largest girls' school in UK?

[sugarquill]

I can't find this info anywhere!

Can anyone help to provide any links?

Looking through the GCSE league tables it looks as if Surbiton High has one of the highest yeargroups (155 for 2013, but I understand over 200 in year 7 this year. But possibly a school with a junior department will have more if you are looking at all ages.

GDST - Girls' Day School Trust. They manage about 20 independent day schools for girls.

Goosey they are up to 26 now!

Why did I start this thread? I'm planning a coup of the biggest girls' school in the country for financial gain

Seriously, it's not that exciting. I'm preparing a presentation on independent schools for work and wanted a few stats...very hard to pin down what the largest girls' school is though.

Thanks for your help :)

Millais School is the largest cohort school without boys, then Swanshurst school then Davison High in Worthing and then Plashet school

THis table, sorted by number of girls makes the job easy
www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/group.pl?qtype=NAT&superview=sec&view=aat&set=10&tab=88&no=999&sort=ks4_13.gpup&ord=desc

interestingly the biggest boys school in the country at GCSE is Eton

I went to an all girls state secondary school. It was over 1000 pupils. Is that large then? I assumed most places had one..

the biggest school has cohorts of nearly 600 : but its only 14-19 so has 1800 on roll

the biggest 11-18 I've spotted is Thomas Hardye in Dorchester with nearly 2300 on roll

Independent schools tend to pride themselves on either their exclusivity, or their close nurturing environment. Neither of these lend themselves to having 1000s of pupils onsite.

Eton manages it ..... they have 1300 plus on roll
as do several others : filter and sort the tables

Well, I've learnt something today!
I always assumed a big part of the 'draw' of an independent school was the fact they weren't massive.

Every day's a school day on MN!

JAGS has more than 1000 pupils, apparently. V sought after. Size apparently no barrier!

Indeed, BackforGood, why would anyone want a huge independent school? Though, tbf, I only tend to look at day schools.

Eton presumably does not feel that large due to the collegiate-type set-up they have though?

Large schools can offer a wider range of subjects/combinations, broader extra curricular activities, and strength in numbers for sports. This is why large independent schools are often the most sought after.

Well, IME, lots of single-sex schools have a 'sibling' school for children of the opposite gender, and they do all their music, drama, sports, share A Level subjects etc with them. Smaller schools for day-to-day purposes, but all the benefits of a larger pool of students when they need it.

Sugarquil this area is probably the one with the largest proportion of pupils going private, half in this borough which puts it amongst the five highest in the country though it is not in the five most affluent. However it is a crowded and competitive marketplace with schools of varying selectivity serving a variety of niches including those wanting a single sex education. As far as I am aware only one girls' school Surbiton High is six form entry, and that is expanding this year to 8 form, 200 pupils in the year. The rest are 4/5 form with around 700 / 800 pupils. Currently it has, including the Junior School just over 1150 girls (with a few more boys to 7 in the Junior School on top of that) It is not as selective as some other girls' schools but does select to some extent and so clearly saw that it had the market to expand further. I can't imagine anywhere else in the country sustaining such a large girls' school, I think Cheltenham Ladies is amongst the largest girls' Boarding Schools and that is just over 800. Wycombe Abbey has such a strong brand overseas that it could probably fill it's Boarding Houses several times over with very bright pupils from Asia alone but they have a balance to strike between providing the particular ethos that supports the brand, selectivity and the proportion of overseas/UK pupils and they have around 550 pupils. All pupil numbers will be listed in ISI reports. Hope that helps.

Thanks for all your help :)

We actively chose a large independent. Better, newer facilities and larger classes. Not large like the state sector but 22 in a class rather than 12 which I feel is better. It's a through school 3-18 all on one campus so it's bustling.

Oh and I am paying to actively avoid the fact that the better state schools around here are single sex and I don't want that for my kids.