If you went to a "posh" school, what was your experience?

[LookAtMissOhio]

I went to a local girls grammar which was considered to be quite fancy.

School song in Latin
Wool blazer
Ridiculously expensive uniform
Very strict rules on hair clips etc
Skirts measured from the knee with a pen!
4 languages Inc. Latin (Caecelius est in horto... )

Great extracurriculars
Sheltered feeling
Good library for quiet girls to hide in

Positive peer pressure- studying was seen as a good thing
Other pupils didn't swear
Mild teasing about my broad country accent

Others went on lots of holidays, some had second homes, went skiing etc.
Parents were much older than in my primary
Ambitions were higher than in my primary

Negatives:
V v stressful in later years. Intense pressure
Constant threats about "not getting back in" for sixth form
Nasty behaviour due to stress
School prone to forcing out under performers, rather than helping them.
School very image conscious. You had to be pretty and well-connected to get on head girl team etc.
Fawning over rich girls. Prizes handed out to girls whose mothers were on the judging panel

I went to a private school. The downside for me was that because it was selective I ended up, as a solid ‘B’ grade student, being in the bottom sets. Which destroyed my confidence. And was something my parents commented on constantly.

What does sheltered feeling mean?

I went to a mixture

Posh private school memories - amazing extra curriculars, good classroom behaviour. Negatives - a worship of wealth, and a hierarchy based on wealth; nasty subtle bullying often by the wealthiest girls towards those who had less; insanely strict school uniform rules (uniform underwear and hats etc) .

Went to both.

Positives of the 'posh' one were smaller class sizes, more options in the curriculum, studying very much encouraged, sports every day.

Negatives were that it was quite pressured, huge amount of snobbery ("sorry you only got earrings for Christmas, Daddy bought me a pony"). There was low level bullying of those with poorer backgrounds who couldn't keep up with skiing holidays and so on.

The same experience of positives as you, op, but only the school being very image conscious as a negative, plus every other family was wealthier than us.

There may have been other negatives but I didn't notice them. I liked school. Now, years later, I suspect we were their token free school meals family, but I got a great education and subsequently into university in the days when only 10% of women had the chance, so at the time, it didn't matter.

Oh and uniform was very strict. No excuses. No makeup beyond a bit of discreet concealer on spots - you were sent to wash anything more than that off. Hair had to be tied back neatly. One pair of stud earrings allowed and no other jewellery. Your skirt had to touch the back of your calves when you knelt down.

@forcedfun

I went to a mixture

Posh private school memories - amazing extra curriculars, good classroom behaviour. Negatives - a worship of wealth, and a hierarchy based on wealth; nasty subtle bullying often by the wealthiest girls towards those who had less; insanely strict school uniform rules (uniform underwear and hats etc) .

Oh God, I'd forgotten, panama hats, and tennis knickers

We were pretty well off but definitely among the "poorer" at school so a lot of being envious of other people's huge houses and constant foreign holidays.

My dad was a bit of a snob and state school was never considered for us.

Wool skirts and blazers, lots of hockey, if you were selected for the squad for any sport then you didn't get the choice, you were on the squad and would have to attend. Speech day. A was expected, B was tolerated, C was a fail. Pushy academically.

There were some lovely teachers and less lovely just like any school really.

The school had accepted girls for some time but still hadn't updated the facilities so while boys had several gym changing rooms and toilets dotted around the school girls just had the one toilet that meant a trip outside across the quad which was delightful in winter and in rain.

I went to a state 6th form for financial reasons. I'm glad of it though I have no idea why that 6th form in particular as it was shit and there were definitely other options. I just think we had no idea how to navigate the state system so off I went. No support for applying to uni, nobody prevented from studying anything so people who had failed a GCSE in physics for example being permitted to resit the GCSE alongside doing the A level. Funnily enough this did not produce encouraging results. And as a result teaching had to be to the lowest common denominator and was often poor though again there were some brilliant teachers who I look back on very fondly some 20 years later. Text books in short supply and out of date, having to share them so had to schedule homework with your book partner. But sometimes the book was so old that it didn't cover the material. My biology text book was printed before I was born.

It was eye opening for little privileged and sheltered me! I might have got better grades staying in private but I left 6th form a much less judgemental and better rounded person.

Sheltered, in that I knew it wasn't the real world. An all female bubble where you never had to go outside, if you didn't want to. I didn't know any boys my own age apart from one.

Oakley that is nuts about the resits! We were only allowed to do a subject for A-Level I'd we already had a B at GCSE.

Wool blazers and skirts, the latter had to touch the floor when you knelt.

Felt boaters in winter and straw in summer.

Permission to remove blazers once certain temp reached in summer term.

Long days, 430 finish weekdays and 1230 on a Saturday.

Prizegiving with a picnic on the field.

Chapel instead of assembly with a massive organ and velvet seats.

Latin obligatory.

No make up or nail varnish. Had to remove the latter with pure acetone once when physics teacher spotted it.

Lots of homework and high expectations.

Great extra curricular and sports facilities.

Standalone library building with lots of study carrels and little nooks to sit. Lovely quiet spot!

