For those who chose boys' boarding preps with a view to boys' public boarding secondary schools... what did you choose for your daughters at primary?

[August20]

Given most girls' boarding schools start at 11, did you start your daughters at eleven? If so what did you pick for primary? Day school until 11? State primary?

Or did you go for a girls' boarding prep and 13+ start? That route seems thin on the ground. Or co-ed prep even with brothers at another school?

Girls are considerably more mature at 11 than boys and so, IMO, don’t need to experience the boarding at prep boys get in Y7 and Y8. I don’t have a boy but my daughter is off to boarding school in September at 11 and has just done a couple of nights flexi boarding at her current prep to “prepare”.

Pretty much every single girls boarding school now has entry at 11+ and 13+, with increasingly greater numbers starting at 11. If you have an idea of where you are considering then it helps. If you are aiming high (Wycombe Abbey / Downe House) then check out leaver destinations. Most London preps will be more than capable of preparing for entrance exams. It is arguably easier to get a place at a top girls boarding school that a top London day school but that’s not to say it’s a given.