A guide to the School application process

 

• Carry out research into possible schools.
  

• If possible, visit schools at least a year before the proposed entry date.
  

• Complete application form.
  

• Register with school.
  

• Pay deposit/application fee during the year before entry (or earlier).
  

• Prepare for entrance examinations/tests/interviews.
  

• Sit entrance/scholarship examinations at agreed location.
  

• If possible, visit the school for interview during spring and summer term before entry.
  

• Prepare for entry and complete all essential paperwork.
  

• Purchase school uniform and items on clothing list during the summer term or holidays before entry.
  

• Enter school.
  

• Receive school induction at beginning of the autumn term.
  
  School visits: what to look for
  
  

• Do the children seem happy and purposefully engaged in activity?
  

• Are staff and children talking and working together?
  

• Are the children well mannered and courteous?
  

• How is discipline maintained?
  

• How, and with what frequency, does the school communicate with parents?
  

• How does the school monitor each child’s progress?
  

• What provision is made for children with learning difficulties?
  

• How many children are there in each class?
  

• What emphasis is placed on art, drama, music, sport?
  

• Are the facilities well maintained?
  

• Is there a high turnover of staff members?
  

• What is the balance between newly qualified and experienced staff, and the number of specialist teachers (especially in preparatory schools)?
  

• What pastoral care system is in place?
  

• What is the school’s policy on bullying and drugs?

 

 

DIFFERENT SCHOOLS SUIT DIFFERENT CHILDREN
– Jonathan Shephard, Chief Executive of the Independent Schools’ Council

Parents nowadays have a menu of educational choices. Not just state or independent, but day, boarding, single sex, coeducational – and most of these choices are available at all ages. My own belief is that educational choices are increasingly pragmatic: parents make (usually) rational choices for their children, after seeing what is available. There are relatively few families for whom independent education is the sole option. Conversely, surveys suggest that about half the population would – if they could afford it – send their children to an independent school.

Boarding education – which had appeared to be in long-term decline – received a boost from the Harry Potter stories. Leaving aside the magic, the strong and accurate impression was of a community with its own risks, excitement, and identity. And, for Harry Potter himself, Hogwarts provided far more of a home than the cold dull and unfriendly house in Privet Drive. Boarding schools can provide a far more stimulating environment than some home lives. They can also provide stability for the child – educationally and environmentally.

When I was at school – a day school in Gloucester – we would regularly see children from service families joining classes for a year or two, and then moving on. Some of these children integrated well, but others found it difficult. They might arrive part way through a school year, wearing a different coloured blazer, and at a different stage in the curriculum. The process of continual adjustment – making and then losing new groups of friends – can be handled easily by some children; less easily or not at all by others.

That is where a boarding education can be of particular value in providing continuity. Many ISC schools give discounts to service families. Individual schools often give details in their prospectuses. Even where this is not the case, it is always worth asking whether discounted fees are available.

Although it is tempting to go for the largest discount, the overriding priority is to choose the right school for your child. The best advice is to do careful research and then to visit a short-list of three or four schools. It is often the case that parents (and children) can “sense” whether the school is the right one. Different schools suit different children, and – separately from the “feel” of a school, it is not sensible to choose a highly academic school for an average pupil, or a school with not much in the way of playing fields for a child who loves team sports. Look at the school’s academic range and expectations; its concentration (or not) on sport, drama, art and music. If possible, find parents with children at the same school and talk to them. Other factors: well, there’s transport and accessibility. If parents are abroad, and the children will be flying out three times a year, the location of a school can make a difference of several days each year to the time that children and parents have together.

As part of the research process, it’s well worth using ISC’s new service, the ISC information & advice service (ISCias). This incorporates a comprehensive search facility at www.isc.co.uk using the central ISC database of almost 1300 accredited schools, with details of each school and a direct link to school websites. This search facility allows you to create your own shortlists of schools by inputting the criteria which are important to you. For example, a search for a senior girls’ boarding school in Kent, Sussex or Surrey produces a list of fourteen schools. The same search for Lancashire or Yorkshire produces only one school. However, if you search for coeducational schools in Lancashire and Yorkshire there are seventeen schools. The ISC website is a quick means of getting to a list of possible schools.

In addition to the information on the ISC website, ISCias provides a national helpline, 0845 SCHOOLS (7246657), which is continually manned from 9am to 5pm, 5 days a week. There is also an email facility, information@isc.co.uk. Helpline staff have full access in real time to a comprehensive information database, and also have a mass of reference material on a range of topics related to independent schools. Helpline staff also have links with charities, grant-giving trusts, and other useful bodies. Where detailed local knowledge is needed, calls are transferred seamlessly to expert regional advisors.

Regional advisors maintain a busy schedule of school visits and are therefore in a unique position to link parents with schools. A single call to 0845 SCHOOLS will tap in to their expertise. Indeed one of our advisors, Mark Filler, has a particular expertise in helping and advising service parents after a long career in the Army. All three of his children attended boarding school and are now at university and he understands the difficulties and pressures that service families face.
If we can be of any help then please do get in touch with us.

 

Jonathan Shephard is the Chief Executive of the Independent Schools’ Council. He is a barrister, educated at Oxford University, where he read English and then Law, winning the Chancellor’s English Essay Prize and the Matthew Arnold Memorial Prize. In March 1994 he became Marketing Director and then Managing Director of the Newhall Group; then in October 1997 Managing Director of Southern Magazines, where he turned Insurance Times into the leading weekly insurance title. He took up his post at ISC in March 2004. He is to take up the position of Chief Executive of the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) on 1st April.