School Advice: FAQs
The British education system is one of the most complex in the world. We can’t answer every query, but you'll find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions below.
State or private? How do we choose?
To pay or not to pay? That’s the real question. It’s a dilemma many parents find more problematic than any of Hamlet’s trivial musings. For, if it costs £100,000 plus to educate a child privately from nursery to university...
School interviews? How important are they? How do we prepare?
The school interview is one which tends to send the applicant’s parents rather than the applicant himself into a spin. Parents feel considerably more responsible for their child’s social presentation than for his or her ability to do long division...
Are girls really cleverer than boys?
In this year’s Financial Times League Tables only three boys’ schools made it into the Top 20 and though the high-ranking independent schools are not typical of the country as a whole, girls now outperform boys at all levels...
What can we do about school fees?
Only seven per cent of English pupils are educated at fee-paying schools, so you could argue that, like caviar and sports cars, private education should remain the preserve of the wealthy. But most of us put education in a different category...
Single sex or co-ed? What difference does it make?
There’s a joke currently doing the rounds amongst independent-school heads: ‘Parents want a single-sex education for their daughters, but a co-ed school for their sons.’ Clearly, not every customer is going to be satisfied...
What do we need to know before deciding on a university?
In the US, where a university education has always been a luxury purchase, worrying about ‘college’ starts in the delivery-room, but in Britain we’ve not yet developed the same think-ahead habits. It certainly makes sense...
How difficult is it to get into Oxbridge?
There used to be a joke about Oxbridge entrance. At some colleges, so they said, when you went for interview, they’d throw a rugby ball at you. If you caught it, you were in....