St Pauls Girls School

[londonmum]

Thanks for that.

When we looked round another West London school 18 months ago we ended up on the same tour as a netball team from a nearby prep. The minibus had stopped on its way back from a match so the girls could attend the open evening. My daughter was overwhelmed by the very confident girls and their parents to the extent that half way through we slipped away and joined another group.

Most secondaries, state or private, will have regular feeders and there is a barrier to be overcome if you are going on your own. Our experience of Year 7 at a nearby school has been that the more confident will dominate during the first term and it can take a while for the quieter ones to find each other. But they do. Doing clubs, music or sport help in this process. The real advantage at St Pauls is that there will be lots of girls who enjoy learning and teachers that enjoy teaching them and so she will find like-minded friends.

My daughter knows quite a lot of girls at St Pauls, including at least a couple who will be starting in September, and the majority are lovely. All are clearly very bright. Any reservations are around one or two being over-confidence, bordering arrogant, but I don't think this is particularly a money issue.

I agree with you on the uniform, and am glad my daughter has one. However I suspect they find their own H&M/Primark uniform quite quickly. If you do go for it, and I suspect you will regret it if you don't, it really is worth asking around, and also contacting other forum members to arrange a few early play dates. She then has a few familiar faces on her first day and ideally someone you can suggest is in the same class.

Again she would not have been offered a place if the school felt there would be any problems.

[T.i.p.s.y]

I thought St Paul's Girls was a cream school. Depends on your definition of cream though.

[Mark Thyme]

Harrowparent, according to St Pauls about 40% of the intake (I'm not sure whether it's each year or in the whole school) are the only girls to go from their primaries. Very few schools, other than say Bute House, send more than a small handful.

As for girls from the state sector being behind, I don't know of any independent girls primaries that do Latin, the French tends to be of a very rudimentary standard, though I suspect that on average the Maths is a bit better. As for English, most of these girls will be big readers, so it only depends on how much access they've had to the library.

Finally, most of the girls I know either at or about to go to St Pauls are nice and, if anything, deeply unfashionable. That's to say, not terribly interested in clothes, other than what's easiest to pull on in the morning. My daughter is also a Tomboy and I wouldn't put it past her to spend most of the next year wearing jeans and a sweat shirt.

[mad?]

I did feel left out and felt the parents to a little extent excluded me; as you mentioned probably because they knew each other. The children seemed to know each other quite well, From listening to conversations, I did feel we were transferring from the minor leagues. also felt a little class conscious perhaps that was just me being me.

Try not to worry about these parents, they are unlikely to be there on masse if your DD goes there. I too have done the open day run twice now and have found them invariably rather vulgar and braying as they shuffle their DDs around the West London Indies seemingly trying to convey a sense of belonging and entitlement that serves to intimidate outsiders. They will be there when you pick DD up from the exam as well. But what I have noticed is that they are not there when it actually comes to who actually got in... at least not en masse! IMO their children are often quite nice once removed from their parents!

Lack of uniform is a concern, my dd isn’t a follower of fashion, I am concerned that children will be coming into school with designer clothes, while she is happier with a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and may get left out because of this.

At DDs' primary there was no uniform, now at their indie there is. I was longing for a uniform, to get rid of clothes comparison issues etc, but quite frankly it has made no difference and indeed, when they have out of school parties or trips etc the clothes competition gets much more intense than it would if they were just used to seeing each other in normal clothes every day IMO.

We do have a very good free back up, but need to let them know next week if she is coming or not.

Then you are very lucky, as most don't. I'd definitely go for it anyway...there are probably clothes/label 'issues' at all school and cliques forming all over the place, but not all schools are St Pauls.

[weepiglet]

I did feel left out and felt the parents to a little extent excluded me; as you mentioned probably because they knew each other.

Hi there,

Bear in mind that they probably felt a little intimidated by *you*, as your daughter was an unknown quantity to them. I bet they were worried that she was one of the v. bright children who apply from a state primary and beat the prep school girls to a coveted place. It sounds to me as though they formed themselves into a loud little group to try to bolster their confidence. It's just a self-defence mechanism

Many congrat's on your daughter's achievement in getting a place. I hope you won't be put off by the parents you met. SPGS is a special school, and if your daughter wants to go then I'm sure she'll do really well. Clearly the school believes so: think about how many other girls they could have chosen instead of her!


londonmum: I understood what you meant, and thought it was pretty funny

[mad?]

londonmum: I understood what you meant, and thought it was pretty funny

me too!

[Guestwho]

I believe the term is actually:-

"clotted cream" - rich but very very thick.

Sorry to add fuel - but I thought it was funny the first time I heard it too

Who said 11+ had to strip us of our sense of humour

[Harrowparent]

Everyone’s input has really reassured me and allayed most of my fears about dd fitting in. Some of the comments about the open day do ring true; perhaps the group I was in were trying to put me off, it was very hard work making conversation, We have some other issues, which we need to reconcile before laying this all to bed and deciding to let go of our backup school,

Thank you again for the advice and input.

Who said being a parent was easy!

[T.i.p.s.y]

I still want to know where these mysterious cream schools are because the ones I view as cream - Eton, Winc, Westminster, CLC, Wycombe Abbey, St Paul's Girls have no thicko's.

[hermanmunster]

TIPSY - I think it is an old joke ..... heard it loads of times. ...

I remember a friend who had taught at a public school, she said "they took the cream there, clotted cream that is....."