Headington Girls School

[princesspeahead]

We are grappling with girls day schools in the Oxford area. Went to see Headington on an open day - need to go back solo as it was a bit of a zoo - but wondered if anyone had any up-to-date or local views on it. Also wondering what the views on the headmistress were - I found her rather a cold fish, but then she said a few things that were interesting and made me wonder if there was more there than I previously thought.

Anyway all views, however short, v much appreciated please!

Well we shall be trotting round the next Open Day with the dds and see what they make of it all . Its gonna be huge in comparison to their weeny country Prep. But My thinking is thats life and everywhere is going to seem big. Tell me, do they have a buddy system for when the new kids start, as I guess the ones that have moved up from the juniors are more familiar with it if that makes sense!

Buddy system - Y7 girls are paired with a sixth form buddy. Last year all Y7 girls got to know each other by spending a night camping in the grounds of Davenport (a boarding) house.

Reread the OP's post - open mornings are like a zoo/madhouse. I'd recommend going to visit during late spring/summer when it looks its finest. It was the first school we looked at and my wife walked round thinking "Nothing's going to compare to this".

Ive been round on a lovely summers day, its just my dh and dds that haven't! we have been very lucky with the grounds of their current place. A Jacobean mansion coverted years ago into a school many years ago. i shall be quite sorry when we have to leave it, but up for the next challenge, well the teenage years!!

this is where I admit that I was the OP
My dd is in her second year. I can only say good things about it (which is most unlike me! ha). She gets in on an oxford schools bus (goes to OHS< Magdalen, Rye, Headington etc) which takes her about 20mins. She thinks the bus is the best thing and if ever i offer to drive her in she refuses vociferously...

will now look at map and try and work out which building is coming down...

OK if you look at the map, and see the main school - behind it there is a brown roof running horizontally between two new big grey roofs? That is being knocked down and replaced by something rather beautiful. (It is the old music school. The new music school is the big greyroofed building which has just been built and in the google map still has a bit of a building site behind it. That pic must be a couple of years old...)

Freshmint any tips for the interview/ exams/ anything in general that good to know... houses clubs etc. Ive got a good feeling about this thread!

Oh dear help I don't know! Interviews - sent her off saying be yourself, but less monosyllabic . We had a couple of chats about what books she was reading etc so that she wouldn't draw a blank if she was asked about that.

Exams - my dd didn't do very well in them because she had been at a terrible school for years 1 -5, and a new school near Ox for a term of year 6 before her exams. But she improved so massively in that term that I'm sure the new school wrote a report saying "enormous potential, don't just judge by her exam" and she has come on in leaps and bounds since she got there and is comfortably in the middle/top-middle of her cohort. That is what i like so much about the place - they select on potential, not simply ability on the day of the exam.

Houses - we don't board so can't help you there.

Clubs - sports are v good. My daughter rows which is a tremendous commitment but a really fabulous thing. They win everything - 7 of the womens gb 8 are from there, two of them won gold in the youth olympics, its amazing. And those that row become very close and a good gang - about 30 of them out of 80. They get to know girls not in their class much better etc. My dd doesn't do much else sports wise so I can't comment. Drama and art are fantastic, music very good...

What else? You may not be natural class rep material (I'm not) but if you volunteer you don't have to do much but you do get a meeting a term with the other reps and the senior management team which is an excellent way of knowing exactly what is going on in the school when sometimes that can be a bit difficult in a senior school.

Can't think of much else to say right now...do ask any other questions and I'll try my best to answer them!

Ahh I was always under the impression that you never found out how they actually did in the exams, but exactly as you say they look at 'the all round person' I wonder being as I have twins whether they will put them in the same interview... Did you dd row before she went to H? I would say currently the twins are in the middle of their form. Better at english than maths, get to play in hockey and netball teams and sing in choir, both enjoy drama and dancing. Do you know if there is much set up for any special needs? One is mildly dyspraxic . Also do they not do houses for day kids then??
Sorry to bombard you, I really appreciate your time :)

Do they organise much prior to starting in Sept. I read about camping in Davenport house, is that for all U3 or just boarders?

Did your daughter find there to be a big difference in the amount of homework she had? How did she cope with that?

Most of the extra curricular activities take place after school...after the school bus leaves. We're going to find that a bit of a pain. How do you cope with that, just drive in and collect her? I see there is a car-sharing scheme in operation.

Yes when they send you an offer letter they give a couple of lines on each exam and how they did.
I'm sure they'll interview your twins separately.
No she didn't row before - I don't think any of them did!
Special needs is excellent. dd is slightly dyslexic and she has a special learning support lesson (can't remember what they call it) every week which she finds v helpful. And learning support isn't charged- it is included in the fees which I think is very good.
One of the most impressive things about the school is how they really know what is going on with your child and communicate it to everyone who needs to know. Nothing falls through the gaps. SO different to her previous school!

