Tiffin v WHS v KGS v Coombe Girls

@SandyBayley

Thank you so much this is so helpful.

It is so lovely to hear your daughter like KCS and STEM ⭐️ I had 3 brothers so maybe that’s the answer to getting girls into STEM 😂?

@Anonymous111 -she adores being at KCS. She has a lovely friendship group, really nice boys. It's helped by having 2 brothers at the school. It's been the making of her. FYI she had places at 11+ for WHS, PHS, JAGS and Tiffin...

I'm afraid she is heading for medicine as in addition to her maths ability she also excels at biology. She's quite rounded and the IB has been great for her. DM me if you like for further intel...

[quote Anonymous111]@StayWithMe21 thanks! You posted at same time as me lol so just saw your reply.

Tiffin seems to be the answer - over 100 girls in 2019 A levels took further maths !

st Paul’s had 20! Out of almost 400 students[/quote]
I don't think thats true for Tiffin girls!

@Anonymous111 Someone did some analysis on this exact subject in an 11+ girls thread in 2018. Ran all the numbers. It seems like the lie of the land has not changed. Back then it was very skewed towards Tiffin and St Pauls. DH and I were quite surprised at how low the numbers were doing sciences and maths at GDSTs.

Anecdotally, I know of two mathsy girls leaving WHS going to Kings for access to more STEM opportunities starting this autumn in lower sixth.

@SandyBayley

Ah this is so helpful thank you so much - I just saw your reply after I was musing whether KCS had all boys in their further maths.

Would you mind i would be so curious to know: does she get on ok with moving from all girls to predominantly boys school and is her further maths’ class predominantly boys?

Thanks so much ! Ps tell her to consider becoming an actuary as a career choice if she is mathsy

@Anonymous111 - it's more complicated than that. You'd need to look at the IB data as well. DD is taking IB including Higher Maths. I'll ask her how many girls there are in the maths sets when I track her down...

@StayWithMe21 thanks! You posted at same time as me lol so just saw your reply.

Tiffin seems to be the answer - over 100 girls in 2019 A levels took further maths !

st Paul’s had 20! Out of almost 400 students

Thanks @sanam2019 it is quite surprising but as you say it’s similar elsewhere.. and also very good point they maybe switch.

KCS I can’t tell from the data as the 34 students who took A levels further maths could all be boys who knows..same with Westminster…

Just took a look at JAGS all girls and they had 21 but that was across 3 years as they combine their data so say 7 a year. Which is probably a great class size for further maths but still quite low.

… scratching my head a little….

I’m doing a tour of WHS in sept so I’ll ask them.

My DD is 'mathsy' and switched from one of the SW London GDST schools for KCS last year.

The maths teaching at KCS much stronger IMO and she's surrounded by lots of very able mathematicians. It was a key reason why she switched for 6th form.

St Pauls and Tiffin have many more girls doing sciences/STEM.

The SW London GDST schools have a slant towards arts/humanities subjects.

@Anonymous111, I noticed the same and was surprised, with all their talk about STEM and the STEAM tower. I suspect the most "mathsy" girls switch to KCS or Westminster for Sixth Form and the STEAM tower was built to encourage more of them to stay at WHS. I do hope it changes going forward.

I just looked at Putney and Godolphin to compare- not much different! Not sure why though- you don’t need physics for medicine I suppose. My DD didn’t even do it at GCSE and is at one of these schools.

Here’s the attachment

www.wimbledonhigh.gdst.net/userfiles/wimbledonhighv2mvc/documents/05-sixth/results/document-sixth-form-a-level-results-2019.pdf

Hi everyone

I have a question on WHS if anybody can add to this, and I’m putting it here as it might be of interest to others on this chain

I was looking at the 2019 A-level results for WHS, and I noticed that they only had two girls take further maths in that year, and only five take physics.

Does anybody have a view as to why such a great school has such low numbers of girls taking the subject for A-levels?

I’ll be really interested to know.

Thank you very much

@Mamaoftwogirls A lot of children move from state to private at secondary. I would imagine the comment was written by a parent of a child currently at state school as they have concerns about being “the odd one out”.

To reassure you, at our north London school, it’s about a 50/50 split between state and private and nobody knows, asks or even cares about where you were before.

Thanks for a quick reply! I am putting my fingers cross for my younger girl case.

My eldest is studying at TGS Y12 now. I wonder my younger girl, has submitted an in the year admission form to TGS recently, will stand a chance under the sibling queue. My younger is currently studying at another grammar school in Kent. We want to unite the family to Kingston area. We missed all the Y7 admission and only able to do this as an insert student to TGS if possible. My Y9 girl is on wait list on Coombe Girls, Holy Cross, Kingston Academy and not TGS - due to covid-19 - our test has been put on hold till lockdown eases. TGS has informed us there isn't any vacancies for Y9 at the moment.

May I know if anyone has compare Holly Cross School (HCS) as good as Coombe Girls? Waiting list will it be realised in the end? I have HCS ranks no. 2 on Wait list and Coombe ranks no. 7. May someone gives me more insight of the waiting... in these schools?

Also, we are also waiting on TGS (Tiffin Girls). Unsure if has sibling at TGS will do better on the wait list? Anyone can advise us?

My DD is at WHS and came from a state primary. Yes they are in a minority but really it couldn’t matter less. I’d say the only impact is it’s possible your DD may be joining knowing literally no-one whereas the juniors all know each other and there is a large cohort from The Study for example. But this doesn’t seem to get in the way of making friends and indeed the junior school girls are really keen to make new friends. Whether you came from a state school or a prep is really a non issue. Academically too I’ve never felt DD was at a particular disadvantage.

DD is at WHS from a state primary as are many other girls. It's not an issue at all and noone is treated any differently. You wouldn't know who came from where, honestly.

@sanam2019 - re homework - very roughly maybe 1 hour a night and 2-4 hours at weekends? I haven’t noticed it being significantly more that my older child, who is at a comp, although time taken can sometimes reflect the child’s approach rather than amount set. As I said this is Y9 so pre GCSE and A level courses, so that might change. My daughter does 3 activities weekly out of school - all non-pressure, non competitive - just for fun, but also spends a lot of time on Netflix/YouTube/chatting with friends. She does have a short commute. She isn’t sporty/musical/into drama and tried a few lunchtime clubs but they seemed to fizzle out a bit, so doesn’t do regular school based activities. So far so good but I am very much aware of the potential pressures - especially for high achieving girls - although these exist at many schools, not just Tiffin.

@sanam2019 Prior to lockdown, my eldest at TGS did netball (at school), rowing (outside school), swimming (outside school) and orchestra (at school) and music lessons (at school and outside school) on a weekly basis. On top of that, there is skiing and climbing during the holidays.

The homework load is not heavy. She has plenty of time to devour books and meet friends.

There are some posts suggesting private schools teach beyond the syllabus in a way that grammars do not and get better results too.
If you look at the data, you will see that TGS has better aggregate academic results than WHS and PHS, but worse than SPGS. You can also compare results on a subject by subject basis.

In terms of teaching beyond the syllabus, there is some of that at TGS. I have seen teaching of more advanced topics.

I shall also raise the somewhat contentious issue of networking. SPGS will be better for connecting with very wealthy people, WHS and PHS not so much.

@user1485813778 that sounds lovely. During the autumn term, how much time did your daughter spend on daily homework, on average, would you say? Does she have time for many extracurriculars or are her afternoons / evenings taken up by homework / studying?