Full Boarding Recommendations

[BridgetZimbabwe]

Hello from sunny Zimbabwe
We are looking for a school in UK for my son to attend 6th form in 2025. We were in UK in April and visited 6 amazing schools, but none of them were the absolute perfect fit.
My criteria are simple:

1. Full boarding
2. An all year round cricket program
3. A sports science related A level option

I would be happier with a school in the south where I have a support network but would consider further afield. My preference would actually be to keep him in Zim, but he has a single track focus on playing cricket and Zim cannot offer what he feels he needs to achieve his ambitions.

Very few of the schools mentioned on this thread are true full boarding schools. If academically strong and have a varied and strong co curricular, you need only to be thinking about Eton, Harrow and Radley as true full boarding options (I.e no day or weekly boarders and exeat only). If co ed is a preference then Marlborough College. Would probably rank these in order academically (currently) as; Eton, Radley, Harrow, Marlborough. Pastoral strength ranked; Radley, Marlborough, Eton, Harrow.

I would just add that Tonbridge is also excellent and probably just slightly below Eton in the above list academically, but again whilst they have Saturday morning lessons, the vast majority of boys come home on a Saturday pm after matches (and very limited activities are offered on a Sunday) and return on Sunday, so its not perfect for an international student (albeit there are several there).

Tonbridge like to think they're a bit above Eton academically. 😉

Academics league table here for boarding school A' Levels - thought it might be helpful as it says how many boarders each school has on the left so you can guage the size. Was also going to mention Tonbridge and Rugby if you didn't like Millfield. https://www.topschoolguide.com/uk/league-tables/boarding-schools/top-100-boarding-schools-for-a-levels/

Actually Kings Canterbury might be a good shout - have the St Lawrence ground where Kent play and good amount of overseas and full boarders - traditional Saturday school, etc.

Sedbergh School has a great cricket set up - a lot of the Yorkshire and England players went there (Harry Brook is the first that springs to mind). But is in Cumbria which doesn’t fulfil your ‘in the south’ brief.