Recommendations for co-ed boarding schools

[ohmygosh123]

I'm thinking about options for DD who loves being outdoors, gets on very well with boys and girls, and often better with boys as she is quite sporty and likes to be able to run around. Hence why I am thinking co-ed might be a better choice than an all girls school. Also needs to be academic, but with friendly atmosphere and good pastoral support. Any ideas please, as I'm not that well versed on co-ed boarding schools that take girls from 13.

which schools are on your current list, ohmygosh, of those discussed here (or others)?

ohmygosh just a thought as your DD is sporty do check what sports they play especially in the winter. Some girls schools give them a chance to play on lacrosse and hockey and netball teams. At others you have to pick a winter sport. If you choose a lacrosse playing school and your DD is very competitive and wants to play on the lacrosse team but hasn't played at prep school it can be difficult to break into teams which have been formed since age 11. Schools like Wycombe Abbey, CLC and Downe House do have hockey teams but are known for the strength of their lacrosse. However, DH definitely support and encourage their hockey players. They have had hockey players in the county teams and tier 1 teams in the past few years.
Food at all the above according to my DD who has eaten there is fine.

It just goes HUGE! Public school hair is often fairly big anyway, but Uppingham hair is a whole new league. Again though, that is a huge generalisation.

No sausage rolls and beans that I know of for dinner, although certainly at Oundle the bigger meal is generally lunch and dinner, although hot, will be a bit lighter. So lunch might be something like shepherd's pie and dinner would be more along the lines of ravioli with tomato sauce. Lunch has a hot pudding and dinner has a cold cake-y option (flapjack or similar). Always fruit and yoghurt pudding options too, as well as salad and toast/spreads at dinner to supplement/replace the main option.

at "Uppingham Hair". I don't know any girls from other schools, so I don't know how it's different, but the Uppingham girls I know tend to have long hair, sometimes slightly bird-nesty. The ones with short hair stand out.

Good thought from goinggetstough about sport and making sure that the right ones are on offer.

And putthatcatout is right about finding the right school for you/DD. We looked at quite a lot of schools, and in our case Uppingham was the right school for DC (despite not fitting into the parent demographic described upthread ). It won't be the right school for other DCs for all sorts of reasons, just like other schools mentioned here weren't - in our view - the right school for our DC. We can all give you pointers based on our DCs and our (subjective) experiences of different schools (several DCs have left Uppingham since my DC started for various reasons, others have found it hard to settle/make the jump from prep, so their parents will probably have different views to mine about whether it was the right school for their DC).

When looking at schools, one of my criteria (and I had many others too) was thinking about whether I would want my DC turning out like one of the puplis who showed us around, assuming that the school would be wheeling out their brightest and best.

at Past Grace - she put it better than I did

They do have a proper lunch but supper/dinner is not good.

Ohmygosh, you're post on the previous page confirmed that Oundle would be fantastic for her.

My head is spinning quite frankly. Reality is at moment DD doesn't understand why girls spend their time being bitchy to each other. From being tiny I told her to go and play with the kids who weren't doing the you're my friend, actually no today you aren't my friend. So she ended up with the boys ... and has pretty much stayed there other than a few girls like her.

At the moment a school I really like the attitude of is QM - but I have a feeling it won't stretch DD enough in terms of competition. I still like the sound of Sevenoaks (but query IB instead of A-levels).

I have prejudices from my youth against Ampleforth & Sedgewick, and I'm not Catholic re A. Uppingham I am alternating about. Oundle I am going to look into.

And I think I really have to look into girls schools a bit more. At the end of the day if she hated it I can always take her out. Another poster on a different thread made CLC sound very good.

Another part of me is thinking, maybe relocate ...... find a day school, then if she encounters a load of bitchy teenage girls then at least she isn't there 24 hours a day. But she might change into a moody teenager, and then I'll be glad to let someone else do the discipline at boarding school!

OP, I switched from being at an all girls day school to co-ed boarding. I hated the bitchiness at my old school and always felt left out, and was constantly second-guessing my behaviour to make sure it couldn't be twisted into something else by the other cliques. I had lots of friends, but like your DD just found the constant bitchiness and friend-group switching exhausting.

