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Thursday September 29th, 2016
Celebrations of the Chinese New Year in London, which are set to be the biggest outside Asia, are set to begin on Valentine’s Day, Sunday February 14th.
Thousands of people are expected to mark the occasion in London’s Chinatown, where a parade traditionally takes place. It is expected to start at 10am, travelling along Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End before reaching Chinatown, but exact details are yet to be released. In previous years the parade has included an official opening ceremony and entertainment such as acrobatics, traditional dance and music. Happy Chinese New Year!
Mock exams
The school half term holiday is starting on the same weekend. This half term was significant for pupils doing their GCSE and A-Level Mocks. They now should have their results and the coming holiday presents a great opportunity for the students to review their subjects, focusing on those they need to improve their marks in.
In February senior schools will have announced their entry tests results for those who applied for places at 11+, 12+ and 13+. If your child hasn’t got into a school and you know that you and they worked well to prepare, my advice is – do not get upset and go for that back up option school. Those schools that set high entry criteria do it for a good reason – only the brightest and most competitive can survive the pressures of some “hot house” schools. If your child isn’t one of them – he will do much better and probably deliver just as brilliant results at a less pressurized school. Talking of the “Hot Houses”, we are continuing our series about schools and universities with an overview of some of the better known London schools. St Paul’s and Westminster are long standing rivals – both are equally popular with ambitious parents. Both have their own Prep schools – Colet Court and Westminster Under that are also extremely difficult to get into. Westminster has the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rates of any secondary school or college in the world. StPaul’s also has another rival of a different kind. The girls’ schools of the same name, is showing results to be admired. It was the St Paul’s Girls’ school where in 2014 99.3% of GCSEs were graded at A*s or As with 93.6% graded at A* alone. This was the highest ever A* percentage achieved by the school and in the country. The university destinations from St Paul’s schools, both, boys and girls are quite a good indication of the university rankings in the UK and internationally. In the table below you can see how many St Paul’s girls and St Paul’s boys went to the following universities:
St Paul’s SchoolBoys’ School Age 13-19 950 Pupils Average Class Size: 15 Day and Boarding School Oxbridge Entrance Percentage: 35% Day: £7,548 Boarding: £11,305 per term A* to B at A-Level Percentage: 96%
Parents may favour the better known and proven options, or, perhaps, schools with better facilities, but, frankly, not all will get places. There is serious competition for boys’ places in established schools in West London. King’s College, St Paul’s and Westminster are very selective and schools like Latymer Upper, Kingston Grammar School and Hampton, increasingly so.
A desperately needed new senior school for boys recently opened in central London. The very popular and oversubscribed Prep Wetherby that prepares for entry to the top London schools, has opened its own senior school (11-18) in September 2015. It sounds as if Wetherby Senior School could provide a useful fall-back for those that were unsuccessful in their first choice of school and, who knows, might quickly become an oversubscribed highly selective school, like the current Wetherby Prep.
In our next newsletter we will be talking about more schools and universities. Enjoy your half term holidays!
Tanya Ellis
MD at Regency Education
“ Regency Education helped all three of our boys get into a wonderful school where they now thrive. ”
“ REGENCY EDUCATION WAS ABLE TO HELP US WITH EVERY STEP OF THE SCHOOL APPLICATION PROCESS ENSURING THE EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS OF OUR CHILDREN. AN INVALUABLE SERVICE. ”
“ REGENCY EDUCATION WAS ABLE TO HELP US WITH EVERY STEP OF THE APPLICATION PROCESS ENSURING THE EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS OF OUR CHILDREN - AN INVALUABLE SERVICE. ”
