Uppingham or Fettes

[lok7]

My son is now 12 year old and would like to join year 9 in 2020. He just received the offers from Uppingham and Fettes. He is a happy and talkative person. He is strong at mathematics, and he doesn't really like sport/music. We would like to find a good academic, happy school for him, and explore his interest at maths/science.

Any idea about Uppingham or Fettes?

Many thanks.

leftandaright the problem the OP has is that she's looking for entry for this September and there are few full boarding schools which allow "children to fulfil academic (maths/science) natural curiosities and bypass compulsory sport" in fact off the top of my head I can only think of one where sport isn't or at least wasn't (my info may be out of date) compulsory and they pre tests in yr 6 and is one of the few that is genuinely oversubscribed.
Most boarding schools offer compulsory sport they pride themselves and parents want a broad education thats not totally focused on academia, and in fairness many children enjoy it and schools also have to fill the day up and sport is an easy group activity to run.
"where he will go every three weeks for an exeat as per all full boarding schools"
Not all full boarding schools have exeats for example Im petty sure Oundle doesn't.

I never cease to be amazed at the totally random schools these agents come up with,those are very different schools and its hard to imagine any criteria given to an agent by a prospective parent that would come up with those two as a match.

Vacancies?

Commission?

Well, yes!

I suppose it depends on the quality of the agent, and how they balance the potential for commissions with in depth, up to date knowledge of schools and conscientiousness in matching family to school.

Don't some schools send out their own representatives to recruit foreign students?

Oundle do have exeats.

I wouldnt want to be a school that relied on foreign children to be viable at this time.
Who are these agents actually working for-the school or the parents?How truly independent are they...

In third form /year 9/this sept , the OPs son will have an exeat weekend before half term and after half term. In the second term , there is an exeat before half term. In the summer terms there are no exeats as the half terms are around 4/5 weeks anyway.
Oundle would be a better fit for this child as it’s larger than Uppingham so whilst sport is compulsory (as all schools probably), by the time you get to the rugby E team, it’s merely 45 mins of 30 unsporty boys lobbing the ball away from themselves (like a hot potato) to minimise the chance of actual body contact. This is the wonder of streaming sports teams like rugby; you can play at YOUR level. Contrast this with awful club rugby where you must mix ability your teams and it’s a disaster for non sporty boys.
At Oundle, maths and science are very strong. Over half of sixth form students choose maths A level. (Beware though, if you don’t get a decent set of (broadly) A grades at gcse, you will be asked to leave. )
I would recommend Oundle over Uppingham or Fettes for OP’s son. Proper full boarding (although still 3 exeats plus the usual half terms), virtually avoidable sport (you can do rowing instead of rugby if boys wish) and a huge academic drive where it is cool to work hard. It has a huge international feel. Much less tweedy than Uppingham. Ring up the Admissions tutor and I bet you will find a space for Sept as invariably boys drop out as they refine decisions.

There are very few schools that wont have vacancies come september.,

A friend of mine at Uppingham said when she was there you really needed to be a be a good all-rounder. It was fine to be clever and do well, but you had to be at least reasonable at sport and/or music too. It didn't sound brilliant for anybody who had to work hard to do well.

Fettes is lovely and has very nice grounds, but feels like a day school where some pupils sleep there (I knew a teacher there and have been in to run workshops, so no experience as a pupil).

I agree it's a bizarre pair to choose between!

Somewhere doesn't have exeats or maybe Oundle didn't used to have exeats. I definitely recall parents at DS2 prep saying somewhere doesn't and I thought it was Oundle.

The latter.
Oundle have introduced a few.
From fourth form/year 10, the sept exeat is dropped so
Just one in the first term and again the second and none in the third.
I don’t think you will find any boarding schools out there anymore that literally have no exeats save for half term.

" wouldnt want to be a school that relied on foreign children to be viable at this time".
Many boarding schools totally rely on foreign children to be even remotely viable especially the less well known ones but even the well known ones are in much more comfortable position financially due to foreign children. The only reason many of the less well known ones are still going is because of this and also many have also boosted their results and thus hope to make themselves more attractive to UK parents looking for day places by having hard working and diligent foreign children. Secondly as I said above there is little appetite for boarding let alone full boarding amongst UK parents unless you're looking at a small handful of very big names and secondly lets be realistic only a tiny % of UK parents have £45K PA per child that they are are able to stump up in school fees.

Anecdotally Fettes seems to have pretty serious problems with drugs and eating disorders amongst the older pupils.

I'm quite surprised some people are saying it isn't easy to get to an airport from Uppingham. Surely it's just a taxi - or perhaps a bus - to Oakham and then direct train to Stansted.
Or taxi/bus to Corby, train to St Pancras, easy change onto Thameslink train to Gatwick.
Or the school may provide transport. I used to work at a boarding school in Yorkshire and we provided a bus to Stansted; Yorkshire is much further from Stansted than Uppingham is. I wouldn't let perceived transport difficulties affect your decision.

I regularly work with children with eating disorders although I wouldn’t describe myself as an expert I leave that to my colleagues. You don’t develop an eating disorder because you attend a particular school sadly it’s much more complicated than that. Drugs are also common in the independent school sector as they are associated with money and lots of pupils have serious money in they bank accounts.

My friend teaches Maths at Uppingham so it gets my vote. If we can afford it it’s where we’d go in the future, but we are local and like the rural life

Flights from Stansted go where? Possibly not to where DC are from. All the boarders at DDs school went to Heathrow. Stansted was fairly close but it’s not an international hub like Heathrow.

Plenty of drugs in state schools too! There is enough money for drugs everywhere if DC are interested.

Yes Oundle does have exeats and does sound like it could be a much better fit for OP @lok7.

Not sure why @HappyGardening is always knocking Oundle, she has done for years.
Other schools that would be better suited for @lok7 might be Marlborough, Stowe, Rugby & Kings Canterbury. I have friends with DCs at Uppingham and they are all very happy with the school, equally the same at Oundle, Stowe & Kings, no direct experience of Rugby.

@CaraCruise where have I knocked Oundle on this thread? According to @leftandaright "Oundle "have introduced a few" exeats which implies that I was correct when I said it "didnt used to have exeats."
Frankly I couldn't careless whether it or any other school has exeats or not, although think if there are any schools left that don't have them they school should make sure future parents aware of this as I know the parent who told me a long time ago that it didn't were disappointed and I know I would have been disappointed if DS2's school didn't have them you just assume they will have exeats. But not having exeats may suit others especially those from outside of the UK.

Oundle and Rugby are a smidge more academic then Uppingham but auppinfham is on the push with academics in a big way. Stowe is where I would look for a less academic child. I’ve no idea about the boarding schools closer to London eg Canterbury. I rather tend to imagine they are more competitive to get into simply due to demographics in that area.

Stowe is also in the middle of nowhere with nothing at all on the doorstep! Lots of London DC and locals that go home. I think the op should ask the agent to look again if these two don’t appeal any longer.