URSULINE HIGH WIMBLEDON

[Womblewimble]

Looking for feedback on URSULINE girls HIGH school wimbledon please. Can any past or especially current parents share how their dd are getting on? Does it have strong academics since the change of head? What are the girls generally like here, well behaved or not? If your from a non Catholic background esp keen to hear how your dd has found it.

I'm so conflicted, the site looks good- alot of seperate buildings for the girls to navigate but facilities seem ok- the only other school I viewed were ricards and nonsuch so I'm comparing to those.

Girls behaviour outside fo school really seems to be at conflict with the Catholic ethos of the school at times but I'm not sure if that just teenagers being teenagers! Or if there a more widespread lack of discipline in the school atm?

Are the girls pushed academically enough here?

Please provide feedback if you can, a desperate mum here not knowing what's best for her dd!

@Smoothie23

I've had 3 girls go through the school.
It's excellent. Very, very popular and the GCSE results are very high as are the A Level results.
High emphasise on religion as you would expect from a Catholic school.
You have to have baptised your daughter before the age of 6 months and you have to have a letter of support from your local priest along with proven church attendance to get in
You will NOT get in otherwise. Admission criteria rules aside. You just won't.

@OP look at their website, the retreats are in the calendar. Twice in year. By retreats I mean analysis of Gospel by the priest.

Please read the section Catholic Life in the menu section here it is very elaborate.

In Catholic schools they don't teach only a lesson of RE per week, which focuses only on judaism and Christianity in Catholic schools, but there is an additional cathehism lesson. They also take it at GCSE. Look at the curiculum here

@Elledeco

You will NOT get in otherwise. Admission criteria rules aside. You just won't.

Exactly.

Just to say that Catholic schools are just that - very, very Catholic. There will be masses, the local priest will visit, and although they will learn about other faiths there will be a strong focus on what catholics believe and this will be presented as the truth. RE will take up 10% of the teaching time. Other schools may teach religion but really not in the same way.

i dont think its quite true that all/most the trips are to religious sites though?

I also agree that if you child is non-Christian your chances really will be very low indeed. Not nil. But very very low. Also there will be very few/no non-Christians in the school so you do need to think about how that will feel for your child. It’s very ethnically and socially diverse but pretty much everyone will share the same beliefs and have the same points of reference

A non catholic girl on our street got in last year at the very last minute (just at the start of September) from the waiting list. She’s enjoying it.

Can I please ask about the 6 months point? I can't see that on the current admissions criteria - do you know if that is definitely still the case? Thanks

I couldn't see it in the admissions criteria, either. And it's not something like the 'to the best of my belief' bit in the form that the priest signs off wrt Cathplic practice, in that there is guidance for the priest as to.how they should form that belief - when you were baptised is when you were baptised.

If the school really is ranking applicants by anything other than its published admissions criteria, any applicant affected by this should have a very good chance of having an appeal upheld.

Are you very close to the school? Is it by distance?

Or perhaps is she practising Christianity but another form ie, CofE? I've heard that can help!

Loads of Muslim girls attend my local single sex Catholic school here in the North East..

Over a mile away and not Christian but another faith. I think they had a last minute vacancy and she was on the waiting list (most people drop off the waiting list by September I expect) so got lucky. Anecdotally I have heard the local Catholic community has reduced somewhat since covid/Brexit but I have no idea on numbers. This gives some info https://www.merton.gov.uk/education-and-learning/schools/admissions/recent-years but the school website might have more numbers?

Our local (private) Catholic girls' school has a few Muslim pupils. Some Muslim parents are very keen on an all-girls environment for their daughters, and they can alway opt out of mass.

*Also, bear in mind that this is a school with a heavy emphasis on Catholicism: there are days of retreats with priest lectures, two hours of religious education per week, one of which is solely dedicated to catechism, sometimes participation in masses with the holy communion, and most trips are to important Catholic locations such as Rome, monasteries, Fatima, Santiago dell Compostella pilgrimages.

Really? My cousin went here but it must have changed!

Can I please ask about the 6 months point? I can't see that on the current admissions criteria - do you know if that is definitely still the case?

This used to be more of a thing in Catholic schools when I was young but I don’t think it’s very common anymore.

My daughter attends an Ursuline school and we had to provide a copy of her baptism certificate to prove that she was baptised before one year old. Not sure if that rule still applies though.

To be fair to the Catholic Curch, education arm thereof, it has made effort to simplify its admissions policies in recent years (in comparison, some of the CofE VA schools' policies I've come across are positively Byzantine...). If it doesn't have it in the policy, then the school can't use it to rank its applicants.

In most of Catholic schools you don't have plug and play option. It is what it is and everybody participates in masses, cathehism etc

@Elledeco

By law you can withdraw your child from worship, even in Catholic schools. But so much of school life is religion-flavoured you’d spend quite a lot of time sitting out.

also, I don’t think they do catechism in a formal sense. I’ve never heard that said, anyway.

And you are sure that it is not CoE school?

I wonder how a muslim accepts that his/ her daughter learns that he prophet Jesus was the Messiah. And she goes through all brain conditioning process...I have a challenge to imagine jt.

@Smoothie23 is your daughter at the Ursuline?

I don't have a daughter. But my son's friend is there:)

Just in terms of trips - I’ll say again that most trips are not pilgrimages. Right now a lot of year 7 are at PGL.

Well this derailed nicely 👌!

also, I don’t think they do catechism in a formal sense.

I am a practicing Catholic but I have no idea what you mean by this sentence. Are you a Catholic?

Comment deleted

OK so the admissions criterion are very clear for the Ursuline.

I don't know about the 6 months baptism but do know - this year children of other faiths in criterion 6 have got in. So anyone saying otherwise is going of hearsay or older data. Just accept it and stop trying to give the end of the world vibe to applying to non catholics please- thank you!

I'm if the opinion that I'd like my dd to go to a faith school rather than no faith. Which is what the options are. I've been through a pretty diverse school background myself and if you know yourself and own faith well enough you don't feel the 'other' so much just find it interesting to learn more about another faith but knowing where we differ.

Thanks to everyone who has replied re feedback on the school itself and to my original OP questions about this school. It's been useful. I have since spoken to some actual mums of kids that go here on a local facebook group who have given great feedback and so yes I will be applying here for 2025.