Parents are forcing their children to commute for up to 10 hours a week to get into the most sought-after private schools in Britain, a head teacher warned today.
Pupils’ lives are being made a misery because of the “bunfight” for places at the most sought-after fee-paying institutions, it was claimed.
Jane Grubb, headmistress of Bedales prep school in Hampshire, said children were being required to travel long distances – or drilled for months to pass entrance exams – when they should be spending time enjoying themselves.
The comments come amid a desperate scramble for places at the top private schools.
Tutoring is increasingly popular in preparation for the 11-plus and Common Entrance – the traditional entry exams for state grammar schools and private senior schools.
One study last year suggested almost half of families in some parts of the country paid for private tutors to prepare sons and daughters for school entrance tests.
But Mrs Grubb, the head of Dunhurst – the prep school attached to Bedales senior school – said that many parents were also prepared to send their children on lengthy commutes to secure places at some establishments.
Speaking to the Evening Standard, she said: “It starts when children are as young as eight. By the time they get to 10 they are spending two terms doing old exam papers to try to get into these places.
“Parents genuinely want them to be happy but they need to put their heads up and see what other life there is. The 10 hours they spend commuting could be spent getting more sleep or seeing their friends.”
Dunhurst and the Bedales senior school educate boarding as well as day pupils.
But Mrs Grubb said parents living in London often failed to consider sending their children to a boarding school outside the capital after getting “swept along in the panic” of gaining access to a top day school.
“There is a high density population and only a certain number of good schools,” she said.
“I can’t imagine parents want their children studying into the night and having personal tutors and writing off two years of their childhood. But some do because they don’t know there is something else out there.”
