Starting to look at Senior Schools (private) how to choose?

[PhantomCAM]

Even though dd is only Year 5 we are starting the process of looking at Senior Schools (for 13+ entry). I've basically got a short list with the help of her current school and have made appointments to view (without dd initially) over the course of this term.

The initial questions are do I want boarding or day?
Do I want single sex or co-ed?

I know some people are very definite about these things but I genuinely don't know.

How do people make their minds up?

CAM hun, am doing exactly the same!! in fact am also looking at Ebourne Coll next week. Last weekend was vaguely near you too! In next month am doing Lancing,Brighton,Towers,Hurst also.

This wk was at Roedean - loved it, but i really want co-ed.

Looking at weekly boarding IF school is that good and dd wants it.

DC
The fees for my ds and dd are identical.

Don't decide in advance if you want single sex or mixed, just go and look at lots of schools. They give you 2 hrs to really poke about, but actually I think you need 10 mins. It is like househunting - you stand in masses of houses saying "well, I could live here, not sure about the storage space though" and then you go to one house and within 30 seconds you say "yup, this is the one" and all of a sudden storage space is irrelevant.

Gut instinct is all.

Look at the results, look at the 6th form opportunities, school trips, attitude of staff, attitude of children.

Look at the school website, how do the fees compare with other schools?

Unless she has an older brother I would choose co-ed personally. Some co-ed schools split the sexes for lessons, you might want to check this too.

Is the head well liked and respected? Does he/she look like they may be retiring soon, if so will there be lots of changes?

Go and see them all, it's open day for most schools at the moment.

I also look at the sixth formers, who've been all the way through the school, and say to myself "would I like my dd to turn out like that?"

useful, IMO

good idea QueenPeaHead re the Sixth Formers, will do that, thanks

Don't forget the 'value added' tables!

tricky's dd is at roedean

I really wouldn't dream of letting mine board, I've four at day school as I would miss them too much, and i didn't have them to shove off. what i wouldn't do though is go for the day option at a boarding school iyswim, as a) the fees are always much higher (?cross subsidisation of boarders?) and b)ime I think the day children can feel a little left out and second class .
Our fees (northern day school, about 1hr north of suew) are about £9k/yr for seniors, localish schools with less good reputations and feel about them charge around £12k for day pupils if they are also boarding schools. Think the house analogy is v. valid. My DS's school is going mixed (currently boys only) and so before I applied for DS4 I went and visited some of the other local schools again (had done so before DS1 started school but not since)- and it only reinforced my view that the school i had them all at was head and shoulders above the local opposition.

Another thought on the boarding issue: when my nephew boarded - (a state grammar, but db was in RAF, so boarding made sense) he was in the minority. He didn't enjoy it & felt envious of the boys (his friends) who went home each night. Interestingly though, he felt it would have been OK if more of the pupils had boarded. He also felt if you were a minority day pupil at a predominantly boarding school you would also feel a bit left out of the social scene.

fairyjay, I don't know of any co-ed school that charges differently for boys and girls, but girls only schools are nearly always significantly cheaper.

It's parental rejection however you look at it. My father a psychiatrist had so many parents damaged by being sent away. It abdicates responsibility from your children. It gives you less chance to see what is going wrong. You lose your influence. More of their peers will take drugs and smoke. They will be more influenced by those around them than in a private day school. Also most most boarding schools with a few exceptions like Eton and Wycombe Abbey get generally worse A level results than day academic private schools. Se Boardingschool survivors association.
www.boardingschoolsurvivors.co.uk/home.html

Pros are that for some children they seem fine about it although many talk about getting through, managing as if the development of a feeling of hardness is a good thing. Can make it hard to form close emotional relationships in later life in some cases. In many cases it's kinder and a better decision to move near a good private day school than send them away. In some cases the home is so horrible and the parents so bad at parenting or abusive or drunk that boarding school can be a better option.

As you can see I am not very pro.....

As for choosing a private school in general depends what you're after - religion, ethos, mixed, if the child is clever, has dyslexia, etc. We are lucky to live near a lot of good schools. They are very similar (we wanted single sex) so we picked the ones with the best academic reputation as that mattered to us. The other things are fairly similar at those schools - all good at sports, music, hobbies etc.

Sorry to butt in - don't know how relevant you will find this, but heard a statistic recently stating that boys who went to single sex schools were more likely to end up divorced than those educated in a co-ed environment. Apparently co-ed or single sex made no difference for girls in this respect.

IMO the single most important thing is that you like the head. And like, as in you find him/her simpatico, could imagine, other things being equal, having an agreeable chat with him/her in Starbucks. Or can imagine having a meeting with him/her when your unlovely 14yo dc has been caught smoking on a Geography field trip, and coming away from the meeting confident that the situation was being dealt with in a sensible and acceptable way.

