St Paul’s or Kings College School Wimbledon

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Hi, I am hoping for some advice here on which school might suit a very academic child, with little talents in sports or music. I realise that both SPS and KCS are sought after schools, but given a choice, and if the fees and distance to the schools are not an issue, which would you choose and why?

SPS opens its new buildings and marks the end of the current rebuilding programme next week I think.

Sunday Times league table: KCS 4th, St. Paul's 10th.
Plenty of sports facilities on site at KCS, in a nicer environment than St. Paul's.

A friend’s DS was at SPS a few years ago and was also in the Maths set 8. He got the top grade of A* for gcse as did the entire year group. However the school would not allow him to do A level maths as they said he was not strong enough. I thought this was outrageous you have to wonder what the added value of the school is.

@jeanne16 the culling and the guiding on A levels happens at ALL high performing schools. Think how they could produce those consistent results, year on year? imposible without some granular management of each boy or girl including for each decision they make. Nobody talks much about it, but when you sit down at the mums table and hear the stories..... I believe in your example for SPS, but I also know of a boy at KCS that has been "guided" to IB, despite wanting to consider Maths and Advanced Maths for A levels at some point. He was strong but not strong enough in Maths. At SPGS, a girl that was offered a place in Sixth form as long as she did not take Maths for A levels. Easier to produce those results if you are able to 1) choose the top of the cream 2) choose which subjects they will take so they do not "ruin" the school stats.

Having said that, I do believe that they all are amazing schools for the right child. The teaching at SPGS is at a level above 98% of the schools in the country, and so probably is SPS and KCS. Your child needs to be at that level intellectually however, no point pushing if the ability is not there. Which is why they cull recently perhaps? I don't know. But like you, I do question the value added sometimes.

What benefit would there be to Kings going fully co-ed? It's not like it's a numbers thing. There are plenty of very bright boys who fill up all the spots...

Is it more a social thing?

St Pauls said it was consulting on boys at 6th form (have they actually confirmed? I haven't seen it, publicly) in order to give the boys there a more rounded experience ahead of university. I am not sure why parents would encourage DDs to go there for 6th on that basis - as a support for the boys uni potential, rather than a place of genuine excellence for the girls themselves. Odd.

@AtomicRabbit - there is a huge appetite for co-ed places in London. KCS has hugely increased the number of 11+ places available but is not attracting anywhere near the number of applicants that Latymer has. Also being situated nearer to the grammar schools in Sutton and Tiffin gives them a lot of free competition at 11+. There are stories on the 11+ threads this year of candidates being offered KCS but not getting offers from less academic schools so they may be having problem attracting enough of the right applicants. Going co-ed will at least double the number of applications over night.

And I agree with Jeanne's point about value added. The teaching and value added at DD's very second tier co-ed is much better than anything DS1 experienced at Kings.

Girls get fed up of all girls schools and often to look to change. I think it's a good move. KCS attracts girls from Wimbledon High, many of whom have been there since the age of 4. Can you imagine that! It's good for both sexes.

Only 60 places at 11+ at KCS. It's been the same for a few years now. Latimer gets more applications (around 1800, I heard) than any other school in the area because it's co ed and because of the central location which attracts DCs from across London

jeanne and cake are you saying that likes of SPS and KCS have less valued added as they are more selective at 11+?

On our tour of SPG, the boy showing us round said “most boys do Maths A’Level”; in fact something like 150 out of 180 in his year were doing it.

I found that astonishing and was the thing that stuck in my mind from the entire visit.

I just didn’t know what to make of that statistic, no matter how I looked it.

That percentage doing maths is normal for a selective boys school, at Tiffin about 180 take A level maths. At kings IB includes maths and 93 sit A level maths leaving about 30 odd who don't. Very bright boys tend to pursue STEM subjects at uni and they need maths.

Similarly to StPs, only the top 2 maths sets are allowed to take higher level maths for IB at Kings and there are also restrictions on who is allowed to take FM A level. This is despite nearly everyone getting an A* at GCSE.

It's very different to your average comp who would let anyone with A*/9 maths do anything they please.

So why should the top private schools not allow anyone to do A level maths when an average comp allows any Students to do it? Surely if they pride themselves on having the best teaching then they should allow anyone to do it.

I am a maths teacher in a less selective London private school. We allow level 6 and 7 gcse Grades to do A level . We have our work cut out to get them through and we add huge value to these pupils.

Parents should sometimes try to see this when choosing schools.

Because they may get B's instead of A's?

To me it smacks of a school system that places more emphasis on “brightness” meaning STEM. Rather than arts, languages and humanities.

I presume also maths is easily quantifiable at the selection stage. It’s much harder to know how an 11 year old will fare at English or History somewhere along the road.

Value added is a very important aspect of education - but I don’t think it applies to these super academic institutions who select only the absolute smartest kids who show particular flair, it seems, for maths.

But I have a little bee in my bonnet about the push towards STEM, as though that’s the only thing of value.

To be fair there is evidence that students sitting STEM subjects have the highest IQs. This is a fairly typical list:

www.accommodationforstudents.com/view_student_blog.asp?id=2410

DD is at a school which sounds similar to where Jeanne teaches and as a parent my experiences are the same. There are DCs from lower maths sets determined to sit A level maths and the extra help, time and effort the maths dept put into these students is amazing. Extra lessons are compulsory for those struggling but there is a huge amount of goodwill and encouragement from the very cheerful and positive teachers. But I'm sure they would get better results if they insisted only the top sets could sit their subject.

Utility your comment sent me off to look at the Sunday Times table and you are quite right on their overall ranking KCS is higher. Fascinating! I would argue however that most important stat for OP to consider is GCSE results as that’s the like for like comparison - we all know the influx of girls makes the difference to KCS Alevel results. At GCSE SPS do better.

I could also gripe about your ‘nicer environment’ comment as everything is on site at SPS which it isn’t at KCS and the building programme has made a massive difference I think you may be out of date on that. But doesn’t sound like OP cares about rugby pitches to be fair.

Of course what OP really wants is a place at Westminster! Or SPGS .

I do think value add is very hard to measure in these schools - it’s not really what they are about. They take bright kids and push them to achieve their potential. I don’t think my two could have been better taught or inspired but don’t know if you could measure it as value add.

League tables are a dodgy thing of course as we know some schools game them. Looking at Brighton College when I say that!

But to disagree with PP, I don’t know anyone at SPS who has been discouraged from doing anything at alevel they want to. I have direct personal experience of boys taking an alevel in a subject they got a C in at GCSE (and ending up studying it at oxbridge) and equally of boys who aren’t great at maths doing double maths (like my own DS). They tell the boys to do what they like not worry about grades.

Good point! OP did you apply to Westminster??

SPS and KCS are amongst the top schools in the country so I think it's arbitrary. Did you get a sense of where you could see your DS when you were visiting the schools?

By the way, SPS got 96.66 A*-A last year compared to 95.88% for KIngs. Nothing in it! There are both extremely academic schools. So, again, go for where you can see your DS more

GCSE

Very useful discussion which I think will be useful to lots of others besides us.

@Allyoudoiscriticise @WorkingItOutAsIGo Westminster is not a consideration. The journey will be too long and DH doesn’t like the location. We have offers from SPS and KCS. DS likes both. KCS will be nearer (although not walk to school kind of distance) but I am concerned that the views are largely swayed towards SPS.

Only a few views from one or two parents at both. What is your feeling??

Racial mix seems greater at SPS - but that is purely from looking at both schools’ sports teams - which may not be a fair example.

St Paul's attracts more from central London, so possibly.