Rugby School - don’t do ISEB

[lookforthesun]

my daughter has been viewing schools and her favourite is rugby. We did the open days are it was the one we clicked with the best.

she’s at a state school so we have no advice from current head. The schools we thought about as “backups” all do the ISEB so she will sit those papers next term in y6

rugby don’t do the entry process until y7 tho so what do people do about back ups? I don’t want to turn down all the ISEB schools in case we don’t get rugby. But there must be plenty of people in this position. Do I have to just accept a backup place in y6 and pay the fee even tho we hope not to use the place?

rugby go on school reports I believe. Daughter has years and years of good reports and 128-130 on the age SS for maths and English that she’s taken every term now for years. I think she has a good chance of a place but who knows.

No. You enrol her in a prep school for two years. One that goes to y8 so she goes through the entry process for Rugby. Rugby is fantastic so I would go for it. There are boarding preps for 2 years (7&8) so talk to one of them. No senior school starting at y7 will help DD get to Rugby in y9. A decent prep will. It’s their job. They will also suggest back ups at 13 plus. Hope that makes sense.

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it. We can’t do that sadly we aren’t in the UK, there are no prep schools. And we don’t want to board before y9.

she doesn’t have to take common entrance to get into rugby as they do a separate entrance test for children from children studying the national curriculum.

Bilton grange school in Rugby is a marvellous feeder school for Rugby, well worth considering .

There are schools that do the 13+ entrance for international children in y8 only (for cases like yours or simply those kids abroad who only decide to board later), so you would not need to go through the pre-test route as an international applicant. You could look at Oundle, for example. But if Rugby does the process in y7, you could wait for their outcome and then look at the backups after, if required. The "backup" schools tend to accept international applications in y7&8.

I would work on the assumption that she will be offered a place at Rugby. In the unlikely event that she does not you can look around for a back up in Y8.

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about how competitive it is to get a place at a boarding school in UK. The schools foster this misunderstanding as it makes parents panic. If you have an intelligent child and if you look as if you can and will pay for the full five years you will automatically get a place at all but a very small number of over subscribed schools - mainly Eton, Harrow, Wycombe Abbey and maybe Marlborough now as people think the royal family will go there. This has always been the case but is doubly so now that Covid and Brexit have created more obstacles for international families. Even Winchester has gone co-ed to fill places.

You are only waitlisted if the school thinks the child will not fit in and will leave. Or in the case of families from abroad if the school thinks you are saying you want to stay for five years but actually plan to leave after a few terms.

@Willhewonthe67 that sounds positive!

I like that take on it, hope you're right :)

Excellent advice.

I completely agree with @Willhewonthe67 and am heavily immersed in the system.

Interesting to hear that Winchester is now struggling to fill places. I had always thought it was one of most selective schools . I would love DS to attend but I had always thought it was a long shot.

Telephone Rugby and speak to the admissions dept. When my daughter was in Year 6 they were invited to apply during Year 6 and some of her peers did. A couple then spent two years at the local grammar before moving for Year 9 and one went to Bilton Grange for the two years.

This isn't the case. Rugby is full, we are on the waiting list ourselves. I doubt they would lie about that.

And we haven't met them yet, we called up to ask...

The Common Entrance is a course of study with a set of exams at the end of it that prepare kids for entry into public school. It's the best preparation. Most public schools don't require it but not doing it means that your DC starts significantly behind the rest of the cohort. The states schools don't teach the languages or the classics so a DC without these will be put in the bottom sets and will have to spend a lot of time catching up and probably never will. If you want a public school education, you need to do more than pay for it. It's a lot of work.