You have decided that you want to move to a boarding school in the UK so that you can improve your chances of getting into a great university, but you know that they are not all created equal. How do you know which is a good boarding school in the UK? Here is what you should look at:
• Since your interest is primarily academic you should look at performance. For every school that you consider you should write to them and ask them to send you results from the past few years. You will not be able to see the names of students who have passed through the school but you will see what kinds of grades the students got and whether they went to good institutions of higher education.
• You should find out what kind of infrastructure the school has in place. The best schools have labs, libraries and everything else that students need to be able to compete on a national level. If you are interested in the sciences it is important that the school you choose have a strong science program.
• Find out about the faculty of any school that you are thinking about. Are they well trained and what is their track record? How do they handle students who may be falling behind in class? Are they easy to talk to and do they take their time to make sure that the curriculum is well understood by all?
• Class sizes matter when it comes to boarding schools. If you are in too big a class you may not get individual attention from teachers when you need it, and if you are in one that’s too small there will not be a sufficient exchange of ideas.
Try Cambridge Centre for Sixth Form Studies – find out more on https://www.ccss.co.uk/boarding/.