Advice needed - Single sex to coed for sixth form

[Onisrm]

My DD is a Y10 student in an all-girls boarding school that has 60% day girls and the rest boarding. She’s an international student and a full boarder but that isn’t the experience she’s having as majority of the boarders are weeklies and flexies. Right now, in her year group, there’re only 12 full boarders (8 from the same country) and the school isn’t doing much about encouraging integration. Most of the day girls have their own friendship groups and her weekends are extremely lonely. She has a friend or two in the year above and her only close friend is an exchange student leaving at the end of the school year.

We are strongly considering moving her to a coed full boarding school that’s not so close to London for sixth form. She’s very keen on leaving the school as she joined in Y9 and hasn’t had much luck in the friendship realm.

Wondering if anyone can recommend good full boarding schools that have a significant number of students join in sixth form? Pastoral care is as important as academics to us. After the drama of an all-girls school, we’re not keen on going down that path for sixth form. Also, does anyone have any experience of moving their DC from single sex to coed for sixth form? How did that go?

Once it is understood that full boarding is not compulsory, that there are days and times when not everyone needs or wants to be there, parents and children alike very quickly take full advantage. Schools may claim what they would LIKE to happen on their website, but there are very few schools in a position where they can insist that full boarders do not go home at weekends.

I would go and have a look at Uppingham if you look at Oundle. It’s fully boarding and has an all girls house, ‘The Lodge’ which is for new starters in the 6th form.

But Marlborough is probably the only majority boarding co-ed in the country with a waiting list, so if anyone can enforce, they can. I don't think there are any other co-ed schools who will enforce full boarding more than Marlborough so while the presence of day kids may give slightly more flex, they'd still be more "full boarding" than 90% of other schools. If I was a parent of an international student, they'd definitely be on my list.

Totally agree with this!

When I spoke to Marlborough College, a staff member said they fully expected day pupils to leave at around 9pm, depending on activities.
I think we’ve drifted slightly from the original question about sixth form choices — the new day house won’t have any impact on (the 16 houses) boarding, Marlborough is a very different beast with that regards, with a substantial waiting list and many families sitting tight and hoping.

For what it’s worth, I think it would be an excellent sixth form choice. Friends with children there are very happy, and a friend’s daughter joined last year from another school and is absolutely loving it.

It definitely isn’t the only school to have a waiting list (although how long, what quality the list is and how easy it is to get off it will vary). However, if they weren’t worried about medium term prospects for boarding numbers, they would not have opened a day house.

Hello all! Thank you so much for your feedback and suggestions…it’s been very helpful. We’re a family based abroad, so a full boarding house will go a long way for us. Guardians are in London and as such, any school with direct train links to London or London buses, will work well. After extensive discussions and with the help of the MN community, we’ve come down to 3 schools - Oundle, Rugby and King’s Canterbury. Applied to the first two and will begin the process for the third. Hoping for positive outcomes and will keep you all posted 🙏🏽