Whitgift - school with a good reputation for boys

School for boys Whitgift School has an excellent academic reputation and at the same time is among the schools with the best sports results. School can boast of graduates who have occupied prize-winning places at the Olympics as well as surprise by boys' interest in such subjects that seems to be popular only in girl school. About this all we talked with a representative of Whitgift School at an international conference in Berlin.

L: The school is located in the capital of England and still has sport infrastructure for professionals right on campus. That's impressive!

R: Yes, we are located in South London in the 5th zone. It takes only 30 minutes by train to the centre of London and we are close to the main airports of the country. We are proud to give our students the wonderful sports infrastructure while in London. We have a great playgrounds, tennis courts, centers of art and music. Boys don't have time to be bored after school.

L: For how long you have been operating as a boarding school?

R: Residence was opened recently, in 2014. Therefore, we are not very known internationally and local students were in the majority. This year our students represent 22 nationalities, there is even one student from Ukraine. On campus there are 1450 students and only 112 live in residence.

L: What is special about the Whitgift School?

R: Sport – one of the reasons why our the school is so well known in England. According to the rating of sports schools we are the best school for boys in England, assessing sport achivements and second in the ranking of co-ed schools in England after Millfield school, which is co-ed. And then, we are the best in team sports – football, Rugby, cricket and hockey. Many of our athletes represent country on international level. And you can choose from 44 sport sections that are in school.

L: What kind of kids you want to see?

R: We are selective in the students. Not only academic results matter, we want to see talented children - athletes, artists, musicians. Our school offers two academic programs: A - level and IB. If the child shows an average academic performance we won't offer him to enroll into IB as it will be difficult. For boys who are engaged in professional sports and can't spend a lot of time to study we also offer BTEC. At the same time they can take some subjects at A-level and which allows them to enter good University. That is why many of our foreign students take BTEC and 1 or 2 subjects at A-level. As you can guess IB is quite little, about 40 students per year take this program in high school. 

L: Do you offer any joint activities with girls school?

R: Yes, we have partnered with the school for girls and few times per month we organize joint parties and events. Boys also have joint art class with girls which only benefits: they communicate with girls but not distracted from studying.

L: What's the biggest advantage of separate education?

R: to be honest, it's academic results. If you look at the ratings you will see that single sex schools show better results than co-educational ones. Children are not distracted in class and teachers can do a better job. Another advantage is to choose subjects that you like. For example, we have a very popular class in music, but in co-ed schools it is taken mostly by girls. We have more boys who choose music than boys and girls together in co-ed schools and our students feel comfortable. The same can be said about studying of foreign languages.

L: What children need to be prepared for if they want to study at Whitgift School?

R: We have a traditional school. The boys wear a uniform and call teachers Sir or Miss. It teaches them discipline though in general we are not too rigorous.

L: Tell me more about your summer camp, would it prepare children for school?

R: We offer quite intensive summer program. There are 23 hours of English per week. Classes in the morning are combined with practical lessons in the second part of the day. Local children join international students to do activities together and campers get an opportunity to communicate with their English peers and to practice speaking. The camp is for boys and girls aged 11-17 years. This is our own camp where half of employees are the staff of Whitgift School.

Whitgift School supports talented boys to achieve their best and study without the pressure. In this school each student has an individual programme and doesn't need to  follow the program taken by majority of students in the school. In my practice there were many children professionally involved in sports and behind in some subjects in school because of workload. Whitgift seems a wonderful school abroad for students who want to combine sport and study.

Find out more about the school on aspect.ua