Eton: what is the female equivalent, academically speaking?

[DiamandaGalas]

Eton:what is the female equivalent, academically speaking?

It would be interesting to compare IQ of boys passing to Eton compared with say Henrietta Barnet or whatever is the best UK state grammar school. I wouldn't have thought Eton was easier to get into. Or compare HB with North London Collegiate my daughter's old school. In terms of applicants per place at 11+ (when most children join from the state sector) it may be similar. In terms of exam results obtained NLCS does better. I would also like someone to chart life outcomes too which I think is something that matters too - how children end up 10 years or 20 years after they finish A levels depending on which type of school they went to. Obviously as an independent school paying parent I think even if you can get similar exam results from the very very few good grammar schools that remain in the UK even so over life the independent school pupils still do better. So it's worth paying.

Slightly off the point but I found the documentary 'A Boy Called Alex' a really excellent programme that showed Eton from the inside. What talent.

again, a bit of the point, but we had two wycombe abbey girls doing work experience with us and if they are anything to go by, its worth every penny

Yes, my daughter watched that programme and said it was good and I read about it.

I just have heard of so many people who went to my father a psychiatrist because of damage done to them at boarding school and seen others similarly hurt that I think you're better off in most cases at an academic private day school rather than boarding unless life at home would be dire, your mother has depression or your father beats you or they are not effective parents. However you look at it it's rejection and people build up a protective shell because of it - some or many of them from which they never recover and find it hard to form close emotional attachments in later life which is why we have bodies like the Boarding school survivor's association. Parent have less influence over the child too. I have lived/survived getting 3 children through the teenage years and of course at times you think it must be so easy if you outsource this but I don't think that's ultimately good for families. It leads to a kind of emotional separation between parent and child and children talk about - I survived it, I got used to it etc as if they've been in prison. Every year I used to ask groups of boys at Harrow if they'd send their sons there and many would not. This is why boarding school numbers have plummeted in the last 50 years because of the emotional damage wrought.

That's very interesting Xenia. The boarders at my sons' school are all 'naughty'. I always atributed my unease about 7yo boarders to my mum-instinct....I couldn't imagine not seeing my children during the week. However, the pastoral care at our school is excellent, the children are kept very busy by very nice House Parents.....it's just still a bit sad though. I think their 'naughtiness' must be a reaction to their circumstances.

That said, we have a lot of forces families and if their children couldn't board whilst their parents work, it would be a sad job. Needs must and all that.

I realise we need armed forces (although not everyone agrees that is so) but on a personal level I am not sure I'd work abroad apart from my children. I'd change jobs.

Where children come home every weekend may be that is not quite so bad but I do know a lot who feel they were rejected, that they survived, that it toughened them up, all phrases which indicate damage and loss adn they pull up the draw bridge, ensure they can't be hurt again because the people who love you send you away and find it hard to trust and love in the future. Obviously boarding at 8 is worse than at 13 and some children at 13 do say they love it but I also don't like the fact the parent loses more influence and if every girl in your house is 8 stone and making herself vomit or the ethos is you take drugs or smoke then there's nothing to counteract that and also if you're bullied as some children will be in every school you don't have the escape of going home to your own home and bed room every night.

The psychological damage is too high a risk to run when schools like St Paul's girls and others get better exam results any way. Also those of us who love our children want them around and about us.

Sorry, Xenia, just curious as to HOW you come to hear of so many people who went to your father, a psychiatrist, because of x, y, z?

Wouldn't that be confidential between patient and professional?

Or did you refer them?

it would be perfectly possible for her father to talk about their cases generally, without identifying individuals.

My sister and I chose to go to boarding school for sixth form (I needed that seperation, belive me!) and amoungst our friends there was a mixture of those who were "surviving" boarding school, those who loved being there, and those who had no strong views either way. Very few of my contemporarys seemed actively unhappy - certainly no more than at the academic day school I went to before hand. In fact there was more self-harming and alcohol/drug abuse at my day school, thinking about it. Having said that my brother, who went to boarding school at 13 is more of a survivor, and my cousin ran away from his school, and ended up leaving at 16 - the irony being that his father had hated going there (Harrow) too. But my mother and another cousin seemed to enjoy boarding school very much. So I suspect it depnds on the child, the family and the school. It's not something I would consider for my children, unless the school offered a lot more than could be accessed otherwise.

We used to come home for lunch until I was 10 and he drove us to school every morning until I left school. It was fascinating - I was at Durham jail today, or we had XYZ lady with OCD. Then Jung,Freud discussions in the car. The who had committed suicide. Not names of course. A really interesting childhood. Twice a week the private patients came to our house. He was extremely good about confidentiality. For 10 years he treated my friend's mother and I never knew until she told us when I turned about 18.