Obviously wherever there is a group of teenagers, and particularly girls, there will be gossip and bitchiness, but I found it much better at boarding school. People realise very early on that you have to live in very close quarters with the people in your house and if you don't get on with someone you just have to deal with it. Pettiness and bitchiness doesn't help anyone. I suppose because at day schools you can always just go home and take your mind off it then it becomes easier to let the problem fester and then it is harder to tackle. That probably doesn't help you in any way, just thought I would add my thoughts.

Past Grace - thanks that does really help, because it is exactly what I don't want DD to go through. Like her, I just can't see the point of that kind of behaviour. I was never at a single sex school - but I have heard about it from others whose lives were made a misery - but one of those was WA, which is why I am also cautious about some girls boarding schools. Can I ask which co-ed boarding school you went to, and whether you would still recommend it?

Sevonaoks and the surrounding area used to be my old stamping ground and we've friends with DC's there and one who tried desperately to get her DS in all love it but in reality only weekly boarders which is fine if you live near by and there are excellent train links into London but beware.
I have boys but girls boarding Benenden very popular with friends and very girlie, WA I understand very selective but again popular.

Ohmygosh123, Have a look at this: recent school production West Side Story at Kings Canterbury

www.kings-school.co.uk

OP, I am not surprised that your head is spinning. Of the 283 independents schools in the UK that have a boarding community, there are 279 that are open to girls.

If you consider only schools where more than half the pupils are boarders, you would still have 95 schools to choose from for your DD if you are not limited geographically!

Thank you for starting this thread, the discussions have been very interesting and useful to me. My head is also spinning with trying to make a similar decision. As it is not possible to visit all schools that are on my long list, insights from others are invaluable.

I have managed to download a dataset on all 520 independent secondary schools in the UK that includes all sorts of interesting information including % of boarders at the school, % exit to Oxbridge/UCL, % of girls, number of pupils, etc, as well as nearest town and fees.

I have used this dataset to rank the schools by the size of the boys boarding community, which was a very useful exercise for me.

I would be happy to share this spreadsheet with you if you are interested, you would have to PM me.

The quality of the food - or even the way it is organised - is unfortunately not one of the variables that is recorded.

How do I check the quality of food on offer beforehand?!

Perhaps one way to get some insight could be to ask the opinion of the French department at the school?

Re: food this is mass catering! IME those who eat in a canteen style dinning room will have choice hot/cold/pasta/panini/soup/vegetarian those who eat "in house" probably don't have a choice although special diets are obviously catered for. With regard to the comment above about seeing boys in the Chinese again IME and as the mother of two teenage boys they can eat a sandwich then a meal and then some breakfast cereal then a sandwich then a bacon butty then some toast between 6 pm and bedtime and get into bed complaining of feeling hungary this is normal. Boarders may not have the facilities to eat like this and the Chinese/Indian is just round the corner. Another good reason to chose a school in a large town/city if you haven't enjoyed the food on offer you can always pop out to buy an alternative! I wouldn't let the quality of food affect my decision about schools. Now uniform.....

How can you not consider the food when considering boarding schools? It is a factor that I've certainly considered. I couldn't imagine sending ds to a school where the food was as some have described here.

I travel a lot for business and have to do trips to a wide variety of places around the world. The trips I look forward to are the ones where I know the food and accommodation are good. The others I endure. I would hate ds to think the same of his school.

I also hate schools that serve food on those horrible sectioned plastic plates. One of the reasons ds likes the school we've chosen is that they have 'proper plates'.

ohmygosh I was at Oundle, as was my DSis (6 years ago for her, 4 for me) and I loved every second of it. I had a much better time there than university actually - uni was a bit of a disappointment. I'd gladly send my children there.

My sister's friend went from our all girls day school to WA and loved it. Everything she told me about it made me want to run screaming in the other direction. My mum was at CLC (and hated it, but it was a long time ago - she swore she'd never let her daughters board but we wanted to) and said getting to university was a huge shock because she hadn't really ever socialised with boys and she felt very uncomfortable for her first term or two.

I suppose the tricky thing about schools is that you only really know if you made the right decision after you've made it (note, I do not say "after it is too late". There are always ways to fix a decision that turns out not to be such a great one). We have friends with 3 DDs who sent them to CLC. The eldest hated every second of it and begged to leave, they merrily ignored her and sent DD2 there who had a WONDERFUL time and couldn't understand DD1's attitude. DD3 liked it but was fairly neutral. That's three girls within a family who were all at the school within a 6 year period, without any major changes. I think you just have to go with your gut - YOU know your DD, you know what she likes and dislikes. I think you just have to start going to open days/requesting a look round and crossing some off the list based on how you feel.