Also check out the vibe given off by the support staff (v. important imo). Phone up incognito to ask a slightly dozy question about the entrance procedures, and see whether they give you the 'Oh god, not another stupid parent wasting my valuable time' routine, or whether they actually try to be helpful. Then extrapolate that attitude 5 years down the line to when you want to discuss some kind of problem with them.

Facilities less important, but vibe is all imo. And QPH's tip about whether you can envisage your child ending up like one of the school's 6th-formers. Also the academic range of the school from talking to other parents, there seem to be a lot of people hell-bent on shoehorning their child into the most academically starry establishment possible. I don't get that myself scraping along at the bottom of an academic powerhouse must be a miserable experience, but conversely, so is consistently being top of the class with minimal effort. I would be aiming to find a school where my child could be in the top 30% or so, so that they could feel they were doing well but would still need to make an effort achieve really good results.

We looked at loads of v. popular N. London schools, both state and private. Some were off-puttingly snotty when you phoned up with an innocent enquiry or tried to make it as hard as possible for prospective parents to look round (kind of understandable when you think they have 2000 people applying for 180 places, but still). At others we got the feeling that we weren't just yet another prospective parent and that they would go out of their way to care about the individual. Dd1 passed the exams for all the glitzy N. London grammars as well as the glitzy private schools we applied to, plus a scholarship or two. But the school we actually chose had a completely delightful head, comparable results to the big name selective schools despite a wider intake, and the feeling that they really cared about each girl there. I haven't had a moment's doubt since she started on Sept 5th.

hth

Frogs - I have a feeling you aren't too far from me, and I really like what you wrote about choosing schools. I'd be interested in your specific opinions if you wouldn't mind. If you could, would you CAT me. Would really appreciate as many opinions as poss! Bloomin nightmare.
BTW both state and private but realistically more interested in state. Thanks!

DominiConnor,

in many Boroughs there are very good state girls' only schools but not so good co-ed state schools and hardly any for boys only, let alone good ones.
So maybe some parents think if they can get a good education for their dd for free they don't bother to pay for a private school.

If you have sons, you'll often find that the best state school in your borough is for girls only (how helpful) and the next one down in the league tables which is co-ed is doing significantly worse than the state girls' school, which may be the reason for parents scraping the money together to pay for their ds's private education rather than for their dd's.
Not knowing if this is true, but in some cases I think it might be the reason. Not speaking for myself, have dss only and not enough money for private schools...
Also I found it funny that your FIL says "He laments that you can't charge the same for teaching girls as boys even though it costs nearly as much."
Really only nearly, so still a bit less, I'm wondering why this is the case, but then statistically boys probably have more learning difficulties and are maybe behind/lazier. Does he think they need more time/smaller classes or why does it cost more, even if it's only a little more?

DominiConnor,

in many Boroughs there are very good state girls' only schools but not so good co-ed state schools and hardly any for boys only, let alone good ones.
So maybe some parents think if they can get a good education for their dd for free they don't bother to pay for a private school.

If you have sons, you'll often find that the best state school in your borough is for girls only (how helpful) and the next one down in the league tables which is co-ed is doing significantly worse than the state girls' school, which may be the reason for parents scraping the money together to pay for their ds's private education rather than for their dd's.
Not knowing if this is true, but in some cases I think it might be the reason. Not speaking for myself, have dss only and not enough money for private schools...
Also I found it funny that your FIL says "He laments that you can't charge the same for teaching girls as boys even though it costs nearly as much."
Really only nearly, so still a bit less, I'm wondering why this is the case, but then statistically boys probably have more learning difficulties and are maybe behind/lazier. Does he think they need more time/smaller classes or why does it cost more, even if it's only a little more?

Haven't paid for CAT yet, posey, but will do so in the next few days and contact you then. Or you can CAT me, or post an email address. Alternatively several local mners have my email address (hoxtonchick, dino etc).

Cam, which school in Somerset?

My kids are at a private school which has boarders and day kids.

IME the older boarders seem to love it. The younger ones (junior) struggle as there are very few of them. We often have one of the youngest boarders back to ours as he get lonely.

I would go to as many schools as possible to get a feel of them. Your gut instinct will help. Also look at the interests of your child as many schools will specialise. EG: mine is a specialist music school and the one down the road is specialist in Sports. My school does not have loads of kids going for Oxbridge for example.

HI beetroot, not in Somerset we are South East rather than West.

Girls-only schools charge lower fees?

The one we're looking at has the highest (and its not Roedean Mabs, its the other one)

I'm loving those fees for Northern senior schools SueW and Loshad - those are the prep prices round my way.

RTkanga, you must surely live in the same town as me and Dannie then?

CAm, you mentioned a mate had sent their child to a school in somerset.

I went to an all girls school and found that I struggled to make friends with boys for sometime after I left. They were seen as the 'boyfriends' rather than mates iykwim.