My sister in law ran away from boarding school and had a dreadful time. I agree with nooka that a good number end up fine but what a huge huge risk to run with a love child when NLCS/St Paul's etc get better exam results than Eton / Wycombe Abbey anyway, you can have your child at home and the grounds and facilities are often as good as many of the boarding schools. It just seems a stupid gamble to take with the most important thing we give our children - which is not brains or exam results but their long term mental health.

At sixth form it's unlikely they'd be too badly affected although I think it's nice to stick at your current school right through and moving at that level can make some "find boys" and go off the rails.

Wycombe Abbey is the most academic girls boarding school generally speaking. also socially quite smart (but not the top notch socially because most of the upper classes aren't bright enough to get in ). Next academically prob Chelt Ladies College but not at all "smart" socially - considered to be for bright professionals children and Hong Kong Chinese. Similarly St Swithuns but without the Chinese. Smartest schools for your bright and upperclass English girls are Downe House and St Mary's Calne, or St Mary's Ascot if you are catholic. All of these schools (except Chelt Ladies I suspect) have socials with Eton, Radley etc.
Smartest schools socially for your thicker child are Heathfield (as ever) (or Heathfield St Mary's as it now is called), and Tudor Hall.
Roedean and Benenden are nowhere socially at the moment, and not brilliant academically at the moment either.... lots of Chinese and Russians filling the places though.

Not that it matters because in 11 years time when your dd is going to senior school it will all have changed (except Heathfield will still be for the rich and thick)

Xenia in your insistence that St Pauls and NLC are the only sensible choices, you are SLIGHLY assuming that everyone lives in London. Which, surprisingly, they don't.

Heathfield in North Ascot - absolutely not!

what, not for the rich/smart or not for the thick?

oh and science teacher did you hear that 9 children at ludgrove failed CE into their senior schools of choice last year?
I agree completely with what you say about a "good" prep school head. If I was one of those parents I'd be asking for my money back

That's true but they wanted equivalents to Eton and I posted above which girls schools get better or the same exam results as a measure of equivalence. Only Wycombe Abbey has exam results which are equivalent. In the top 10 for girls is also Withington Girls Manchester and Perse Girls Cambridge, City of London school for girls, Haberdashers girls is 12, just below Eton. Intersting how many are in the South East. I suppose there are just more cleverer and better off people there.

Cheltenham is number 23 so not doing quite as well as Eton at 10. Downe house is is 45.

i do agree about the chinese issue. I know someone whose daughter found the only girls there at the weekend were Chinese and spoke Chinese and they had to rescue her every weekend not because she was against the chinese but because she wa sso outnumbered. It's partly because parents just realise how much psychological damage boarding can do so numbers have fallen off so has demand for places so it's easier to get a place even if you're not very clever and the schools have filled their places with children from abroad which to an extent always happened but is a bit out of hand unless they have some kind of quota system, bit like some of the local Indians (18%) of my borough who want an English private school which is mostly English not 98% indian - interesting issue.

I would take issue with Xenia's post at 10:14 this morning, which suggests girls at St Pauls are psychologically better off. I know many girls who are at St Pauls girls and are really suffering with the pressure to get straight As, be popular, have extra-curricula talents and be thin and perfect. IMO they are being robbed of their childhoods.

This is an interesting article about the effect of academically hot-housing teenage girls observer.guardian.co.uk/education/story/0,,967914,00.html

"I suppose there are just more cleverer and better off people there."

I think it is generally true that if you take house prices (and the capital value) into account, people are wealthier in the South and South East.

It is NOT true however to say that people in the South are cleverer than those in the rest of the country.

Yeah -we're all thick as s##t up here Xenia

So why are most of the schools state and private which get the best exam results in the UK in the SE area?

I don't know any St Paul's girls. I know the girls at Habs and North London where my daughters went and they're quite normal and nice but perhaps that's because they're not in central London or something?

St Paul's girls are terrifying

or they were when I was 15 and at one of their rivals

"So why are most of the schools state and private which get the best exam results in the UK in the SE area?"

It's not because people are cleverer in the South Xenia.

It's because of two factors. Firstly there are MORE people in the South which gives the critical mass for schools like this to exist. Secondly there is more WEALTH which enables more of the more people to pay for them.

They go to the best schools in the SE so they can grow up to be arsey on parenting websites and dispense pearls of wisdom to us plebs.

But according to Xenia the fact there is more wealth means people must be cleverer.

Just to correct something someone said: our nephews went to Eton and it was actually no more expensive than Marlborough or Harrow. The most expensive school used to be Millfield.

The elder one didn't find it particularly easy when he went to university or when it came to getting good jobs. I actually wondered whether he'd been coached beyond his natural abilities. He's a nice lad, though, not at all snooty and very easy to be with.