Which independent girls' school is the classiest in the UK?

Fun game. Here's my version

Boarding schools: you can imagine royalty attending
Benenden [Princess Royal]
St George's Ascot [Princess Beatrice]
St Mary's Ascot [Lady Louise Windsor]
Tudor Hall [Lady Margarita Armstrong-Jones]
Roedean

Academic boarding schools (in approx order of academic prestige)
Wycombe Abbey
Cheltenham Ladies'
Downe House

London day schools: (in approx order of academic prestige)
St Paul's Girls
City of London Girls
Godolphin & Latymer
The Lady Eleanor Holles School
James Allen's Girls' School (Jags)
Francis Holland SW1
Francis Holland NW1

No idea how they're perceived
Heathfield
Sherborne Girls
St Mary's Calne
St Swithun's
Queen Margaret's
Woldingham School
Godolphin
Malvern St James

I've met quite few people from CLC and they are all, without exception, loons. Lovely people actually. But loons.

Just a point on this this, Queen Margaret's School is in a village just outside York. Its not in Edinburgh. As for it being classy, it certainly looks the part and the girls I've seen from it all seem to be polite and well behaved.

In New England, we say nice, as naice is a bit affected this side of the pond.

No preppie worth her salt would say classy or even posh. Things are nice or not nice.

Surely naice or not naice @Ericaequites

I used to work with someone who went to Lucie Clayton. She always used to joke about it because she was the least “finished” person you could imagine - utterly lovely, and not remotely posh or “classy” (what a bizarre word to use). Oh and she could usually be found at work having one of multiple daily fag breaks. I doubt Lucie Clayton would have approved!

@MrsMoastyToasty I agree 100%, that place produces the best girls

Miss Porter’s in Connecticut is the nicest American girls’ school. No preppie worth her salt would say classy or even posh. Things are nice or not nice.

@3peassuit

Me too... Very useful...

A neighbor’s daughter went to Lucy Clayton. It’s now a secretarial school. She is a PA at a big American bank in the city.

The word “classy” in America is anything but. Professional and upper middle class Americans would never use the word. It’s “cheesy.”

Can't believe that:
A) you have the inclination to even think of this question
B) you have the time to write such an exhaustive list. Is it for a book character or something?

Fwiw, don't discount the international ones. My great aunt went to a finishing school in Switzerland and it was ridiculously posh and 'classy'.

I went to Lucie Clayton. They taught me how to get out of a car without showing my knickers. Invaluable.

The amount of inverted snobbery here is stupid.

I mean I went to a boring, normal private convent school but there was no way I wanted to be 'finished' at Lucie Clayton so I declined.

I suspect @JTK392, @GetOffTheTableMabel, @MissyB1, @merrymouse, @Onthetrain75, @cherryonthecakes and @Moobootoyoutoo have been watching too much American television. I agree that when Donald Trump says "Classiest" it does sound somewhat gauche.

@capstix
What does American television have to do with the use of the word “classiest?” I am baffled at your assertion. Perhaps someone else on your too-much-American-television hit list could enlighten me.

I haven’t seen Trump on television because I intentionally avoided the news and television for years.

Red Maids school is the oldest girls school in England (founded 1634, when few females learned to read and write). It's selective and has impressive exam results.

When I was at secondary school my school played a hockey match again Tudor Hall. We were served stale cupcakes and very weak orange squash afterwards.
Their uniforms were a bit shabby (because apparently they had to look after themselves). I was at the dentist in town one day and one of the girls was there. Her uniform skirt had the hem hanging down with a load of loose threads.
This was about 35 years ago though so might be very different now obviously

You missed out the Marcia Blaine School for Girls.

Everyone knows the girls are “the creme de la creme”.
Not “classy”, that is perfectly vulgar.

My tongue in cheek annotation. I went to one of these and have never said ‘classy’ in my life.

Cheltenham Ladies' - academic, socially smart-ish. Quite tough.
St Mary's Ascot - academic. Very socially smart for Catholics.
Downe House - academic. Socially smart Berks/oxon. Probably biggest overlap in siblings with Eton, partly to do with geography
St Paul's Girls - very academic, very pressured, but a day school. Some elements of grandeur but mostly MC competitive.
Wycombe Abbey - very academic, pressured, socially not particularly smart- too many Americans and Russians. Elite international rich.
Benenden - moderately academic. Socially smart enough for Kent, but hardly anyone lives in Kent.
Heathfield - not very academic. Socially extremely smart.
Tudor Hall - traditionally where Earls sent their daughters if they educated them at all. middling academically but socially very pukka. Girls equivalent of Radley.
Sherborne Girls - quite academic, very army, but also a lot of less ostentatious aristocracy and foreign royalty. Stealth Smart for those in the know.
Roedean - not especially grand and hasn’t been for decades. Considered to be almost entirely Chinese now, and in the ‘wrong’ bit of England. Middling academic.
Francis Holland SW1 - very socially smart for Londoners, not the county set, and not super academic
St Mary's Calne - academic, small small small, smart amongst Wiltshire set who want girls close to home. Their brothers go to Marlborough. Agree Calne is a dump.
Francis Holland NW1 - nothing in nw1 is smart. a bit more academic
St George's Ascot - middling both ways but gained cachet from the not very bright York princesses
St Swithun's - more of a local MC school
City of London Girls - London academic, not smart at all
James Allen's Girls' School (Jags) - academic, social desert
Queen Margaret's - in Edinburgh? Nuff said
Woldingham School - never heard of it
Godolphin - salisbury MC, not smart at all
Godolphin & Latymer - Hammersmith. London so academic not smart
The Lady Eleanor Holles School - more academic social Siberia
Malvern St James - you have to be kidding

For the previous poster, finishing schools still exist, though most now have academic years followed by a cultural and skills type curriculum. My dd went to Surval Montreux for a term after sixth form.
In London the last formal finishing school was called Lucie Clayton college.. I'm. Not sure when it closed but I was there in the 80's.
Though a quick Google shows new ones have opened.. Maybe a resurgence?