Elevenplus vs Eton

[Danimirj]

Hello my name is Jana, we have one son in second term of Y5 at CofE Primary School in windswept Lincolnshire.

He is not happy there. He is an unusual, intelligent child. He is alert but shy, and small for his age.

We have a Plan A [Eleven plus] and Plan B [move county] for our os, but as thread title says their may be Plan C

I will hand over to my husband who can express himself more easier than I can

Hello, I'm an the other half of the above^^

Our son can speak and write two different languages, English and Serbian, can tell you how a nuclear reactor works, and how it differs from a nuclear bomb, can tell you the difference between a petrol engine and jet engine, and the difference between a hybrid car and an electric car.

He will be ten in at the end of this month. (Feb '15)

About twelve months ago, in desperation, we contacted a number of private school about our son's future.

The one we expected to hear the least from, has been the most welcoming and approachable of all: Eton College.

Since May '14 we have been in contact with a warm but businesslike lady called Francesca, the Access Adviser at that school. We were invited to visit the school in November 2014. We were very impressed with the interest they took in us and our son. Our son came away feeling much more confident about himself, but

However, the range of potential options they can offer seems bewildering to us.

As parents we have zero experience of private education, much less boarding private education.

We would prefer os were happy, popular and settled rather than academically pressurized, but he is just coasting at the moment.

Your thought opinions and personal experiences would be most helpful, if you are willing to share them.

Thought there was a proposal to change entry at Cranbrook to 11+? Certainly there are others to consider for 13+ entry if Eton didn't come off but there would be registration fees to pay and probably pretests to sit, quite soon.

It doesn't work quite like that grovel. (At least not in the specific circumstances with which I am familiar.)

I'm conjecturing but I don't think the prep would offer such an award without being pretty secure about the likely progression of the boy in question.

Boy is awarded prep scholarship / bursary. After usual discussions registers at E, W, wherever else. Goes into the scholarship class. Takes pre-tests armed with Head's report from previous school and the new prep that has just given him a scholarship. Assuming he gets through pretest somewhere (and seriously, he'd be very unlucky not to given the faith already shown in him,) his parents then make a bursary application to the senior school. Which is obviously supported by the preceding facts.

There are obviously no guarantees. But good prep schools earn their money from doing their job. In this case it's their job to ensure a penniless but clever boarding candidate is not left high and dry at the end of his prep career.

Should say I'm not setting this down primarily for the OPs - just because I worry continuously about children who should have this chance but don't get it because their parents don't know.

Maybe, Muddler, but I know (admittedly a sample of one) a boy who got two years of free prep school and then found that the bursaries / scholarships available from public schools made it impossible for him to continue in private education. His parents absolutely needed 100% remission of fees. And, yes, a major public school had persuaded the prep to give the bursary. This public school eventually offered 50%. Nowhere near enough.

perhaps I should have a career change some people say you can make money out of a hobby

You can, I am.

Some years ago I bought this for 35 pounds at an airshow, Corgi diecast model of a B-17, sold it to an American gentleman on ebay, and bought my beloved only son a Christmas present with the proceeds...

this

beloved was quite pleased on Christmas morning, as you might imagine.

DS's prep started off (many moons ago) being very generous with it's bursaries offering them to nice middle class families with no money who wouldn't scare the horses. But as time went by they changed their policy and restricted bursaries to the very very bright who were highly likely to get a scholarship with attached 100% bursary or parents with very bright children likely to get into big name super selectives e.g. Win Coll Eton who were able to afford about 50% of boarding fees or if that failed were highly likely to get a scholarship/50% bursary from a smart but slightly less selective school.

TheCat do you think there's less pointless paper work if you work for the ISA? And would they employ a boat rocker? Probably not I suspect.

That's really sensible, happy, but OP indicated that his household income is less than £23k. For a family of three. What does that leave for bridging any gap between bursary and full fees? The square root of zip.

Phone ate my stupendous ly long post.

I hope that wouldn't happen now grovel.

happy, my interest in schools is based, I think, on my grandfather having been the head of IAPS. He was a clergyman headmaster/owner of a prep. My lovely grandmother eventually could not handle being in loco parentis when boys died of flu/polio/pneumonia so he went in to prep school administration.

I hope that never happens now!

The scholarship offered by Summer Fields [?] muddies the water a bit. I assume E would be aware of it? And yet it was not brought to our attention, not even when DH brought up the defunct Junior Scholarship. It resembles that scholarship in timescales and objectives, does it not?

