Tiffin Girls' School or Guildford High School?

Lots of schools won't realise their GCSE/A level stats at this point as they are waiting for remarks. They are also opposed to the tables as they are a very crude way of measuring a school. Two unhappy girls who underperform in their GCSEs & don't get their predicted grades will change a school's results & position.

Toomany:i have not placed the link because all the tables are on the TGS website.The Telegraph include private so that is why Tiffin is slightly lower whilst the Times is state only.

The official league tables are published in January. I think the Times used the amount of A/A at GCSE which put TGS first but the Telegraph A/A/B so TGS was a bit lower. There is not much difference in the results between the top selective schools.

I think TGS is making efforts to change and will have to cope with a larger intake plus a new academy being built next door. Hopefully the changes to admissions procedures will make it more diverse in terms of income. Very few FSM girls at present.

Thanks HPparent. Not desparate to see the tables...just intrigued. TGS is also 5th in A level league tables. Must agree with you on the private tutoring versus private school fees. I don't think it even compares ! Must admit I am really keen on ensuring my DD enjoys her school days. I am not so keen on a pressured hothouse environment...my take is if they are bright they will do well wherever they go with support from parents or tuition if required !

If you look on TGS website there are links to the fawning article in the Times. I think you can get a free trial of the newspaper website if you are desperate to see the league tables.

My DD has just left TGS and while she succeeded academically she found Sixth Form in particular a horribly pressurised place .

The school are changing their admissions policy to give some advantage to very local disadvantaged girls and also upping the intake again. I think eventually this will lead to it sliding down the tables but hopefully it will be a nicer place.

I must take issue with a comment up thread about anyone who can afford private tutoring can afford private school which is absolute tosh in my opinion.

I meant the independent school league tables for GCSE.

Popins...on that note, do you have a copy or can you share the GCSE league table with me as I do not have access to the times website. I have seen the telegraph league tables for A levels.

TGS placed first in the Telegraph 2014 state school GCSE list

Firstly, I doubt that your daughter has had her heart set on TGS since she was born. Surely, if they do aspire to go to a certain school they are "heavily" influenced by parents and peers.

The competition at TGS is astoundingly high due to no fees and no catchement rule unlike some other super selectives. Hence, their criteria and exams are likely to be tougher to cream off the top performing girls. GHS is also very popular and turn down many girls each year. I know girls at both these schools. Despite offers from both, my friend selected GHS over TGS for her DD. Simple reasons include affordability and gut feel. I have another who chose TGS even with offers from other highly selective independent school based on affordability again. Whilst the Asian contingent at TGS is quite high compared to GHS, GHS do have girls from a range of backgrounds and origins. From what I know there has never been an issue with race or backgrounds. I think these schools get unfair press of these aspects of school life and are quite normal.

Both schools are highly selective and achieve fantastic grades and are (I think) top 10 schools in the UK according to league tables albeit one is not fee-paying. DD's who go to these schools and enjoy it are likely to thrive. I don't think you can say that one school is "better" than the other. It all depends on the girls and parent preferences, affordability, friend choices etc. Not sure going to TGS is a "novelty" !!

Your daughter wanted to go to TGS since she was born

I know this is a little late but my daughter attends TGS and she too had to decide between TGS and GHS. We live alot closer to TGS and as my daughter is extremely academic we decided to send her there. Although TGS is not known for its sport my daughter does 8-10 hours of rowing a week which she absolutely loves! As for the % of non-white girls at the school I would say it is very high, in my daughters class there are no girls who are fully English, although there are some Australians and one American. She says the friendship groups are extremely mixed, and nobody is judged by their race and that is her favourite part of tgs. In her primary school she was teased for being half Indian, as she did not look it and everyone believed she was lying but at TGS many girls think it is really cool to be half Asian. We were worried that she might be teased in GHS. Also my daughter was worried that the girls in GHS would be very rich and although our family is very well off she was still not convinced. My daughter has had her heart set on TGS since she was born :D however, my daughter joined in 2011 and obviously the examination is very different now. She told me the GHS exam was alot easier and my second daughter reported the same, however my second daughter did not get through the new examination at TGS and so if any girl at the moment is deciding between TGS and GHS it is almost more of a novelty to go to TGS with it's difficult examination. But that is just my opinion :D. And one last thing- any parent willing to pay for TGS tutoring can afford to send their child to GHS so the money is not an issue... :)

Some people are making me sick. Asian girls who are good at reasoning papers are "robots" and white girls who can't solve reasoning papers and numbers are creative problem solvers??? My impression so far is thatmost white middle class parents don't even try and just hope their children have "happy" school life. Most Asians be South Asians or East Asians don't see education that way. One is simply more desperate or serious than another group! As simple as that.

Actually, do the schools you mention Kate have any catchment criteria?

