Which independent girls' school is the classiest in the UK?

[capstix]

This is just a hypothetical question. Both my kids are now at university. But purely out of interest, I would love to know which girls' school or schools people think are the poshest, classiest, most revered, most elite in the country. Please also let me know why you think so.

This is just a 'for instance' and I hope it doesn't cause any offence!

Ones I can think of in the top echelons would be (in what I think is a possible order):

Cheltenham Ladies'
St Mary's Ascot
Downe House
St Paul's Girls
Wycombe Abbey
Benenden
Heathfield
Tudor Hall
Sherborne Girls
Roedean
Francis Holland SW1
St Mary's Calne
Francis Holland NW1
St George's Ascot
St Swithun's
City of London Girls
James Allen's Girls' School (Jags)
Queen Margaret's
Woldingham School
Godolphin
Godolphin & Latymer
The Lady Eleanor Holles School
Malvern St James

Queen Margaret's - in Edinburgh? Just MC I think, quite academic

I think she means Queen Margaret’s School for Girls near York, which is middling academic but very smart.

I'm amazed you all know so much about schools. I'd say CLC was the poshest as I've heard of that one. That's about it.

Pulled DD out of Woldingham after a long family association with it. It wasn’t academic enough for her and they were incredibly pretentious - they tried to get us to dress up ‘as for Ascot, but without hats’ for an Open Day once to listen to some rambling speeches and a quite frankly awful school orchestra in a tent, and then we all clapped girls who had got the same broadly OK GCSE results that they would have done at a local comprehensive. Their idea of extra-curriculum activities was taking the girls shopping in Surrey at the weekend, every weekend. The girls DD brought home to stay were generally a bit silly and parochial, couldn’t cope with adults, did that whispering behind the hands thing, very irritating and DD dropped them for more sophisticated friends after she left. Probably a great school for the female equivalent of Tim nice but dim IMVHO. But really not that smart any longer.

@1Wanda1

I attended one of the schools in the list. No one who went to any of those schools would ever discuss schools by reference to which was the "classiest". If by "classiest" you mean which is the Eton/Harrow equivalent that Russian and Chinese billionaires would like to send their daughters to because it is perceived as "elite", probably Cheltenham Ladies' or Wycombe Abbey.

Same, one of the day schools. The emphasis was on academia rather than how many companies daddy owned. I am still close to my school friends and they are the types to be able to chat to anyone and put anyone at ease.

I don’t think there is an equivalent to boys schools because the old school tie doesn’t operate in the same way.

When I was at school in London social cachet depended on going clubbing, but the school didn’t teach anyone how to get into those kinds of clubs.

Woollystockings, if we were looking for a girls’ boarding school now I would be very careful to choose somewhere where U.K. students were clearly im the majority. If you look at places like CLC they increasingly are crowded out by girls from Shanghai and Beijing, some of them out of their chronological ages groups, so as much as 2-3 years older than British girls in the same class. If there are only a limited number of British girls boarding, it makes visiting other pupils at weekends and in the holidays hard, and girls get quite isolated. Also if there are no other families near to you using the school, there’s no possibility of car shares. It becomes a much more transactional form of education.

One thing to bear in mind - if Russian sanctions kick in, some of those schools are massively over-exposed and they might keel over, especially if there’s a shift in Chinese recruitment patterns at the same time. Always choose a school with a diverse income stream!

So glad I live in a country where this old boys school stuff doesn't exist. Yes some schools are private and schools have differing reputations but putting a national list like this together would be impossible.

I know someone who went to Francis Holland and then onto Wycombe Abbey - she's a complete and utter snob, thinks money can buy you anything you want and that working-day rules don't apply to her.

"Daddy has an 19million pound mansion which I live in rent free, how could people be struggling on minimum wage; they just need to manage their money better".

She's been hell to have as a colleague.

Whilst I doubt she represents the entire alumnus population of both of those schools we are currently looking and neither FH school is on the list of potentials.

It's interesting how OP has specified "Girl's Schools" yet there's a few posters trying to add Co-Ed to the list.

@Jazzy1000

So glad I live in a country where this old boys school stuff doesn't exist. Yes some schools are private and schools have differing reputations but putting a national list like this together would be impossible.

It’s not really possible in the U.K. either.

It might still be applicable for boys, but the very academic girls schools on the list won’t get you anywhere without a good degree or existing non school related connections, and the non academic boarding schools won’t mean anything outside a very small social circle.

My DDs (Scottish) all girls boarding and day school is not on the list. 2 princesses there at the same time as them but nobody would describe it as 'classy' for goodness sake!

@DPotter

You forgot to list Queen Anne's - very scary VIth formers in Chanel style suits and 4 inch stilettoes. Apparently old girls have the right to marry at Westminster Abbey (or possibly St Paul's ?!)

This is the kind of random trivia I came on for. I’m imagining Devil wears Prada

Are "Finishing Schools" still a thing? A year Switzerland learning cookery and etiquette?

I’m sure they exist somewhere (and somebody is probably making a TV show about it for Channel 5), but would guess that the customers are non U.K.

@SleepyRoo

Oh and Queen's Gate in Kensington. My friend went there in the 80s and had to share a dorm with Susannah Constantine (of Trinny-and-fame. She also dated Prince Andrew, natch). Susannah was a QG prefect, sadistic, and wore white jodhpurs at the weekend

I think it was David Armstrong Jones, not PA whom she dated.

I remember I had my interview for Oxford University and whilst waiting I hung out with three other girls. Two of these girls had been to fee paying schools and when they found out I went to a comprehensive they hung out exclusively with each other and ignored me. They didn't get into Oxford, and they certainly weren't classy. What do you define as classy, OP? Being a bitchy snob, but not not particularly bright so trading off the caché of the educational institution that their parents can afford to send them to? I also remember another girl I went to primary school with who was sent to a fee paying secondary school and she was thick as shit and a bully. You can't buy class, OP.

“Smart” surely, rather than “classy” is how anyone sending their kids to these schools would describe them!

“Godolphin & Latymer - isn’t this a boys school?”

No, you are thinking of Latymer Upper which is also in Hammersmith and co-ed.

G&L is one of the top girls’ academic schools in the U.K. with similar results to SPGS.

If the criterion is royalty alumnae, then at the moment the leaders are probably St George's, Ascot and St George's Windsor. Princess Beatrice and Ladies Rose and Davina Windsor were at St George's, Ascot, Princess Eugenie and Lady Louise Windsor were at St George's, Windsor but Louise went on to St Mary's, Ascot. Princess Anne was at Benenden.

City of London girls school is one of the last posh private schools around. It’s academically excellent but has amongst the lowest fees in London and it has a high number of bursaries. The children come from all over London but the majority from completely ordinary middle class families who are far from connected or extremely wealthy, it’s also very multicultural but not in an oligarch or rich Chinese way, just representative of the make up of London.

I mean least posh not last posh

@Avocadobacardi Agreed, it regularly tops lists as the most diverse school within London out of fee paying schools.

I do think it has class though, just not the type of class the OP is referring to. It's exceptional.

Just a FYI James Allen Girls is known locally by kids from other private schools as slags (JAGS).

These school are all so very different.
Mayfield is a good all round school, quite gentle and certainly not a hot house.
A lot of the schools higher up ‘the list’ are very pressurised, incredibly pushy, and a lot of girls need help when they leave/or when they are, with psychological and eating disorders.
If you are not super smart you will be left struggling on an academic, mental health and social level.
It’s actually very sad.

A lot of parents spend ££££ on extra tutoring to enable them to keep up with the other girls, but usually to no avail.

The motto is chose a school that suits your own daughter. One size does not fit all.