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.