Old Palace School

[Selina]

Has anyone got any personal experience ( good and bad) with Old Palace for secondary /GCSE/careers support/A levels ?
I am considering it for DD.She is at a local GDST junior school and we think she will benefit from a change to a school with more co curricular activities and diversity .
We are considering LEH,Surbiton and Putney High ...

No personal experience other than dd went to the open day and loved it but I think it's too far for us. That's a huge geographical spread of schools ..

Ds is at one of the Whitgift foundation schools and they are very well run with masses going on so I would have thought Old Palace would be similar

A family member's daughter goes there. Seems very happy with it and never heard them complain. Daughter academic, but also loves cooking and the school seems to celebrate both. It's the easier of the independent schools to get into I believe. Never heard anything bad about it and it's relatively local to me.

If there is anything specific you wanted to know, let me know and I'll ask her?

I'm surprised Croydon High (another GDST like Putney) isn't on your list? Unless it is the local junior school you wish to move from? I would put Croydon high, Old palace and Putney at similar levels attractiveness in terms of academic and extra curric activities.

Croydon high is very diverse and has a massive range of clubs. Sport is big but don't send if not academic. Old Palace and Royal Russell take from a wider academic pool (ie, a bit less selective) but this is just what I've heard. Putney is very very selective and competition is pretty fierce I think. Depends whether you want mixed or single sexed really. What about Caterham? Wallington Girls?

My DD is at Old Palace and loves it. There is a great range of co-curricular activities. We chose it over Caterham because we liked how diverse it is, and we chose it over Royal Russell because it is more academic and had a wider range of subject choices, especially in languages. And the buildings are fantastic -- really inspiring to be taught in beautiful surroundings. The careers support is impressive. They all do the Morrisby profile in Yr 10 and there is a dedicated careers advisor who is really helpful.

Yes, I was a former student at this school and had an appalling experience. I was bullied at one time by the entire year and the teachers watched out the window during the entire incident. None of which came to stop the bullying or to help me. To make matters even worse, the headmistress used this incident to falsely claim that some troublemakers were involved so she could expel them, leaving the actual bullies well alone because their grades were good. This cause more bullying. I was too young to defend myself. This is an appalling school, please do not send your children there. Many girls were also predicted completely different grades to what they actually achieved and as a result did not get any university choices. I can’t believe my parents actually paid for me to go there. Sorry if you don’t agree, but this was my experience here.