MollieO this is the problem with everyone commenting on schools what is important to one doesn't matter to another. As I've said once before years ago we were on a group guided tour of one of the boarding houses at Win Coll a mother insisted on looking at the bathroom/loos initially the the house master thought she was joking when realising she was serious was frankly flabbergasted:
"Madam you don't decide whether or not to send your son Winchester College because of the bathrooms!"
I have never looked at a bathroom in my life I'm assuming hot running water and flushing loos are pretty standard in the 21st century what more do I need to know? Its a school not a five star hotel.

I have to say I do agree about those horrible plastic segregated plates I suspect these are common in canteen style dinning when there's lots of children to feed.

We saw them in a school with 140 pupils. Lovely school but it is what stuck in ds's memory. When I told him the school we'd accepted he said that he hoped it wasn't the one with the plastic plates!

I looked at the bathrooms too. Maybe I'm weird or maybe it was because we are looking at prep age and maybe I'll be less concerned about that stuff when ds is 13.

One of the things you learn after you've boarded your DCs for a while is that you have to give up trying to be in control especially of the small daily details. Forget worrying about five portions of fruit and veg a day etc. I find it a welcome relief someone more competent than I is on charge.

Pastgrace - your feelings about Oundle are the same as my DD about Oakham. She's at uni at the moment and while its OK "I sometimes wish I was back at school having fun".

Happy, I like your bathroom example, but the ohmygosh had asked for ideas on how she might check out the food beforehand. Doos was important to me, so here are questions that you might ask, based on some things I have noticed about how to spot food whether will be acceptable to the DC who has to eat up to 21 meals per week in one place:

1. Does the school/house regularly invite parents and other adults to dine? (DS2's prep school offers a standing invitation to any parent who is going to be in the area to book in to join the school for lunch).

1. What is the nationality of the head of catering At DC's school, the head is Italian and the food is generally acceptable, although "not as good as what I was used to", according to DC who enjoyed French food from the "maternal" upwards for 11 years.

1. From where is the food sourced? DS1 had complained for ages about food at his school. One day when I happened to notice a van from the local organic butchers pull up at the delivery entrance, I checked with the driver who informed me that he frequently delivers organic meat to the school, and that he believed his firm to be the main supplier.

1. What do the others say? Whilst DS1 had complained to me about the food, his House Master said that it would be hard to find anyone - either students or staff - that agreed with him. I asked around, and everyone told me that they liked the food.

The other statistics (such as exit to Oxbridge and %of boarders) that I have in my spreadsheet are clearly more important than any of the above.

I'm pretty laid back about what ds eats but I know faced with beans and sausage rolls as a combination he probably wouldn't eat it and would prefer to go hungry. Not a problem if the other meals are ok but a big problem if they're not.

At Oundle if parents looked round outside Open Days then they ate lunch either in house (this was if there were very few parents looking round) or they would be sent off to the "sixth form club" with a couple of pupils to eat lunch with any other parents who were being shown round.

If it's a school you are interested in then I would ask if you could look round and have a meal in house. I expect they'll be willing to let you. That's the only truly reliable way of finding out the quality I think.

MollieO - maybe you've already said, but where does your son go?

I think giving kids crap to eat is a lack of respect for their welfare - and sorry if I'm being offensive to anyone but in my book, other than party food, there is no place for sausage rolls as the main part of a proper meal - but I've been brainwashed by the French . Now chipolatas wrapped in bacon as part of a roast meal is obviously completely different! Then again DD's favourite food is proper veg, especially broccoli .... and french style cooked meat. Maybe I'd better not ask if the kitchens are being run by a french chef .......

Food isn't at the top of my list - but I think the kids should have a homely environment and be well cared for, otherwise I wouldn't feel comfortable sending her there. So yes, I do want her to have a decent (comfortable) bed, somewhere she feels comfortable washing in, a friendly housemistress/master preferably with a pet etc. And the school needs to stretch her academically hopefully to get her to Oxbridge or equivalent, encourage curiosity, and allow her to keep playing sport and doing music, oh and have great pastoral care. I'm starting to think I'm asking alot - but I'll be paying them nearly £30k a year FGS.