Boarding schools with large sixth form intake

[Zodlebud]

Thinking about boarding school for sixth form for my girls (we can't afford all seven years). They will be going to an all girls independent day school up until GCSEs and then we are considering moving them if we feel they would thrive in that sort of environment. It's many years away at present but just trying to get a few ideas mulled over.

We are quite conscious that we wouldn't want to send them to a school with just a few new intake as especially at a boarding school there are likely to be many established friendship groups which may be hard to break into.

Girls only or co-ed, we are not particularly fussed, but would be grateful to hear which schools people would recommend for having a large intake and work particularly well at integrating new joiners.

Marlborough has quite a big intake I think. Not everyone's cup of tea of course.
Also look at single sex with coed sixth forms e.g, Charterhouse.

Generally the adjustment to single sex at sixth form if they have not been single sex before, can be difficult. The advantage of the boys schools which turn co-ed in sixth form is that there will be a big intake, all girls will be new so no need to break into established friendship groups, that efforts will be made to settle the new girls in, and that sixth form for the boys as well becomes a very different experience. Most schools will try to match the girl cohort with the boys. For some schools, sixth form is the normal entry point for overseas students, whereas the entry for the co-ed sixth forms tends to be more mixed.

Some posters, though often ones who don't have girls themselves, will rave about the benefits of full boarding. It depends on the girl and what you want from boarding, but sixth form seems to have been the point where sdeveral of the girls DD knew at Prep have left their boarding schools to return to London. It would be quite difficult for many 16 year olds to switch from a co-ed day school to, say single sex and the wilds of Wiltshire. I would tend to look at the larger boys/coed schools: Marlborough, Charterhouse, Sevenoaks etc where there is lots going on, or city based schools like the Leys in Cambridge, Teddies in Oxford, Kings Canterbury, or if bright, Westminster.

Thanks - some great advice on here. The independent day school we hope they will go to is in the heart of the countryside and quite isolated. Thinking that co-ed boarding would be a good way of bridging the gap before university. I had single sex to 16 and then co-ed sixth form and thought it was an ideal solution. By then I had enough confidence in my abilities to "hold my own" against the boys but was then also open to different opinions and thought processes the boys came up with. A long way off but wanted to look at our potential options.