Year 8 Mid Term move - Tolworth Girls or St Philomena's

[chami1982]

My daughter is in Y8 at sutton high and due to financial circumstances, we need to move to state secondary school. In last few days, we got offer from

1. Tolworth Girls - outstanding rated
2. St Philomena at Carshalton - Good rated
3. Blenheim - Co Ed but mixed feedback.

She wants to go to Blenheim bcoz she is bored of Girls only schools ( she was at Seaton House in Y6 and few different co ed state primaries before that in sutton and outside UK).

me and my wife wants her to go to Tolworth as 1st preference (60 min bus commute) or 2nd preference ( 47 min bus commute). She is fine for St Philomena as she has one of her scout friend there. She dont want Tolworth because Admission teacher ( during school tour) told girls are not allowed to use bathroom mirror (to avoid girls spending too much time on hair/makeup).

our daughter is rebellion and don't listen at all. She is saying she will slowly start focussing on studies. Any efforts we take - private 1:1 tuitions, 1:1 sports etc - she puts minimum efforts. She has found her passion since last 1-2 years in Theatre/Drama/Dancing and is very active/social in scouts, school sports club, LAMDA.

Will appreciate if anyone can give feedback on Tolworth Girls and St Philomena's ? ( P.S- other preferred nearby schools are in waiting list and we need to move her from private school at the earliest due to financial circumstances and we wish that she stay in 1 school from Year 8 now till Year 11 GCSEs).

I don’t know the other two (other than the awful uniform at St Phil’s) but I’d say don’t rule Blenheim out. It wasn’t good many years ago but improved a lot, and I know lots of families with children there and they are all happy with it and the children have thrived. I wish we had sent our son there - indeed I wanted to but he and my husband chose Glyn (and now both agree Blenheim would have been the right choice).

I don’t use any of these school so I won’t comment specifically but I’d suggest you match her to the school that can support her on her interest if drama & dance. You can also look at their GCSE options and see if they perform well in these subjects. Few schools offer GCSEs beyond the standard drama & music like ‘dance’ or ‘performing arts - production etc’. Worth looking into this as a possible way of choosing the right fit.

Thank you. I will check further on Blenheim. We are also exploring Royal Alexandra and Albert state boarding school at Reigate.

Thank you.

If she's interested in performing arts, have you looked at Glenthorne?

Are Glenthorne & Holy Cross too far away?

As pp said Glenthorne is very good for performing arts.

I am assuming if you mention Sutton High and Seaton House, that St Philomenas is far more local than the other schools. I would consider it for that alone. 60 mins on a bus is a long commute. It's a popular school with good results. However the uniform is dreadful(!) and a lot of time/focus is on Catholicism, so depends if you are happy with that.

Glenthorne is a good shout if you can get a place.

St Philomena’s is probably a good choice on balance of distance, academics, sport & performing arts. It’s amazing having local friends at school. Worth exploring this more.

A commute on public transport > 35 mins can become a real pain in the GCSE years.

As a Londoner an hour commute was very normal for secondary.

Particularly for Catholic schools you will find people travel from all over. I see St Phil’s uniforms in Streatham etc

Yes true, but it's a balance thing I guess. I don't think Tolworth Girls offers something significantly better than St Phils to be worth a (presumed) much longer commute. Also I think the idea of being on a bus for so long puts me off, but that's probably just me! A teenager probably feels differently. Streatham to Carshalton is 12 mins on the train, so that's actually a fairly reasonable route to commute on until the Thameslink is struggling for the millionth time this year.

Yes, I don’t know enough about either school now to determine if one is worth a longer journey.

Well if you live close to Streatham station as opposed to other parts of Streatham it’s not too bad but even so door to door it will be fairly long.

I went to my local secondary but even that was a 40 min walk door to door and not much quicker by bus due to traffic.

60min commute by bus to tolworth is absurd.
what is your nearest comprehensive?
any variation in educatio is not worth the 2 hours commute. start with your nearest, and really examine why that isn’t going to work.

as a londoner who attended a state school in that area, i would say 60mins bus to a state school is absurd.

and my son cycles for 25mins and that’s absolutely the max.

think how much homework/language study/ co-curricular hobby/skills could be done in that amount of time.

I can only speak for my experience. A bus journey of 60 mins is long but 60 mins door to door is definitely not unusual for faith, grammar and independent schools plus some comps. It depends on how sought after the school is I guess.

We live in north cheam/worcester park. She actually had got Glenthorne as her 1st choice in Year 7 in Sep 25 but we had chosen to continue her in independent school. But now nearest options ( glenthorne, cheam high etc) are on waiting.

DD has a friend in St Philomena's so we will probably go with that.

i can do morning drops by car in 25 min while she takes bus home

So you are in the middle, I have friends with dc at Glenthorne and they rave about it.

I have a DC who went to one of the grammar schools in this area. 50 min door to door commute. No time (or energy) for clubs or any extra curriculars. So many incidents with crowded buses, no seat to be had, buses not stopping due to over crowding, strikes etc. then attendance and late issues at school and time wasted in detention.
For the last 3 years we had to rely on Uber when we could not drop/collect by car to save on time & energy for more productive work.
It ‘can’ be done - but unless you have no other ‘decent’ choice it’s not worth the travel.