Perhaps Eton prefers to keep to its methods of admission under its control?

It appears from my husbands google search that the Sherwood Award is Harrow's variation upon the NFS - won't stop us enquiring.

But seriously, you definitely come across to me as a pair of fantastic parents who, in spite of your family circumstances, what, with poor health and limited financial means not to mention an unsecured employment future,

Thank you peteneras for your kind words. If a few harsh words on the internet are all we have to face, it will not have been in vain. Let the critics choose their own paths.

Please do not start my husband off on diecast aeroplanes - he needs no encouragement.

They are the bane of my life!

He says if beloved gets into good school they will go on ebay and the money will go towards 'extras'

That's really sensible, happy, but OP indicated that his household income is less than £23k. For a family of three.

It has been a struggle, but we have managed, thanks to love, friendship and generosity of DH and his family. My family are to far away to help much, and to traumatized.

The uncertain employment future of my DH? The peteneras referred to? That is price you pay for working for HM Government. That and 1% pay rise per year.

Lets hope we can spare our only beloved from that.

grovel it would appear from everything I've read and heard that 100% bursaries into big name boarding schools are very difficult to get and that even the likes of Eton can't offer that many. Ultimately it's inevitable however wealthy you are you can only offer a limited number this level of financial help. I understand even Christs is increasing the number of full fee paying pupils, friend of a friend used to "sponsor" a child through Christ's; you buy the uniform etc and pay a large part of the fees, she'd done it for years but the fees have risen so much in the last 15 years she can no longer afford to do it.
This of course is a tragedy there are many children out there without the financial means who would truly benefit from this type of education.

derektheladyhamster

Sorry for missing your post about Christs Hospital - glad your DS is thriving.

DH took one look at application process there - he moaned something like 'unnecessarily bizantine' and lost the will to carry on.

If we dismissed it to harshly, please advise us what we might has missed.

The application process at Christ's is notoriously long winded, the school doesn't do it for me in any shape or form it's ethos is not mine but I understand from many comments on here that assuming you like it generally that once you've got through the arcane admissions system and been offered a place you feel it was worth the effort.
My suggestion is that you visit a few potential schools, no school is perfect, you'll always have to make a few compromises.

To be fair, the admissions is quite simple. There is a test in the Autumn for Maths/english and then the children who score the highest go on a residential 2 day stay with more testing and assessments. There was a rather arduous form I had to fill out - but that is the bursery form I now fill in every year and seeing as nothing much changes from year to year, it's quite easy!

It's worth a open day visit, my DH who was dead set against boarding (and I mean dead set against) changed his mind totally when we looked around and spoke to the pupils.

That's interesting Derek - could you say (for the benefit of your million readers ) what persuaded your DH about 21century boarding? What preconceptions was he labouring under and what did he see and hear that changed his mind?

We have close friends with children at independent day schools who say they "could never send DC away." They've come round to the understanding that it doesn't mean packing off a child for a year at a time but they're still not quite certain on the "one long sleepover with added school" aspect. And, as someone mentioned above, it's particularly satisfying for an only child.

Muddler 10 years ago I was dead set against boarding, in fact I was not that keen in formal education at all frankly. DS2 never went to nursey or school until yr 1 I genuinely felt that I as a SAHM could teach him informally more than any teacher although I'm proud to say I've never owned a flash card in my life and it's never done him any harm.
By middle of year 2 he was bored rigid and under challenged in a microscopic country primary school so a friend suggested we looked at a boarding prep. I went without much enthusiasm but was converted on the spot. I saw happy relaxed children having a fantastic time, education was being combined with "family" life, children had time to play outside climb trees, build dens, do sports daily, paint, draw, swim, go to the beach, chat, chill, play with their friends, etc as part of their normal school day. The day is longer prep is done at lunch time lessons go on later, but it was all so much more relaxed because as the heads wife said when I commented on how relaxed the children looked especially in comparison with some day schools I'd looked, "you are in their home".
Now in yr 12 he still boards, and in a way it's pretty much the same, there is still rigid no divide between school and home. Of course I miss him and he misses us, but it is for many a wonderful way of receiving a broad education. It's not right for all children, there is limited privacy, and boarding is very full on and it's not right for all parents, probably those who get the most out of it are slack hands off parents, not those who need to micro manage their children's lives and of course we miss out on things. But if I had my time over again there are a few things Id do differently (eating too much would be top of my list and owning horses would come a close second) but I wouldn't change the fact that we chose boarding from an early age.