Please could we have a heated debate on the best girls' school in the land? Or does mn education board only really deal with boys' education?

[malefridgeblindness]

I've just read the latest eton-wincoll fight thread. It puzzles me why so many of the threads here are about boys' education. So much care seems to be taken to ensure our sons' have the perfect balance of academia and sports, music and drama, but I haven't seen the same debate about what's best for our daughters. I've never seen the sort of evangelism about girls' schools you see about eton and wincoll.

What's happening?

The MOST famous is St Trinians.

If you believe your DDs to be bright and resourceful then surely you don't need to spend time and money agonising over sending them to the best school. Admittedly there are a few local comps I wouldn't send my kids to to but, generally, bright and motivated kids can do well anywhere.

It also gives the DC extra confidence when they achieve on their own merits. One of DD2s A level teachers is more than useless - something I'm sure wouldn't happen at a fee paying school. Rather than throwing money at the problem DD has undertaken to self teach herself. It looks like she will get an A or A*. That's the type of thing that builds a child's character.

DD1 does medicine and is surrounded by ex private schools students. Maybe some of them wouldn't have been able to get into medical school if they hadn't gone to private school. It's impossible to know but it certainly didn't hinder DD1 that she went to a comprehensive school.

We took the view that ours would go to state schools unless there was a problem. We haven't even bothered with tutoring. If you are lucky enough to have bright kids then there is nothing wrong with leaving them to get on with things on their own.

Kingscote FTW. Natch.

I have a very spoft spot for NLCS.

We lived just a bit too far when DD was 11, and anyway she had her heart set on a non selective girls school.

Now she's in year 11 and fancies a move. We did the tour of NLCS and again I loved it, but DD went for Westminster.

I'm a bit nervous about co-ed, but at 16, I figure it's not my call.

Gently it wasn't posh, it was a direct grant grammar with 50% on city scholarships, 20% on county scholarships, and the remainder means tested. Nobody was tutored, entry was via something called the Thorne scheme that was teacher assessed except for those at the borders. It had a very broad social mix and fed from primary schools in some of the most deprived areas of the city as well as the middle class suburbs. The education was good, excellent even, academically and in terms of results but delivered in a way calculated to suppress initiative and confidence. It did a good job for a while in delivering mobility but in terms of getting girls to university, the positive female role models were of teachers and academics, not people in the highest positions in government, business or media elites, the return of the fiery politician was an uneasy alliance.

This thread though is about why no girls schools have a brand similar to that of Winchester and Etonian so we are talking about an entirely different sort of animal, one that serves the "elite" to the extent it is a household name and could deliver role models in powerful positions in society.

Edith well the source of both Roedean, and CLCs notoriety for most people in the UK of my generation would not be their academic reputation but in deeply sexist songs and jokes, not exactly the Eton boating song, which is part of the feminist perspective we have been highlighting, another symptom of patriarchy. And have you actually looked at any league tables recently, quite a few other girls' schools vie with JAGs.

olive

The problem with your theory is that actually most kids aren't as bright as yours!

olive I have bright kids.

I don't want them to self teach. I had to do shit like that at school. You say it's character building; it's not. It's crap. I'm sure your DD knows it's crap.

What is the pint of money, if you can't spend it on your DC? I'm not too worried about what they'll end up doing at 30. I'm bothered about their daily lives.

Just some thoughts from a family making current choices:

When we looked around, we thought NLCS looked pretty amazing. We liked the sporty-ness at Habs. SPGS and Wyckham Abbey were too far away and far too expensive for us to even contemplate. Like many younger London families, we live East because the West just got too expensive for us.

We settled on CLSG, it has a buzzy, nurturing, down to earth feel. The mix of students seemed to represent greater London, and best of all we do not need to move house.

DD will have to commute to school everyday by tube though. So we asked her to carefully consider the quite good coed school she could easily walk to. After the open morning at the coed school, she was more sold on CLSG than ever.

We asked her how her taster session was. She told us it was full of rowdy boys showing off and demanding all the time and attention. She just wanted to get away from all that. I understood. The coed school used to be a boy's school. And really, it felt like a boys school that let a few girls in to calm things down, but hadn't really changed it's traditions or ways of operating at all. I think this must be common. Girls are so good at disciplining themselves and getting along that no one has to think about what they really need or putting them first.

She's been expected to be calm, patient, helpful and forbearing for 7 years now. I think she relishes the idea of being rewarded and catered to and focussed on, rather than taken for granted.

I have no concerns about pressure or mental health disorders. She's intelligent enough to keep up without straining, and I've looked closely at the staff there and believe they are intelligent, committed adults who will treat her and the other girls as ends not means.

Poisonwood
The really famous alumnus has been known to edit her name out of the Wikipedia page and never ever attends school events.

The pretty well known one admits to having been to the school but says nothing at all about it.

The one who was in my year was rude enough about the teachers that they do not invite her back!

Malory Towers never seemed to get anybody into Oxbridge - it was always St Andrews. Kingscote, otoh, did.

The Chalet School had a fairly good Oxbridge record too. And they got students into the Sorbonne. I'm going with the Chalet School.

Talkinpeace. Maybe your fellow school 'alumni' would have preferred to have joined me at 'la Manche' in 1985..... 'Probably the worst school in all of England'......