Could HB and the other 'less white' selective schools more accurately represent the local population than at TGS? Also, if initial selection to sit the English and maths papers is based on VR and NVR then perhaps the results will not change so much.
As a teacher who regularly reviews the VR and NVR results of our (reasonably culturally diverse) students, it is consistently the Asian students who score most highly on these sort of tests. Other, absolutely fantastic, creative, lateral thinkers and problem solvers who achieve highly in all areas of the curriculum, often (and surprisingly) perform poorly in comparison.

I wouldn't bet on that Schmedz. At Henrietta Barnett, they test English and only 24% of the cohort is white. The % of Asian children there is 60%.

Actually Henrietta Barnett is one of the least white grammar schools in the country - behind Ilford, Woodford, Handsworth, Slough, Langley and its neighbour, QEB.

There is no reason to assume that a change in admissions procedure will alter the trend.

Good points Kate. Now they have changed the entrance procedure to include English and Maths (worth 70%) of the mark required to be accepted, I am pretty sure there will be a slightly more balanced representation of the actual population (although initially the VR and NVR tests are used to select those who sit those papers). It will be interesting to see the school ethnicity figures for the upcoming Year 7 intake and also in coming years. VR and NVR testing procedures target certain types of intelligences and these are significantly associated with certain cultural backgrounds. Not solely, but significantly.

notfluffy:

the number of white girls at the school declines year-on-year. As of 2010, it was 42.7%. 2011 40.6%. 2012 37.1%. The number of girls of Asian background was in 2010 43.4%, 2011 47.0%, 2012 50%.

At Hollyfield School, down the road, the figures are:

white 2010: 63%, 2012 62.4%, Asian 2010: 13.1%, Asian 2012: 13.3%

The latter figures are I believe representative of the ethnic makeup of area children, the former most definitely are not.

Because schools turn their intake over every 7 years, a fall from 40.6% to 37.1% suggests that the new intake is less than 37.1% white.

I'm not sure what you mean by Bengal, but the number of girls of Bangladeshi background at the school is very low - under 1% (likewise Pakistani). There are lots of Indian and Sri Lankan girls though.

In terms of demographics GHS would be much less diverse, being mostly white, however as Surrey is over 90% white, this is no surprise. Why TGS has so many Asian girls given that neighbouring schools are only around 10% Asian is not clear.

Because of intensive (£££) tutoring at all London grammar schools it is almost impossible for poor children to get in, and as mentioned above there is less than 1% FSM girls at Tiffin Girls. I doubt GHS is any different in this respect.

Although there are probably quite a few paper property millionaires at TGS due to the obscene house price inflation left of the last government (not to mention unprecedented levels of immigration), there will likely be more properly rich multimillionaires at GHS.

I would also like to comment on the fact that although admission is supposed to be solely by ability and not parental wealth, if you can afford to live within a reasonable journey to the school and can afford the tutoring that the majority of students receive to get in you are in a reasonable financial situation. The cost of housing in Kingston and surrounds is exceptionally high! Only 0.7% of the students at TGS are eligible for free school meals - that is 4 girls out of the 895 on roll. Compare that to other schools in London where that figure is closer to 50% and it is clear that TGS is as MC as it gets.
In terms of demographics, TGS is probably no more diverse than GHS, so don't worry OP!
Btw, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being MC and any girl lucky/academically able enough to attend either of the schools under discussion should appreciate her opportunities. I just dislike the pretence that
TGS is anything other than what it is!

Notfluffy - there is nothing racist about saying that having a selection of students from Asian countries is not a particularly culturally diverse school. I have taught at and attended truly culturally diverse schools - for example in one secondary school over 67 languages and over 53 countries were represented from all continents and regions of the world. That is why I don't think TGS is particularly diverse.
(I have also taught at TGS and have a number of friends who have either attended or have children there so my comment was made in comparison to other educational environments that exist). Perhaps GHS is particularly WMC and so any other cultural backgrounds in the mix of students seems diverse in comparison. But it seems ignorant (even racist) to me that people assume not attending school with a range of cultural backgrounds infers that students there don't or can't have an awareness and appreciation for the myriad of other cultures in the world simply because they do not attend school with many (any?) from those backgrounds.

OP
While GHS is fee-paying compared to other local private schools it is very balanced and a significant number are not from very wealthy families. Yes relatively most are well-off but a huge number have very hard working professional parents who are working their socks off to scrape together the fees. There is complete acceptance and absolutely no snobbishness about your background, what size house or previous school you are from.

I hope this isn't too late, but going to GHS might be a disservice to her when it comes to university applications. If labour get in at the next election it is highly likely that there will be quotas for university places for independent school pupils. Although TGS is a selective school it is still a state school and university Chancellors are under huge pressure to reduce the number of elite university places going to independent school pupils.