Top boys and girls private schools

[Queenspark2016]

Hi everyone and thank you in advance for taking the time to read this!

My son is 9 (yr4) and my daughter is 7 (yr3). Both are academic and all rounders thriving at a south of england private school.

My work and my husband’s allow us to work anywhere so we are fully open to moving to London or elsewhere in the South of England to get them a place in top academic private schools.

Can anyone recommend specific schools and a set up that would work well for this? Ideally co ed for our son and single gender for our daughter. Close together and both academically focussed with excellent university admissions for Oxbridge or similar universities?

Has anyone moved for schools? Had kids start at different times? We’re relatively clueless! Please help!

And please also remember that Oxbridge can be a complete lottery even with the best school
and grades behind you. So might never be a guaranteed result.

Hmmm tricky. It’s getting the two close together. But I wouldn’t be so hung up on highly academic schools. You want a good school but not one that’s so pressured that it prevents the kids from taking advantage of all the extracurricular activities. If your kids are bright and have a good disciplined study routine (hard to say at their age) then they will do well at schools that aren’t so top notch. So much success in exams is how they revise rather than being super bright.
Also look at progression - I know of kids who did well but were not allowed to stay on for Sixth Form as they weren’t on A/A star track. Even the school my DD went to (she moved from non selective coed school to highly - but not top of the pile - selective all girls sixth form) didn’t want her to do History A level as even though she had an 8 predicted (and eventually got) for GCSE, she didn’t do that well in the subject entrance exam. I insisted and her GCSE teacher also advocated for her (and while her new school predicted a B in it at A level she went on to earn 196/200).
Plus the vibe. At some open days they just didn’t seem the right fit without actually being able to articulate why. How they organise the open days can be revealing too - Wimbledon High was terrible but Putney High was so much better! Most people would say there not much between them but that wasn’t the impression we got. The school she eventually went to we had a private tour and the girl showing us around told us the ‘inside scoop’ so to speak.
Socially it’s luck of the draw. Much was made of DD’s school not having cliques but my DD said at least if there were cliques you know where you are!
Once they hit secondary age it’s quite common for kids to travel on their own on the tube to school, so that may help if they are going to different ones. My neighbour’s kids both went to schools just outside London (Shrewsbury House and Reeds) and took a school coach.
Good luck! Our first couple schools were non selective but the application process when my DD moved for Sixth Form was agonising!

Your best chance of Oxbridge admission is Brampton manor school in Plaistow for highly academic children.
A level results are outstanding.

If you want day, co-ed for your DS and girls-only for DD how about Abingdon (which is going co-ed) with St Helen & St Katherine (also in Abingdon). Or if you want more academic, a Winchester College - St Swithuns combination might work especially as WinColl is increasing its day pupil numbers. Not somewhere I would choose, but many others would disagree.

@Queenspark2016
JAGS (girls) and Alleyn’s (mixed) are opposite each other in Dulwich.

Both are highly selective. They don’t rank as high as St. Paul’s, Westminster etc partly because a significant proportion of their pupils star at age 4 or 7 and are not managed out.
Neither are hot houses.

*start (not star)

JAGS and Alleyns is a really good combo - especially if you think drama/music may be important.

You could look at the Guildford area. Guildford High School gets the best academic results for girls but Tormead and St Catherine’s are also good.

For boys, the best academic results are from the Royal Grammar School. That’s close to GHS and the two schools work well together. It’s all boys though. There are also a number of co-ed boarding schools in the area, the best known of which is Charterhouse.

Another girls school/boys school combo that might work well is Hampton Grammar School and Lady Eleanor Holles (both in Hampton).

Someone upthread has mentioned St Paul’s School for Girls. It may be worth mentioning that they now have a rule that they won’t accept girls who have a door to door journey time of more than 50 minutes.

Cheltenham Ladies College and a Cheltenham College for your ds. Another good combo would be Marlborough and St Mary’s Calne, worth looking at.

If you prefer top day academic school, Westminster may tick your box due to them going coed. Both siblings going to the same academic school. Or City of London Girls and City of London boys? Alleyns and Jags or Emanuel and Putney, both schools have siblings in both. Though there has been more a trend for coed for families to send siblings to same school in London.

Just to say it’s Hampton School, not Hampton Grammar School!

Whoops. Apologies Hampton!

It would be Westminster for your DS and SPGS for your DD, and you move to central West London.

I’m not sure whether this may be welcome here … but the sort of schools mentioned pick the children, not the other way around. Plenty of utterly brilliant girls don’t get into SPGS. If you choose to move with the aim of targeting specific schools, will you have a plan B that you will be happy with?

Friends of mine used a consultancy/tutoring company (not sure if allowed to mention it - Elevate Eleven). We didn't end up using them as the tutoring locations/times didn't work for us. Through the tutoring and seeing what level your child is at, my friend said they recommend which schools your child has the best chance of getting into. Might be worth considering an educational consultant/tutoring company to help guide you re. where you children may have the chance of getting into? Good luck wherever you end up.

I agree with the comments that the top schools PICK the child and not the other way round. Apart from the top academics, they need to excel in something else e.g. sport, music, art and I mean excel, not just be good. Brighton college is a coed and one of the best schools in the country with 90% of kids getting 8-9 grades at GCSE but they are very selective and get rid of kids who are not able to achieve the said grades early on in the process.

Also, not all 'old' schools are the same. Some still live on their past reputation and quite mediocre at best.

If you are open to any area this league table might help point you in the right direction, it is a comprehensive list of all private and state schools in one list sorted by average A level score:

School League Tables | the Best Primary, Secondary and Independent Schools | Locrating

The difference in the average scores is miniscule across a large number of schools, e.g. around the 51 mark

@Queenspark2016 good question.

As another poster mentioned - Cambridge has some very strong options. Benefits of easy commute to London (49 mins fast train) if necessary. The schools in Cambridge are all within a mile or two of each other. You have hot house option if you want it(!) and also very academic schools that aren’t hot houses where your children can excel. It’s an unusual density of schools offering a lot of diversity
of choice.

I’ve put three DCs through a mixture of co Ed and single sex environments here - happy to advise if you wish via PM

Came on to suggest exactly this Abingdon- SSHSK combination.

Are they sporty?

https://www.thetimes.com/best-schools-league-table?filterId=the-top-independent-schools-for-the-ib
If your kids are academic anything in the top 150 will be fine - many move up or down by 20 spots on different years but I personally wouldn't go near anything ranking 200+ if you are paying for it.

I think the first port of call would be your current school as they know your children and they should be able to benchmark them to others of similar aptitudes and tell you from which schools those specific children have applied/received offers from ?