What's the girls equivalent of Eton & why?

[Dinaprettyballerina]

Just out of interest which English girls school is the one all sharp elbowed parents are trying to get their girls into? Eton has a reputation for having the pushiest parents with alot of overseas parents who are extremely invested in getting the very best education & getting their child in at all costs.. what is the female equivalent?

Bonkers!

What a wet lettuce he must have been. I'm picturing him flicking through the St Pauls' year book trying to pick out a suitable Fenella to please mummy.

gogohmm

I used to teach at St Paul's Girls School which has very high academic standards - there was (and no doubt still is) fierce competition in the entrance exams.
The girls were very much encouraged to make their own careers which was never just about academic excellence but about developing confidence & other attributes essential for success

I'm presuming Jacob Rees Mogg.
I would imagine his children will go to Catholic schools though I don't know which ones specifically. The well heeled Catholics in my extended family have traditionally attended Ampleforth or Worth but given Ampleforth's current situation a few of my northern relatives have opted for Stoneyhurst.

St Paul’s- it is a day school but focus in on educating the girls to have their own career, not as an accessory to her husbands

You’re not wrong.

I don't know why people are so fixated on whether the small number of PMs who went to state schools were at grammar schools or comps. In the past most state schools were academically selective. If Liz Truss had been in her early 60s or older (like Keir Starmer) she would have had to take the 11+. As it is, like the vast majority of the UK population under 60, she grew up in an area where all the state schools were comps. As time goes on, any state-educated politician will be overwhelmingly more likely to have gone to a comp than a grammar school. There are only about 160 state grammar schools in England, none in Scotland or Wales, can't remember what the current position is in NI.

In any case, why are we judging politicians for something their parents decided on their behalf?

www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/464934-eton-what-is-the-female-equivalent-academically-speaking
probably hasn’t changed

Truss so went to Oxford though so went through elite education.

St Pauls Girls School is the top girls’ equivalent both socially and academically, followed by Westminster which only takes girls in sixth form.

I think it is all changed now but of my two spgs friends, one is a sahm (and vvv good at that! Amazing kids) and one a sort of actress ie didn’t make it good)

etonian bf sisters went to st Mary’s ascot.

public school friend told me in giggles recently that her old school has been very gently, delicately, ‘Englishly’ reaching out to people suggesting that there are a LOT more bursaries/scholarships/discounts about for Genuine British Folk. This is apparently because enraged Chinese/Russian/kazakhi/middle eastern parents are demanding why they are spending 50k a year sending their bliss to a Genuine English School with no Genuine English pupils at it which made me laugh. Speaking of which a Lebanese friend and 3 siblings all went to Stowe, can you imagine finding £180k a year before flights, uniforms etc for fees!!! Different league really now to the old rectory-in-Wiltshire-bashed-old-Volvo-Labrador crowd.

I went Habs (hated every minute of it, some of the nastiest humans walked those halls teachers and students) we always thought CLC was posh, so I’m going with CLC

I think her dad was also an Oxford Don or similar? She went to a state secondary but don't imagine she is an average working woman of the people for one second.

Family I knew sent sons to Eton, daughter to Benenden. But I'd think Roedean or Cheltenham, but girls were never trained to be leaders of the nation in the way boys were.

That’s a massive shame for you, what school do you think you’d have preferred looking back?

Sorry, that doesn’t sound as sympathetic as I wanted it too, I’m genuinely super interested as what your school years were like can affect so much!

I know quite a lot of ex Habs/Haberdashers people. They all have an incredible aura of confidence about them, and are all quite intimidating somehow (all also nice though). What’s that about?

Manchester professor I think.

I had to Google! Yes he was at oxford, now Leeds. Maths emeritus (whatever that means)!

So many things, bullying was routinely turned a blind eye too and so many teachers bullied the students too, there were 2 suicides of former pupils that you can see is just directly related to the sheer amount of shit that they went through there. I knew one of them very well.

absolutely no safe guarding, I know personally someone who was being abused at home, reported it to the teachers and nothing, I think they sided with her abuser actually.

i really stand firm in the fact that yes there are more opportunities in those schools but it’s not the environment or teaching that’s generating the better results, it’s the fact that you’ve sat and entrance exam so you’ve in effect ‘weeded out’ anyone who’d get a grade below a c (in old money)

An aura of confidence? Christ knows, money? Having had a relatively easy life? (I include myself there). There were of course some nice people, they probably got bullied though. Also people grow up, it’s no longer ‘cool’ to be a bully or a bitch or scoff at the ‘peasants’ who went to the local high school

St Paul’s Girls.

Sounds like a miserable experience for you (and others), @Allthegoodnamesarealreadytaken What decade did you attend?

Cheltenham gave us former Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

I don't think there is a real female equivalent to Eton though. St. Paul's girls comes close but not a boarding school.

I would also say that Eton is no longer an incubator of future cabinet ministers - it is MUCH harder to get into now than it was then.

00s, might sound melodramatic but the legacy still lives with me today. Not having ofsted around means nothing can really be escalated.

still think about my friend that killed herself, relentless mocked about her weight by teachers and kids developed a serious ED and depression and never recovered, became too much and she took her own life

oh and EDs were rife too

CLC was more about churning out doctors & engineers than politicians.