Queen Anne’s School Caversham

Hi there,
Sorry, I have been away so haven't checked in. She was there for 2 years, so I think we gave it a good go. I don't really want to reveal which house as I don't want to out myself. And I can't really comment on the level of movement - being a boarding parent there was no real contact with other parents - she didn't go there from one of the feeder preps so she knew no one there when she went, and I knew none of the parents. I think you must go with your gut instinct. It wasn't right for us, but equally, things may have changed since she left. My own instinct was that it's great for day girls but you'd have to be very resilient to survive the cliquey boarding environment. That being said, generalising from one experience is unhelpful. So much depends on the cohort, and you will have no control over that. You may be lucky and find she is among a lovely supportive group of girls. Or not. Sorry not to be more helpful!

Thanks so much for your input.
How long before you moved your daughter, and I presume she's happier elsewhere. Which house was she in? IS there a lot of movement because of dissatisfaction? I think a sign of a good school is there's little movement.

DD1 went to this school. Started as a day girl - long days so she opted for weekly boarding. We came to really dislike the school and moved her. House Mistress was awful. Uncaring and only interested in the daughters with "celebrity" parents. No support for dyslexia. Teachers didn't even understand what that was. And zero interaction between day girls and boarders. DD had made friends as a day girl but lost them when she started boarding. In the boarding house the atmosphere was cliquey and unwelcoming. Some of the academic provision was good. But I'm afraid that our experience was that this was just a very average school, with no emphasis on encouraging girls to develop into decent human beings. Not a place for making friends for life. It would probably work much better as a day school.

I think that works well because they still have a bed in a boarding house.
Again, early days with my daughter but fingers crossed all going okay!

I guess the day / board integration issue is a common theme in most schools. Our daughter is interested in flexi-boarding, perhaps 2 days a week to alleviate the journey time if that proves to be a problem. Would hope that might help bridge that divide!

My daughter boards - and despite what they say I'm not sure the two mix much. (Ditto the Chinese). So far we're happy but early days.

Our daughter is registered for next September, just going through the admissions process now, but we love
what we’ve seen of the school so far.
Only doubts we have are the long days, and potentially a very long bus ride! How are your girls coping with this, and do day girls mostly live locally or are there many more that have to travel too?

My daughter has only just started so can't really tell you much except she says the teaching is much better than at her previous school and she seems to have developed a real interest in subjects she wasn't interested in before. It seems super well organised Too early to tell you about pastoral etc - she's only been there five weeks. I hope you get more feedback - I could find very little when we had to make the decision. We liked the fact she could come back on Fridays and there was no Saturday school.