11 Plus Exams Forum

A quote from said item: "I feel that I was persuaded to remove my daughter from a perfectly good school, where she was very happy, at a time when Westbrook House must have known something was wrong." The 'perfectly good school' was a local primary, 3 mins walk from the house.

It begs the question that if it was perfectly good, very easy to get to and the daughter was happy there, what possible benefits would paying give?

Indeed.

I would suggest that all parents who go inde should have good reason..and keeping up with the Jones is not one!

Here are mine:
1-class sizes of 14
2-no government interference-(2 fingers to SATs)
3-a headmaster who is happy to be telephoned at 9pm at night at home
4-my DD treated and valued as an individual

It would also be wise to check the teaching qualifications of staff and the financial status of the school before taking this route. I have seen too many children trying to get into another school when the one they attend has suddenly closed during their GCSE course.

I have no idea how some independent schools survive. My sons school has between 100-120 boys each year with fees of nearly £7k per term (I don't pay that). Its a tiny school with high calibre highly paid teachers and I have no idea how they would cope with a loss of 5 boys. Do you think its the cheapest schools that go out of business first or the smallest because of economy of scale?

Westbrook has been losing money for ages though. Roger de Haan told them thathe was not able to keep shoring t hem up. According to teh local paper the head didn;t tell anyone as that would mean people took their childern away from the school and the decline was even more rapid.

parents were apparentlyinformed in the evening by courier.

I think it is a mixture of being cheap and being small that puts a school at risk.

Obviously small schools can thrive but I would suggest that as its costs per pupil are likely to be higher it has to be able to command higher fees. It also has less flexibility to downsize.

It is interesting that this school was counting on going co-ed to solve its numbers and financial problems. Whilst this does usually work in the long term, it always take a while to get going as a lot of parents rely on others for their children to be the guinea pigs. The numbers being banded around by the Headmaster are completely unrealistic for a 1st year of going co-ed (unless another local school had just closed)

I think it is also the case that boys schools going coed tend to fare better than girls schools going coed-(unless anyone can prove me wrong!)

I agree with you that boys schools tend to fare better when turning co-ed. I think this is for reasons such as:

1. Some were quite prestigious boys schools and parents want their daugthers to attend because of kuodos i.e. Rugby, Stowe, Marlborough.

2. I think there may be a perceived benefit for a girl to be in a proportionally higher male environment as some parents may feel it gives their daugther the edge in the "real" working world.

3. Most parents of boys would not want to send their sons to a girl-heavy school as the curriculum at present is already female-biased and this would make it worse for their boisterous son.

...and before I get shot down in flames these are general perceptions, not everyones ideas!

I think few prestigious girls' schools have gone mixed, especially as they are usually under the grip of the GSA Taliban!

A worthwhile task for the Group might be to see whether we can list any!!

I'm going to try and name some great girls schools and see if they've gone co-ed.

Cheltenham Ladies
Wycombe Abbey
St Swithans
St Paul's Girls
Benenden
Rodean
Tudor Hall
Queen Margarets
Badminton
(apologies if I missed some others out - I was going for similar schools i.e. boarding public schools)

no none of these have!


Apart from single-sex day schools, the only boys public schools which are seen as prestigious as the girls schools mentioned which have not gone co-ed in any form are

Eton
Winchester
Harrow
Radley
Merchiston (only boys school left in Scotland)

others have either gone coe-d in the sixth form or share certain lessons with neighbouring girls schools. In ISC there are 211 all girls senior schools and 67 all boys schools although some of them have girls in the sixth form.

The highest percentage of single-sex boys prep schools are in London and the Berkshire/Hampshire/Oxfordshire area - but there are not many.