Does it always pay to switch?

When Isobel Walters guides parents through the process of switching a child’s school, she speaks from first-hand experience. In the 1990s she stayed at her first independent senior school for only eight weeks before changing to another. ‘The second school was just as academic, but it focused a lot more on sport,’ she says. ‘I started on the sport, and I was away — the move worked well.’

Walters, who runs IW Schooling Consultants, has used her own life lesson to advise clients. She quotes a recent example of a girl who came from abroad to study at a girls’ boarding school in a London suburb, only to find that, having grown up in the countryside, she did not fit in with town girls who were keener on shopping than riding. ‘Within three or four weeks the parents had decided she wasn’t happy,’ Walters says. ‘We all worked together through that first term — the parents, the school and I — trying to find ways to make her more comfortable. But she still wasn’t happy.’ In the second term she switched to a rural boarding school.

But even if parents know that switching may prove the best decision in the end, they still need to ask themselves precise questions before making that decision. The first is about the timing. Andrew Halls, headmaster of King’s College School, Wimbledon, asked 13-year-old fourth-form boys how long it took them to settle in. Their general reply: ‘In the first week they’re too excited and overwhelmed to work out if they’re happy; in their second they begin to worry; in their third they start to settle in.’ Given this, in most circumstances he counsels parents against raising concerns in the first few weeks.