They do houses for day kids, sorry I thought you were asking about the boarding premises!

StanHouse, there is a big introduction meeting at some point (in the summer term I think), for parents and girls and I think the uniform supplier is also there so you can look at uniform etc. God I can barely remember and it wasn't two years ago. Yes there definitely was - I think the girls were there for the morning and parents had a session and tea etc after pick up. The camping session is in september a few weeks after the start of term so they have begun to know people, and it is a bit of a bonding session. Pretty good I think. For everyone. It isn't in the house, it is in tents in the grounds! They come back wet and smelly!

Homework - yes, more than junior but they phase it in gently so it isn't a big shock on day one. They all seem to manage fine, they have an excellent planner to put it all in and learn to be organised.

School bus - depends where you are as to whether you need the dedicated schools bus or there are public buses. A lot of people Wheatley/Holton way and Harcourt Hill way get the brookes buses which run from one brookes campus to the other and stop outside the school gates. They run all the time so are good for late activities. Otherwise it is pick up or lift share....

Weird question to ask, did you mention the dyslexia prior to the test. Dd is entitles to a little more time in exams usually, but bizarrely she hates this, as she feels it makes her 'stand out and look different' I wonder whether to mention it but ask them not to give extra time at the exam. hoem work will be a big shock to me, currently they do their homework at school so we pick up at 6pm. Sound like yr daughter is enjoying it and you are enjoying the process ! are the ones that have moved up from juniors very chummy, or quite welcoming to the newbies. I will be off to bed shortly, so you will breathe a sigh of relief!!

Yes I got an updated ed psych report and sent it to the school (through her prep school) before her exams. They wrote back to the prep saying that because of the report she could have extra time in the exam. You don't get extra time if you haven't got a current ed psych report.

Once she got in the learning support person wrote up a report of what her needs were based on the report, but focussed on how she learns and strategies for coping. iSo it included things like "this means that dd may find it easier to learn if does X rather than Y" - really useful stuff - and circulated it to all her teachers. That is what I mean about excellent communications.

I think the ones that move up from juniors are quite glad to have some new faces around! They are all split up between the four classes (and they stay in their class cohort for the first two years) so it isn't a problem...

I'm going to bed too! Night!

Fascinating reading this as I was at HS about 25 years ago and it sounds like a completely different school which is just as well as I hated it, couldn't get away from the place quick enough and went on to do A-levels elsewhere!

There was no rowing, no real after-school clubs (just a couple of choirs and sports teams at lunchtime), none of the enhanced facilities... It prided itself on being academic and sporty - which was bad news for me as I was academic but into science and not classics (couldn't even do separate science o-levels there in those days) and rubbish at sport. Science stuff was very looked down on.

Boarding was dreary - they had 'activities' at the weekend, but they were just for an hour each day when they kicked you out of the boarding house to be bored elsewhere. Food was rubbish. No TV other than an hour to watch top of the pops and a couple of programmes after it (unless you were one of the younger ones, they sent the 11 year olds to bed at 7.45!!!), there were rotas on the number of baths you could have (3 a week) and hairwashes (one every 2 weeks because the hair clogged up the drains apparently).

Housemistress in my house had been there since the late 50s and didn't see why there was any need to change anything so it was like living in a timewarp - even in the house bookshelf library there were old copies of the London Illustrated that dated from the turn of the century - along with a few more books, nothing less than 10 years old - no point buying books when the bookshelf was full.

Several of the teachers could be real bullies and seemed to enjoy their reputation for being a dragon. They also missed that my sis was dyslexic for 4 years so she needed extra lessons that were charged for in those days (and that support teacher was the only nice teacher in the place to my sis, the others were very dismissive of her keeping the average exam scores down and wrongly assumed that because she was my sis (and I was at top of the class most of the time) she wasn't bothering to work. In fact, she was the one working flat out and I was able to cruise initially because I'd been to a good school before and was repeating the first couple of years work)

headmistress changed while I was there - we went from being Dunn's nuns to Tuckers f**kers No ideal what the current head is called to know what the girls are now!

Sorry OP, this has turned into a bit of a rant, usually try to stick the place in the dark recesses of my memory; but glad to hear that things are a bit better now

God, sounds awful zigzag. I'm pleased to say that it seems to be a completely different place! Maybe you should go to an open day and exorcise some demons...

I went back to look at my old boarding school for dd about 3 years ago and the moment I set foot on school property I saw my old English teacher... then the old german teacher... then an old piano teacher....

They were all STILL THERE! Crikey. I ran away (I left in 1986 btw!)