Annual carol concert in Canterbury Cathedral

Wool blazer that smelt awful when it got wet
Chapel on Saturday mornings (in a special hat)
No make up, jewellery or hair dye
School song
Tea with The Head on your birthday
Matron
The Heads Dog running riot around classrooms during lessons
Tuck boxes
Prize night
Sports day with parents dressed up bringing hampers

Generally pretty positive and despite being a scholarship girl I never felt out of place

Well known public boarding school. At the time girls only admitted at 6th form.

I’ll be honest, the drugs shocked me! They were plentiful.

I went to a girls' private school from 5-18. It was known for being "posh", but it wasn't. It was just a solidly middle class academically selective day school.

My experience was that it was academically very good and socially less so.

The best thing about it was that it never once crossed my mind that girls/women couldn't do X, Y or Z, because the expectation was that we would all become professionals (medicine, Law, engineering, dentistry, vet science, academia etc). There was no mention of marriage or babies or anything other than what jobs we might have. University felt weird to me as I was so used to talking in classes and then found that I was the only girl who did talk because they boys dominated. I'm glad I didn't have that at school.

We were all pretty well off, so that wasn't an issue. Wool blazers, below-knee skirts, gym knickers in the school colours etc went without sayihng.

I hated a large proportion of the girls there, though.

Posh - north. Assisted place (over 100%) paid for extras as well. I was head girl - never experienced the snobbery but it was super academic and that was the main value together with a strong ethic of giving back. Dd private now - different sort of school - she is also on an academic scholarship but the school prize contribution and engagement over academics which leads to a more balanced cohort. She always knew there are people better/worse off than us - school hasn't surprised her in that sense.

My experience of arguably the "poshest" school of all, via DC1, is that it was also the most egalitarian, in that talent/ability mattered more than background or money.

@SalveVagina

I went to a girls' private school from 5-18. It was known for being "posh", but it wasn't. It was just a solidly middle class academically selective day school.

My experience was that it was academically very good and socially less so.

The best thing about it was that it never once crossed my mind that girls/women couldn't do X, Y or Z, because the expectation was that we would all become professionals (medicine, Law, engineering, dentistry, vet science, academia etc). There was no mention of marriage or babies or anything other than what jobs we might have. University felt weird to me as I was so used to talking in classes and then found that I was the only girl who did talk because they boys dominated. I'm glad I didn't have that at school.

We were all pretty well off, so that wasn't an issue. Wool blazers, below-knee skirts, gym knickers in the school colours etc went without sayihng.

I hated a large proportion of the girls there, though.

Exactly my experience - down to the regulation brown pants

Never crossed my mind at school not to speak up, and probably as a result it's never crossed my mind since. Although it had it's issues I think 95% left with unshakeable confidence that we could do anything.

We had a 30 year reunion recently, which was interesting. Teachers, police officers, barristers, vets, vicars, lots of SAHMs, economists, and everything in between, which is a good sign I think.

Its issues

My kingdom for an edit button.

Very different experiences depending upon whether you were a day-girl (I was) or a boarder.
Some boarders flew into the UK from the other side of the world virtually unaccompanied but once they were at school it was almost impossible to leave the premises if you were in what is now years 7-11, but older years could sign out and go anywhere without any checks being made. Day girls were answerable to their parents.
Offering computer science as a subject (this was late 70's) but when I asked about typing lessons was told that "Gels from this school will have secretaries for that".
Different uniforms for boarders for Sundays and Founders Day. Marching in separate cohorts to the cathedral on Founders Day.

FWIW- my old school no longer offers boarding.

Hated it for all the same reasons . Navy knickers for PE

I was dumped in 5G which stood for graduate as in Not going to university. The two top classes were U and U2. They were going to university. In 5G we hardly got any help with CAO/ucca forms. I was given a secretarial college leaflet. Awful dump. Hated it. Was talkingvabout it therapy years later. But but but, have some life long friends

Wow. There's posh and then there's posh. I went to a private secondary school but we had neither a blazer nor a tie. My school saw itself as quite progressive I think. It was in a crowded part of London so certainly no picnics, or tea with the headteacher?!

It was in an expensive area and there was very much an "us and them" vibe between the girls who lived locally, and those of us who lived in outer suburbs and took the tube to school. I think at first they were a bit scared of us as we took the tube?!

Also a very clear divide between the girls who'd gone to private primary schools compared to those us who'd been to state primary schools. Obviously we were well off enough to go to this school, and had to pass an entrance exam to get in, but I still felt a bit of a class divide going on. For my 17th birthday my parents bought me driving lessons and I was insured to drive my mum's car. For the local girls, their parents actually bought them cars.

We keep being told that only 7% of people go to private schools but this is such a misused figure. In reality it's much lower at primary schools and much higher at secondary schools. Most people I know went to state primary schools and then private secondary schools.

The best part was being an all girls school so no sexual harassment. Some of us went to a youth club thing at weekends, where we made male friends. Again, there was a divide between us and the girls who had no male friends. Just the way they talked about meeting boys was really odd.

I have no idea if the extra-curricular stuff was considered a lot or not, as I only went to one secondary school so I don't see how I can have anything to compare it to.

My school has done away with the blazer since my day.

In my day, the teachers were HORRIBLE.

I dont think they'd get away with the scapegoating and the shaming now

Positives:
Close with friends
Plenty of staff
Great opportunities and looks good on cv
New tech and devices for all subjects

Negatives:
So much pressure
No support for disabled students, we were left out of so much.
Some staff had tenure-like agreements so some areas of the school we very stale and they were protected despite being terrible at their job