Top schools in London St Paul’s vs Westminster

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! 

How important are the Mocks?

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.
Westminster School
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:

2015 to university Number and % of girls from St Paul’s Number and % of boys from St Paul’s
Oxford 26  14% 32  8.9%
Cambridge 18  9.6% 24  6.7%
American Universities 12  6.5% 24  6.7%
Edinburgh  8  7
Bristol  6  14
UCL  7  17
Warwick  3  6
Imperial  4  17
York  3  2
Durham  2  13
Manchester  2  1
Newcastle 2 4
Nottingham 2 0
Essex 1 0
Exeter 1 0
LSE 1 9
Leeds 1 1
Total 186 357

St Paul’s Girls’
Girls’ School
Age 13-18
739 Pupils
Average Class Size: 15
Day School
Oxbridge Entrance Percentage: 32%
£7,479 per term
A* to B at A-Level Percentage: 99%

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%

Finally, let’s have a look at the most popular university courses for Westminster school leavers, which in my view reflects the popularity of subjects amongst the top performing students in the UK. Below are the numbers of Westminster school students taking a subject at university in 2015.
Ancient History 1 History and English 1
Anthropology 1 History and Politics 1
Archaeology and Anthropolgy 1 History of Art 6
Architecture 3 History of Art and French 1
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 1 International Relations 1
Biochemistry 3 Law 7
Biological Sciences 3 Liberal Arts 13
Biology 2 Lingistics 1
Biomedical Science 2 Mathematics 4
Business and Finance 1 Mechanical Engineering 1
Chemistry 1 Medical Sciences 1
Chemical Engineering 2 Medicine 13
Chinese 1 Modern Language 2
Classics 6 Music 1
Civil Engineering 1 Natural Sciences 16
Computer Science 1 Philosophy 2
Computer Science with Games Technology 1 Philosophy and Economics 1
Dentistry 1 Philosophy and History of Art 1
Design 1 Philosophy and Theology 2
Directing 1 Philosophy, Politics and Economics 9
Economics 8 Physics 2
Economics and Management 1 Physics with Astronomy 1
Electrical and Electronic Engineering 2 Psychological and Behavioural Sciences 1
Engineering 7 Psychology 1
English 9 Psychology and Philosophy 2
English and Italian 1 Russian and German 1
English and Russian 1 Social Anthropology 1
English Literature with Creative Writing 1 Spanish 1
European Studies 1 Theology and Religious Studies 2
Experimental Psychology 1 No course specified 2
Fine Art 2 French and Italian 2
French 1 French and Spanish 1
French and an Asian or African Language 1 Geography 4
History 13

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 CollegeSt Paul’s and Westminster are very selective and schools like Latymer UpperKingston 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