Ideas for bright girl secondary in London

What workingitoutasigo said ...

Sorry am completely ignoring your condition that we must have a DD at a school to comment on it because
a) I can because this is t'interweb
b) I know plenty of girls at lots of schools and know plenty about them so can save you time (though I see you have plenty of it!)
c) I am saving you from selection bias - every parent will tell you their school is best - because we can't be objective because we are investing in our DDs being there. To avoid buyer's remorse we have to believe it's best.

You also need to be aware as I am sure you are that there is no perfect school and the experience a girl will have at any school is not completely forecastable - elements like who she makes friends with and how she develops and experiences the school can't be completely controlled for. All these schools are basically wonderful and most girls will feel well-suited to most of them.

My daughters - one was at Habs and the other at NLCS all through school. They both had a go at 11+ for fun to get into the school of the other and despite the schools being more similar than different neither got in. They are pleased they were at different schools not in the shadow of each other. They are both London lawyers now, both graduated already so not currently there. They both loved their schools. NLCS had a slightly more Hampstead/ Central London parent body about it and Habs a few more parents who lived out into the Herts countryside. NCLS gets slightly better exam results but both get lots of girls into Oxbridge.

Habs is a bit more into the country more fields, has a lake but NLCS has enough grounds and is in a lovely house where Handel used to stay owned by the Duke of Chandos. If you have a son at St Paul's then St paul's Girls would be more logical and second choice NLCS as not as far out as Habs. Probably best to try for all 4 and 1 or 2 back ups of easier to get into schools.

Unless you attend church at least once a fortnight and polish the silver don't even think about the church schools unless you are going to move within a quarter of a mile of them.

I don't understand how you would consider Emanuel and SPGS on the same page tbh.

My dd attended one of the schools and we moved her to one that is far too far away for you to even contemplate.

I trhink it would pretty awful if the boys is at St Paul's and his sister for some kind of sexist reason is put into a much worse school and indefensible just to save school fees or because she is likely to marry and not need to earn a living. She should certainly try for St Paul's.I know someone with two daughters there and they love it (as my daughter loved NLCS). It is a different issue if she won't get in of course.

Ah sorry I muddled you up with another father on another thread I was on and thought your DS was going to Harrow.

So scrub my comments on boarding.

Your DD sounds like a shoe-in for SPGS but you may want to be careful about whether it's the right school for her. There is a lot to be said for having your dc in the same school group and location too. There are quite a number of girls from North London who travel on the school bus which is quite jolly. There is some intangible niceness of being part of a joint school community too.

Ok then if you live north of the river then you can scrub anything south of the river off your list so Alleyn's, Emanuel, WHS, PHS etc are out of the picture

If your ds is at St Paul's there's absolutely no way you could even contemplate sending your dd to somewhere like Sacred Heart unless you want to give her the impression that you simply don't value girls' education in the same way as boys' so personally I'd scrub off all the state schools too (not saying that state schools can't give your dc a perfectly good education but frankly if you're paying £20k a year for your son you'd need to have a bloody good reason not to treat your daughter with parity)

So that leaves SPGS, G&L, Latymer Upper, LEH, poss NLCS depending on what the journey would be like - all good schools, all v academic and if your daughter works hard she'll get fantastic results at any of them. Depending on how academic your dd is you may need to have a back-up 'safety' school and if she's perfectionist she may be happier being top in a slightly less selective school than bring mid-bottom of a highly selective school

But tbh you're over-thinking this - you don't want your dd to end up being the focus of such intensity ...

Gosh yes NLCS I knew I had missed somewhere off my list!

I don't agree with the comments about travel. My girls at Habs and NLCS took school coaches from age 5 and 7 respectively. The schools put children who live near each other in the same class. It works very well.

The list in my view i order of prefernce should be

St Paul's
North London C

I don't know South London as well but then:

Lady E H

if you really can stomach a state school then Henrietta B.

That would be my list of 4 from your list.

Your first question though is how bright is the girl. Most girls will not get into those academic schools. May be a in 5 who try get in may be fewer than that. So first assess is this a girl who will pass those exams.

And I do have 2 children at a school on your list but am not convinced you live close enough for it to be worth your dd travelling to it, despite it being a fantastic school

Tiffin have added a catchment area that you have to live in to be in with a chance of getting a place, so unless you live in the right area your dd has no chance.
Also you have named both Catholic and C of E schools - both of which require years of church attendance and involvement. It's unlikely that you'll be able to apply to both types of school. You should probably already be attending the correct church to be in with a chance.

I totally agree with what's said above - you can't live somewhere where getting to Kingston Grammar and NLCS is even feasible so maybe work out some travel times first or say your location and we can help with what is possible to get to?

Minty is right, for the comps on your list, you would need to live near them. When I was looking for my dd, you needed to live within half a mile of Camden Girls or Fortismere and within a mile of Parliament Hill. You can't possibly live in Muswell Hill and Archway and Kentish Town simultaneously.

Where does your boy go? Presumably you aren't going to move him when your daughter starts school? Its very unclear. If you are looking at state schools then you will have a miniscule "choice" based on where you live.

Ok. First off, girls go to senior school at 11 not 13 like boys, so their tolerance for long journeys to school is much less. So you need to narrow your distance range if you want your daughter to have the energy to make the most of her time there and extra curricular opportunities in particular.

Second, because of this, girls generally travel less far to their schools so for friendships you want to be closer to the school. Only exceptionally good schools will have girls traveling long distances and most on your list are not exceptional.

Third if you are sending your DS to one of the country's top boarding schools, from a feminist perspective I seriously hope you will make the same investment in your DD. If he deserves private school so does she.

Then I don't think you had any boarding schools on your list - why not?

So if your DD is this bright you should be looking at a small selection of schools only and will be wasting your time with others. So SPGS, CLSG, G&L, HBS on the day school front. For coed day Highgate. And boarding - if your DS is going to Harrow you should look at Wycombe Abbey at least.

And yes to the advice to work on her resilience and tolerance of failure...but as a perfectionist myself I found a girls school where I could excel a very comfortable environment. A mixed school would have been too stressful.

You definitely need to do a proper journey time analysis and strike out all the ones that don't fit otherwise you'll drive yourself mad. Unless you live in Trafalgar Square all those schools can't be manageable. And even if they are technically manageable it doesn't mean it's a good idea - there's a lot to be said to having a critical mass of pupils living locally to you.

Have you been reading that ridiculous Tatler list?

Sorry but that list is just ridiculous!

You cannot possibly be thinking of sending a child to Alleyn's if you live close enough to Mossbourne for example

There's no way your dd could possibly meet the entrance criteria for such a disparate range of state schools and the private schools you've listed have staggeringly different academic requirements

It would be a complete waste of time to visit up to 20 schools - what on earth could you be hoping to achieve?

Although if you are in the middle of London St Paul's girls would be the one to choose as more central.

NLCS and Habs (had one at each) - both have graduated now so not current but we still know people there. Great schools, really really lovely.They both had the very best of times there. We were so very lucky. NLCS often been one of top 3 schools in the country of all types for A levels too.

If you give a rough area you live in it might help narrow down/recommend some schools