A good academic private girls/co-ed school with high proportion of state primary school intake in London, does it exist?

[LondonAutumn]

DD will be sitting 11+ exam this year. She is very academic from a state primary school in London. We are looking for academic independent schools that offer a broad intake in terms of means and social class. We want her to benefit from the private sector resources, but also not to completely lost the experience social diversity in her education. We are interested in London independent secondary schools that have a high percentage, say 50% or higher, of students from the maintained sector. We want to avoid schools that have a low state school intake. Is there any latest statistics on this for London schools? We are temporarily renting and can relocate as needed.

A good academic private girls/co-ed school with high proportion of state primary school intake, does it exist?

Have a look at City- a great school with a more diverse intake than a lot of London indies. I don’t know the proportion who come from state primaries though.

Anywhere with a linked Junior School is unlikely to have 50%+ joining from the state sector, to be honest.

City is a good shout, along with some of the GDST schools - WHS, perhaps?

Highgate and Latymer are both reasonably diverse in their intake for the independent sector.

City girls. They've long provided very good bursaries. St Paul's girls too.

..... but it won't be a diverse school if the majority of families are able to pay all or some of the fees for an independent school? I don't know of any private school which gives away half of its places as full bursaries. You're dreaming!

Wimbledon High School.

Christ's Hospital have an insane amount of bursaries. There are private schools that are more diverse than others though. Some are far more diverse than the sought after state schools. It really depends what you're after. Is it socio economic diversity or racial? If it's racial than the very academic independent schools tend to be quite mono cultural.

I was at a WHS open day recently and as I recall the head said the intake was usually around “a third a third a third” - a third from their own prep, a third from other private preps and a third state.

JAGS has a pretty strong bursary program - I think they said 20% on bursaries and aiming to increase? Also seemed fairly diverse racially.

I think Emanuel historically took a lot of state pupils (not nec 50%) but this may have changed with the new head.

As pp said there is a limit on how much financial diversity you can expect at a private school. You could look at grammar schools if any are accessible from you?

Very unlikely. Pie in the sky I would say.

They're are lots of state school pupils at most London Independent schools.
As have been said, the schools with junior schools won't have 50/50 but having had 2 children go to Senior Schools (with Juniors attached) from State Primary it really hasn't been an issue. My son in particular would not have a clue where any of his classmates went to school before.
Possibly the smaller central London schools may have less from State primaries but any of the GDST, Emanuel, Latymer Upper etc will have lots of from state primaries.

You probably can't find a private school in London with 50%+ state primary school intake, let alone the top ones.

As some PP mentioned, some schools take large junior school cohort, some schools has long history to take the majority from a handful of prep schools. Even some school claims their 11+ intake is 50:50 from state/private sector, you will find the overall it is much less than 50%.

I'm surprised to hear some schools mentioned, which located in the affluent suburbs, will have high proportion of state school intake. I think at best those school will have 30% state in some years and probably 20% on average.

I would suggest you ask the school admission office directly. They normally quite open about this based on my experience. And check the school website too, if they have sizable state school intake most likely they will advertise it in website as it is great publicity.

There are some top private schools with around 40% state school intake in London, that is the highest number you can find I'm afraid.

Also - don’t forget that state primary doesn’t necessarily mean the family is less well off. Near me in SW London there are some state primaries where the usual catchment area consists almost entirely of £1.5m+ houses.

OP- have you looked around any schools yet? If your DD sitting 11plus this Autumn?

City, Latymer Upper, Emanuel.

Kingston Grammar School?

City Girls - around 35%-40% max
Latymer Upper - around 35%-40% max

A lot of other schools will have lower proportion than these 2 schools including the GDST ones.

I am not able to find a school more than 45% in London.

In terms of co-eds, both Emanuel and Latymer upper have a high number of state school pupils and both offer bursaries so kids come from all sorts of backgrounds.

Agree with what other posters said - City girls (CLSG) has relatively higher proportion of girls coming from state primaries

In 2021 we did the 11+ school rounds, mostly West London (except SPGS), and asked this question in various open days. CLSG at the time said about one in three girls in their 11+ cohort are from state primaries.

When visiting the school, we also felt CLSG had a more ethnically diverse student population, certainly not as diverse as London population, but closer to it than other London selective indies.

This is probably because the school has a much larger bursary than its peers in London (you can look up the bursary fund size from charity commission report for most schools).

All other schools we visited had much smaller share students from state primaries -- between 10 to 20%, with much less diversity.

But since then, I have found that in some schools and year groups, the number is sometime even less than 10%. So the numbers mentioned by the schools in open days, or in good school guide, are broad approximations.

(Just to be clear DD is not in CLSG)

OP I’d ask the schools, not just for the past year but for the last five years. You want to know if last year was a blip, and what the trend is (if any).

FWIW, I heard on the parent grapevine that SPGS took a larger than usual number of state primary entrants last year (ie the cohort about to go into Y8) and was around 40%. But I don’t know if that’s correct.

I just wanted to add, % coming from a state primary is by no means a sign the school is diverse! Tons of kids in preps who are far less well off than those in middle class state primaries. Coming from a state primary does not mean you're 'poorer' or less snobby. In fact the opposite is sometimes true.

"I heard on the parent grapevine that SPGS took a larger than usual number of state primary entrants last year (ie the cohort about to go into Y8) and was around 40%"

It is unlikely, when asked it is about 25% and some years towards 30%. But yes better to ask the school directly.

You need to ask private vs State at 11+. City, Latymer Upper, Emanuel, JAGS seems to fit your profile and wishes.
The others schools are less but may have more state intake at Sixth Forms to bring numbers up.
Note:there are bilingual French Lycee tied with state primary schools, so not as diverse in culture or socioeconomic as expected.

Two dc at Latymer Upper, a lot of state primary kids at 11+ and a huge number on bursaries throughout the school. I forget the percentage but easy to check with the school.

JAGS is a third from each of their own prep/ other preps/ state schools. They are also pretty good on bursary provision and the Head is keen to make applications completely needs blind in the future.

But, I'd hardly say the intake is massively socially diverse. More solidly middle class, whether the parents have the money to pay fees or not. And coming from a state primary doesn't mean that you are automatically on a bursary. I have no idea which of DD's friends are bursary students or not and wouldn't want to hazard a guess.

Definitely Christ's Hospital! It's not in London but is commutable and is a boarding school. The student body is very diverse and the majority of students are there on a bursary. It's very academic but also has amazing drama/music/art/sport facilities!

My DD’s year at a very expensive school is around 50% from state schools. However, they all come from the very leafy and naice areas of north London (Hampstead, St John’s Wood, Islington etc) where they were able to take advantage of great state primary schools.

Whether or not they went to state school is therefore irrelevant as they pretty much all come from very monied families. There is good diversity there though in terms of both ethnicity and religion.