and especially these days when if you know where to look on the internet you can make a bit of money dealing in a small time way. Most of it happens around Year 9 when boys and girls tend to have more hormones than sense, and be out to prove how cool they are, it goes hand in hand with binge drinking, and they come to realise stupid it is so it never really gets on parental/ school radars. A few get caught and you get incidents at all these schools from time to time, in my DDs time at school it happened at Oratory, Hampton and Latymer to my knowledge. A few go on to have a weed habit that may persist for years, but being called a stoner is derogatory. A small number may go on to hard drug addiction I assume because that is what the statistics tell us but, unlike my own peer group, none of my DDs peers have gone on to long term addiction to hard drugs. Whether they continue that way once they start making their way in the city, or the media, seems statistically unlikely

However this is a problem of teenage society, not of any individual school. Any of these school can find itself with a dysfunctional year where a group of characters who are predisposed to this sort of behaviour subvert the norms. Usually by sixth form everyone has seen through them and think they are sad. It's an issue if you find your DD amongst such characters but you can't anticipate it based on the school, it can happen anywhere.

That's very true, Shooting.

It was WUS rather than the senior school, and the open day tours were led by gangs of boys, who were being marshalled by the staff.

slipshodsybil, I guess I should have stated my presumption as being: if I were the school, I would not "prep" the boys but neither would I ask a boy who is struggling to take part.

On the range of experience and feelings point - yes, I expected precisely that. But I didn't expect to hear quite clear distress from a 10-year old, and there was nothing remotely comparable at any other school. But it was only one data point among several. I've never heard anyone state the opposite view, ie that there aren't a lot of sensitive and unhappy boys there. Maybe someone on this thread will?

Home my experience is that amongst any highly gifted cohort, the capacity for anxiety is greater.

I teach at Oxbridge and somewhere much less selective. We see more angst at the former.

However, I would say that Westminster has no more or less of these type of pupils than every other super selective school.

Of course there are those children who cannot cope unless they are top dog. They are doomed to be unhappy at a highly selective school. But frankly, they are doomed to be unhappy in life I fear.

He wouldn't have been a 10 year old, he would have been a year 8. They volunteer for the open days. It's very odd that a boy would be asked to leave in year 8 for not keeping up academically since they are all about to leave anyway.

I don't know of anyone asked to leave in year 8.

Presumably it is possible for a child who got in at 7+ or 8+ to be in a position where their place at the senior school is not secure. Not necessarily the school's fault. 7+ is very young to select. And plenty of parents who like OP "want to focus on getting him into this place".

Oh sure.

Not everyone makes it through to the senior school. I guess that could be what the lad meant. But he'd have known one way or the other by year 8, no?

One of my daughters with me had a tour (she considered it for 6th form - was at NLCS which is just as good). She didn't get in although one of her friends did and that was fine. I am sure the boys were the attraction for her. As for who is chosen to give tours at my sons' school (not Westminster) it seems to be those who can chat - my more talkative charming one was chosen last time and not his brother. I am sure neither of them wanted to be chosen. In fact the parents he took round asked him not a single question in the end apparently which is surprising. You would have thought they might have said - do you like this school or something like that.

I'm not sure what Westminster's financial resources are like. In this country Eton has a the strongest resources by far, and it can pay its staff a lot more than somewhere like, say, Manchester Grammar (which is academic, high in the league tables).

I haven't been round Westminster, but Eton I have and it's very good indeed, and better than many other top private schools, but it's only better if the boy is suited to that environment.

There are good reasons to believe that US schools (both pre-18 and university) are better than ours, because they have so much more money from the US tradition of giving shedloads of cash to ones alma mater.

Westminster may be 'better' than other high-achieving state schools, or it might just be better at picking its students.

I suspect it is a bit of both - the teaching is perhaps not better, but they have even higher pressure to get the A*s, and hence they get that bit more from their students, than a school that sends merely 25% to Oxbridge (still more than double any state school). Whether that extra pressure is 'better' is of course a matter for considerable debate.

My sons both went to a local grammar school, recently assessed as outstanding. Those who apply to Oxbridge usually get in. 6 - 8 most years. DS1 did PPE at Balliol. DS2 wanted to do classics and would have applied, but for some unknown reason changed his mind and is now doing a Fashion degree. FWIW If I had loads of dosh I'd have sent my sons to somewhere like Westminster but not if it was a struggle, if they are keen and motivated they will get in anyway.