I find it a little distasteful that people who despite their own opinions , have had educations that are/were unavailable to 95% of the population call their exclusive education.

Theresa May - private catholic school and then state grammar - not heard of either.
Nicky MOrgan - Surbiton High School private
Justine Greening - a comprehensive not heard of
Theresa Villiers - Francis Hollland School - London independent.
Elizabeth Truss - a comprehensive and a school in Canada.

So no pattern there for schools.

I think most people do though find their friends supportive when they are at university and beyond in at least discussing careers - I know my daughters do so if you have friends at places of work you might go to or can give you a bit of advice about a particular company that can help. I don't think however that most women or men get good jobs in good places these days for which they aren't qualified just because they went to school with someone.

jeee
Yikes. Your joke about the Chalet school and then the Sorbonne made me look something up.
Several members of my family went to the real equivalent !

smokepole
This particular thread is about all girls schools of the private variety.
The fact that I did not enjoy mine does not alter the fact that I went there.

And as I've pointed out on another thread, the fact that I went to an ultra exclusive London gels primary was not really my decision because I was 3 when I started there.

TalkinPeace Ooh... what was the real equivalent? Please tell me that your family members all married doctors and had 12 children apiece, including quadruplets.

I'll fess up to being a bit pumped up from doing some stats for another thread and then I saw TP here and thought I'd drop them in (knowing they'd get a thorough ripping apart).

Perhaps a broader point and a bit "league table" focused but some detail on what we all knew about certain "types" of schools and their outcomes.

MN164
Ooh, that table is lovely. Made me go all Pi inside. Any chance of messaging me a link as it raises far more questions than it has answers !!

jeee
No medics in my family, or large families. Bear in mind none of the people involved were British

TP

All I did was use the DoE KS5 file on their website and sort/count then summarise. I'm not on my laptop and can't do it on my cheap phone. I'm sure you know the excel file I've used....

I'm glad you like it, but nervous of the laser light you're going to shine on it....

have lots of work to do MUST NOT start playing with dfe tables
but DFE tables are so much more fun than audit
think of the money TiP, get off MN

TheWordFactory
You are right the crappy teacher is really crap and my DD would much prefer it if she had a good teacher or at least a vaguely competent one I'm sure she would enjoy her lessons a lot more.

However, she still likes her school and does not regret going there at all. We would have happily sent her to a private school if she had wanted. My DC were all offered the option of going to private school but they all choose the comprehensive. My DD would be the type of person to enjoy herself wherever she went.

We are fortuanate in that we could afford private school. The cost wasnt a factor in our decision although the fact that we have saved hundreds of thousands (we have four DC) is nice. They can (and do) use the cash for university, cars or housing.

The point of my original post was that I think some parents need to relax and stop overthinking the kids lives as most reasonable intelligent kids can do just as well at an ok comprehensive than at a private or grammar school. Obviously it helps a lot if the kids are self motivated and bright and have parents who are a little clued up.

All of the schools mentioned on this thread, perhaps with the exception of St Trinians are clearly excellent schools I wonder why posters see any need to try and work out which is best. It seems a bit pointless and a bit self indulgent.

Olive I am with you on your last post here but I am with Word in that if my DC were having to self teach I would be putting them in a private school at a moments notice.

As it is, in Hudson county my kids can elect to go to a school in a different district than they are zoned for. There are some excellent schools in neighbouring towns which my DC can apply for and there is no cost to us for them to go there. There is no need to go private in the way that was necessary in the North West in the 90s and I don't think my kids will be academic enough for a school like Marymount, but if they are then it is something I would consider. I will still consider schools in the UK and Denmark when my kids are older depending on where we are living at that time. Its funny that when I looked at the boarding schools here in the US I was left very underwhelmed. I can see why so many parents in Asia send their kids to British boarding schools.

There is also the small issue of college costs here in the US. DH's boss has just spent $750k putting his 3 DC through college. One wants to go back and do medicine which will cost him an additional $250k. He is also buying a house for his daughter who decided to go into teaching. Loves her job but on $35k a year there is no way in a million years she will ever survive on that salary. He is looking at buying her a multifamily home in a good area so she can have additional income from that. Cost is $750-$1 million. When DH told me I laughed that it made medical school for the 1st child look cheap!

TP

Why do you need money?

mmmm tables of stats ..... mmmmm

MN164
I'm self employed so have to think of my accounts in between playing with numbers.
And I do deal with HUGE number sets at work (ten year population samples across 9000 locations) so its a busman's holiday

But back to the thread
There are is only one all girls school in this area that I would consider sending a child to, but its Catholic.

Sounds like Uber number crunching, Actuarial perhaps?

If one of the successful school "types" is not available to a person I'd expect that person to be either disappointed or in denial that it is better. The issue is that if all schools were made comps (or whatever flavour) I don't believe things would change that much. It's a theory without evidence or to call it by its technical name "hogwash", but it's my hogwash.

Politics !

But as your little table makes clear, selective schools get better A level results.
That comes under the bear shit in the woods brand of stats.
But for most of the population, all of the school types are not available
so the outcomes for their kids are not directly comparable

eg
round here there are no single sex state schools other than the one girls catholic school

Best school - Sevenoaks. Hands down