Girls' Boarding Schools for Sixth Form

Also at CLC school and boarding house feel very separate, more like school and home rather than living over the shop IYSWIM

Headington in Oxford. Dd very happy there.

jade CLCs boarding houses are a short walk away through town, though some are more or less opposite. I thought that was an advantage in that pupils have to interact with real life. There aren't any downsides that I have heard about. We found some of the schools felt very cloistered but Roedean and Downe are on one site. Roedean wasn't one of the ones that felt otherworldly though, something about being so exposed! And close to Brighton. Somehow Wycombe for instance, though right in town felt very walled off from the real world.

op the family I went around Downe with were a bit underwhelmed, a more humane version of Wycombe Abbey as in very much a traditional English boarding school, but they ended up at Haileybury, which was a successful choice. Personally I and DD would choose CLC of all the schools we have seen because it has more of a buzz, we like that it is more down to earth and it has been such a successful choice for so many expats we know but as I say it is really about going and seeing.

My niece is at Haileybury (Hertfordshire) and moved there just for sixth form. She loves it as is doing really well. But I think it is mixed so may not suit your needs.

I would agree withcopthall that Downe House is very English. There are a number of girls from all round the world. They integrated well and IMO weren't viewed as exotic or different, they were just part of the school. The school were very flexible if overseas students arrived early in the day for the start of term which not all schools are.
There is 25m pool and girls can swim on the team or just for fitness. The main school sport is lacrosse although netball and hockey have succesful teams too. Tennis is a very popular. There are choirs and a number of musical groups. Other girls just have lessons and play for pleasure.
As for academics, it is a selective school. So standards are high. IME girls expect to work hard and achieve rather than being forceably pushed!
There are not too many new girls arriving in the sixth form. The numbers depend on the size of the current year group and how many are leaving after GCSE. In the sixth form there are two houses. One for the lower sixth and one for the upper sixth. So although some of the girls will have known each other since they were 11, it may be the first time they have been in the same house.
Definitely go and visit the schools as only you will know which is the right one for your DD.
Good luck!

I am a returned expat from Asia and have done the rounds of the Boarding Schools with several families moving from International Schools, both Chinese and Brit expats, though at 11 rather than 16. CLC seems most often to tick the boxes, especially for International School teachers, and I have been UK Guardian to a few pupils there who have thrived and done well. They have taken a great deal of care to develop strategies for integrating international and home students. Vicky Tuck, the last Head, made a point of really tapping the brains and experience of International School teachers. They therefore tread the line between sensitivity to and valuing different cultures without allowing pupils to form country cliques or use their culture to excuse bad behaviour. It is also a very grounded school whilst being academic. It functions like an academic day school with Boarding Houses as homes they walk back to in the real world.

All of these schools have excellent provision for sport and creative arts.

With the possible exception of Roedean, who do seem to have a similar approach to CLC, I found there was a slight tendency for other schools to treat their overseas pupils as the exotic "other", and allow them to stick with each other and their own language, particularly difficult for overseas pupils who have been in International Schools and may not even speak their own language well. Wycombe Abbey in particular seemed to just want to send one of my DDs friends off with a native speaking group when she didn't actually understand a word!! In some cases it felt that Asian pupils were mostly valued for their results.

Roedean is a lovely school but that clifftop building is forbidding and it doesn't seem as tight a ship as CLC either academically or in terms of ethos. A feeling that it hasn't quite redefined itself having ceased to be the jolly hockey sticks destination of upper class gals IYSWIM.

Benenden is very English, felt like somewhere you tuck away your Princess from the cruel hard world. Downe also very English.

However there really is no substitute for going, visiting and getting your own feel for the schools. IME girls just know when they are in the right place for them. I hope that helps

I replied to your other thread......

Haberdashers in Monmouth? They e just built a new sixth form boarding house so all the facilities are brand new.

beneden?