11+ Decision SHHS vs CLSG vs G&L

[NWMumofDD]

Hi Mums, hope you are well.
Our DD has received offers from South Hampstead High School, City and Godolphin & Latymer at 11+.
Would greatly appreciate any feedback if someone has been in a similar situation or has daughters at these schools.
Thank you so much!!

Not the same mix of schools, but dd had offers to other schools including G&L. She chose G&L and is very happy there. I suggest go to the offer holder events. If you like all the schools the same, let your dd select. Or look at distance, as less travel time is a bonus. Also, look at sports offering.

I’d choose by the distance to school, but other things being equal Godolphin seemed much more impressive than the other two.

My dc are v happy at city girls.

which is the best commute for you? A long commute is hard work

Thank you. Commute wise SHHS is the closest and most convenient. City is 40 min away.

SHHS is a phenomenal school and keeps getting better - if that's the closest it feels like a total no brainer? there's little between them... except if you want IB then it's definitely GL

We have / had the same decision, and have decided on G&L over SHHS. Feel free to DM if helpful.

Thank you, I have sent you a PM

We have similar choices including JAGS! I think we will go for City!

We have the same offers and have chosen City. Liked the sense of diversity there and a much easier commute for us.

Hi, got a City offer too and are seriously considering. Would it be too hectic 30-40 mins commute? That is our distance from school so just asking (:

30-40 min seems ok for a secondary school

Take SHHS , there’s very little academic difference between them. If SHHS is more local for you, just take it. It’s a lovely school, and many of the girls will live nearby. Don't know much about G&L so can't compare it this with the other two.

We also have an offer from G&L and are considering that vs Wimbledon High and Putney High. G&L is more academic but interested to hear from others that know it whether pastoral care is strong. I heard it assumes girls will be quite self motivated from start. Are all girls very driven from start? Or is there a diversity of profiles and does the school work with them to push them academically? I heard mixed stories so good to hear from people that may already be there or have done the research too.

We are going with G&L for full disclosure. DD's school tends to send quite a few girls every year, so we've been able to talk to parents with older DDs who are at or recently graduated from G&L. Pastoral care has come up regularly as a key benefit of G&L compared to similarly academic schools. Friends from DD's current school are about to send their youngest there, and had their two oldest attend and rave about it.

What did you end up deciding, if you got there already?

Hi, my daughter has been at CLSG for getting on to 6 years now and is very happy. The school has exceeded all expectations and she loves her school.

We also had an offer from SHHS, and during our visits, thought it was a lovely school - impressive facilities, confident girls. It is also closer to where we live, although I wouldn't say it's local to us, and this played a role in our decision. I felt the cohort of SHHS, was a little more local - a lot more girls from Hampstead and nearby areas, where as City seemed to attract girls from a much wider area. So we did feel our daughter was more likely to have friends locally as well as across London in comparison to SHHS. And this turned out to be the case. There were other factors - the heads talk, the perceived ethos of the school just resonated with us, but if we lived more local to SHHS I think the decision would have been harder.

G&L wasn't on our radar that time - didn't really think of commuting to Hammersmith, although in reality it would have been no different to City - just didn't know at the time. I do know girls from our area in younger years who do go to G&L, and like schools like City or NLCS, they seem to be casting their 'net' much further, especially due to their impressive academic results in recent years.

This was just our view, and I think first hand experience of SHHS would be more accurate than my perception. But given our experience at CLSG, I wouldn't change anything, and I'm sure most families from the other schools would say exactly the same about their experience.

Thank you so much for a detailed response. Proximity to SHHS is definitely making the decision harder.
We plan to visit the schools next week and then take a decision.
If I can ask, how long is the commute to City for you and does the school support initially with some older children in the neighbourhood?

For us, the journey door to door is about 45-50 mins. The school did have a buddy system where they would pair year 7s with older children. However we started in Sept 2020, so peak COVID period, and as a result they did not do this in that year. The school however did share a contact list of all new joiners, who had opted in to share details. As a result, we were able to form a group of girls nearby who were on the same train route, and these girls did stick together most of the time.

Of course this can't be guaranteed when there might be different after school activities (typically running from 4-5pm and there were also activities taking place before the school day started too at times) so it wasn't uncommon for my daughter to travel alone at times, but most of the time she would be with her travel group.