Tiffin Girls Sixth form - worth the hassle

[tiffinmum]

DD is currently at Tiffin Girls in year 11 and was planning to go to the Sixth Form. She has recently revealed that she is unhappy at the school. She was excluded by some girls in her friendship group who are basically childish and pathetic. She is also sick of the bigoted attitude of some of her class mates e.g. a girl who wants to be a doctor thinking that being gay should be illegal; a girl wanting to go to a Carol Ann Duffy lecture not because she is interested in her poetry but to "see what a lesbian looks like".

She does not want to leave the school because generally the Sixth Form is successful at getting the girls good grades and the University of their choice, and she doesn't want the hassle of having to settle in somewhere else where there may already be established friendship groups. She also wants to carry on with DofE and World Challenge etc.

Does anyone have any positive experiences of TGS Sixth Form other than as an exam factory or should I encourage her to apply elsewhere?

My DD attended Tiffin Girls' a few years ago (she's now 27). She experienced similar friendship issues all the way through school up to and including year 11. When she moved into the 6th form these issues seemed to vanish with maturity and she was very successful, and now has a great job. My advice would be to stick with it.

That sounds pretty similar to my year 11 daughter at a bog standard, mixed, comprehensive!

The girls have different issues. The children are pretty good to be honest with acceptance of race, sexual preference and disability (possibly the advantage of a mixed state comp) but they don't aspire to make anything of their opportunities, they are disruptive and downright negative much of the time. Drives my daughter nuts.

I can't help with her choice but just wanted to say, immature attitudes exist everywhere!

I agree, she'd probably come across those attitudes everywhere. Are the ones who annoy her most likely to take the same subjects? I think the main thing at sixth form stage is actually whether she gels with the teachers for the areas she wants to study. My experience at tiffins, albeit many years ago, was that the 6th form was my favourite time. I got to be in smaller classes doing the subjects I loved, with really inspiring teachers who had bags of experience and advice, and mostly like-minded students. And the others, you just learnt to tactfully tell them where to go when you disagreed, a good skill to master in itself...