Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Independent girls schools - which co-curriculars does yours offer?

5 replies

Extraafterschool · 08/12/2023 09:56

I'm trying to get an idea of what would be a reasonable amount of clubs to expect after school for a girls boarding school? I know dd is bright but she hasn't got any favourite clubs and will be joining a private girls as a boarder in Y9 in September. I really would like her to use as much of the facilities that the school offer and on the open day it looked as though there was a lot to do. They have given a rough list of clubs but it isn't clear what she can pick from yet. I was hoping some ladies here might be able to advise what would possibly be on offer (I know not all schools are the same but as a general)? Do they do them for an hour after school? Her grammar option only had lunchtime activities which were half an hour, but I would really like her to have a proper hobby as at the moment she is all academics. Is there a limit on how many activities private schools allow them to take each week, for example? And how much do they cost? Sorry for all of the questions - I really just want to give her as many opportunities as possible.

OP posts:
twistyizzy · 08/12/2023 10:03

At DDs school the lessons finish at 4pm and then there is a compulsory hour of after school activities. In Yrs 7 + 8 this is a carousel of a vast range of things from cookery to chess to debate clubs. All free of charge.
From Yr 9 they can choose but have to have 1 activity per day and have to have a mix of physical, mental and then something they are interested in.
No lunchtime activities apart from choir practice if they choose to join the choir.
Every school is different so you are best off asking the school.
Boarders get additional activities ie 1 hour prep time, tea then evenings alternate between free time using the facilities of the school, and organised activities.

tennissquare · 08/12/2023 10:11

@Extraafterschool , why don't you re-post in the boarding school section with the name of the school?

Extraafterschool · 08/12/2023 10:20

Thank you @tennissquare - I am off into a meeting now but will post it there later as well.

OP posts:
DornfordYates · 10/12/2023 00:54

DDs boarding offers ‘paid extras’, which are tutored lessons, in a very large range of sports, from fencing to riding and golf to tennis. Cost is what you’d expect to pay for similar lessons outside school and depends greatly on the number of students in a group. E.g DDs golf lessons are cheaper than her tennis lessons because they’ve got about 10 girls in each golf group but tennis is individual or pairs. School recommends 2-4 of these per week and is generally after school and prep, before supper.

In addition the school offers an enormous amount of societies which is organised entirely in house, some by the girls, others with teachers on their spare time. This varies from French poetry society and debating to geography society and the film club.

DD doesn’t play any instruments; that again is of course offered as paid extras in seemingly anything from triangle to glass armonicas.

End result is that DD has about 4 minutes of spare time each week to call home… The girls at DDs school generally like to be active.

Extraafterschool · 10/12/2023 07:43

Thank you @DornfordYates - that is what I am hoping for. I kept hearing horror stories of other schools with boarders with no clubs and boarders left in dorms bored. I made sure we found a school with a lot of boarders for this reason as it seems to be the smaller boarding schools that can't offer much. I've posted in the Boarding topic now for some more specific information but thank you so much for your post.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread