Educating boys
“There is no such thing as a Wetherby boy, and that’s what’s nice. That we are cut from different kinds of cloth and are bound together in our identities by having come here.” For parents looking to send their boys here: I’m looking for a boy with an independence of mind. Someone who wants to engage. Someone who is keen to learn. But we aren’t specifically looking for sporty boys or academic boys or extraverted boys, or musical boys or artistic boys. We are actually a very broad and welcoming church. I’m aware that there are scholarships or bursaries available to children and families who may need additional financial support or for children that are gifted in Music and Art, can you tell me a little about those?
One thing that people might not necessarily know is that the school is actually a part of a larger group of schools known as the Alpha Plus Group. This Group has set up separately the Gold Charitable Standard Trust. It is that charity that provides bursarial support for people who wish to come to the school and have a life-changing experience. We currently offer scholarships into the Sixth Form on an academic basis. Looking forwards, and going beyond that, I know as I visited recently, that you had a number of applicants to US universities and that some children were considering universities in Europe. I wanted to hear a little bit more about how Wetherby Senior were supporting their children with their US applications and university applications in general?
That is a really good question and
one that I am quite proud to answer actually. We are now into our third set of leavers. We have had well in excess of 30 offers from some of the best universities over the last couple of years from Harvard, Brown, Berkeley, NYU. Someone won a sports scholarship, we’ve had a couple people go to Chicago, Notre Dame. We’ve had a really impressive breadth of American universities. We have sent boys off to European universities as well as, in the main, UK Russell Group universities. The Sixth Form is led by Ms Deedat, who works tirelessly with the boys to ensure that they are appropriately supported, and she is rapidly becoming something of an expert in European University admissions. We also work with a specialist company to support boys with the American application process, to make sure that their councillor references that are so important in the American application system really are first class. I think that the numbers of offers that the boys are receiving reflect the quality of support and revision that is on offer there. The destinations have a very compelling list for us as a school. And it speaks to me about the quality that is on offer here. Whilst Wetherby Senior is
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based in Central London you do offer a wide range of sports - including the incredible Spin Studio. How do the boys access the sports facilities outside the school?
We are slightly TARDIS-like on site. You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but we have a full fitness suite and a spin studio. We are adding to that a boxing exercise studio and a yoga studio. We also offer table tennis coaching on site. So, for a compact, central London site, we have a good quality provision on site already. Locally, boys swim and climb and play basketball, badminton and Taekwondo. We also take the boys out to the Ealing Trailfinders Sports Club; this is just out at Ealing and is a professional Rugby Club. We’ve got a terrific tie in with them. We have got fantastic use of all of their facilities every afternoon. They have rugby pitches, tennis courts, football pitches, cricket pitches, cricket nets, and now a brand new indoor facility. Given our location, the boys are very well-provided for indeed. TURN TO PAGE 16 to read about developing independence in girls at Sutton High School CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
