Everything you know if you went to Whitgift School

Whitgift School is an all boys private school in South Croydon that was massively stereotyped to be the home of posh snobs, but it didn’t help when 17 year olds were driving in BMWs and Mercedes to school.

Location

It’s quite unfortunate how a private school ended up in the dodgy parts of Croydon. The second it was home time students would leave the safe bubble, where peacocks walk freely, and enter the outside world where muggers would wait for the school bell to ring so they could pick out who to mug. When you left the school grounds, protected by security and high fences, you were going to lose the latest iPhone or Samsung.

Uniform

The school emblem is well known, and was memorised by bullies and muggers to take advantage of. The compulsory standard-issued rucksacks were also bigger than the average year seven. It’s fair to say we looked great. Uniform got a lot better in sixth form when we got to wear our own suits. Everyone was walking around thinking they were Barney Stinson

Wildlife

Only at Whitgift could you say “Sorry I’m late, there was a peacock blocking my path” and for it to be okay. Peacocks freely roam the school alongside the flamingos, Japanese cranes and wallabies which sit in enclosures. It may seem like an amazing thing to have at school but you do start to hate on the wildlife when you realise they treat them better than the students.

Extra-curricular activities

Whitgift has an outstanding military marching band that’s performed in front of the Queen, head of the army and hundreds of thousands of other people. There’s also the cadets, where you go on painstakingly trialling but rewarding camps. If you were lucky enough to be in the RAF cadets then you’d also get to go fly small aircrafts and even learn to do aerobatics.

Alumni

Whitgift is a factory that produces many famous and important people every year with notable alumni including Lords, Sirs, musicians, sportsmen, academics and many other awesome people. Derren Brown was a student there and his father was the swimming teacher for a long time.

The head of the RAF during World War II and the current head of the Army were Whitgift grads. The school was also home to sport stars such as Victor Moses (professional footballer), Danny Cipriani (one of many professional rugby players) and Lawrence Okoye (2012 Olympian and current San Fran 49er). This makes puts a pretty substantial on the current boys there, it’s fair to say.

Awesome parties

You know that programme My Super Sweet 16th? Yeah, every party was basically that, and the dress code was always Black Tie.

Ridiculous school rules and punishments

Like most private schools across the country, Whitgift had some strictly enforced rules that didn’t make much sense or seem to serve any purpose other than controlling its students’ image, such as:

Never ever try to grow facial hair. If you even dare leave a bit of stubble on your cheeks, you will be sent straight to the nurses office where she will make you use a 10 pence razor ensuring a very close shave, even if it is right before an exam.

Hair must be short enough to be off your collar and longer than a grade three.  Failure to do this will result in you going home for a haircut or going home to wait for your hair to grow back to a “reasonable” length.

Socks must be black. If you were caught wearing anything other than black socks, then you were sent to clean up the lunch hall for at least 30 minutes.

Standard issue school bags must be worn. If not, you were expected to carry around all your belongings in ASDA plastic bags, provided by the teachers of course.

Punishments included cleaning up the cafeteria tables, running round the school picking up litter and five hour long detentions on Saturdays, on top of the normal school punishments. What made it even more fun (or not fun) was that the student prefects were allowed to give you half of these punishments.

Conclusion

Whitgift is stereotyped, which is fair to a certain point. However, the school clearly makes some outstanding people and this year they achieved they came top in the UK out of  all boys schools for the International Baccalaureate.