Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Independent Schools as an alternative to Grammar

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Loopyloulou
Posts: 878
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:20 pm

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by Loopyloulou »

The best girls school in the country is St Mary's Ascot. No doubt about it.

If you can get a place.

Nothing endemic there.
Loopy
phaedra
Posts: 65
Joined: Wed Sep 15, 2010 4:18 pm

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by phaedra »

Thanks Loopy. What, (apart from a welcome lack of endemism) sets it apart in your eyes please?
westkent
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2010 9:58 pm

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by westkent »

Can I put a word in for Benenden?

I am totally unqualified to give a balanced view as we have not reached this stage yet and have yet to see inside a secondary school since I was at one!

However, I live near Benenden and I see these girls in the village and have met various different aged girls through friends/work etc. They have been, without exception, beautifully behaved, courteous and without a hint of arrogance. They have seemed to be confident in their own skin and are a great advert for their school.

I would love our daughter to go there but it is full boarding (which is an advantage for some I know) and we don't want her to board.
zvrk
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Mar 07, 2010 10:02 am

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by zvrk »

westkent wrote:Can I put a word in for Benenden?

I am totally unqualified to give a balanced view as we have not reached this stage yet and have yet to see inside a secondary school since I was at one!

However, I live near Benenden and I see these girls in the village and have met various different aged girls through friends/work etc. They have been, without exception, beautifully behaved, courteous and without a hint of arrogance. They have seemed to be confident in their own skin and are a great advert for their school.

I would love our daughter to go there but it is full boarding (which is an advantage for some I know) and we don't want her to board.
I can confirm this :) (another parent from near Benenden with DS :mrgreen: ).
They have started having girls from local primary schools (last few years) on full/partial scholarships .
lurker
Posts: 81
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:18 pm

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by lurker »

I have a friend with a dd there on a full bursary, she is very happy there.
P's mum
Posts: 108
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:56 am

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by P's mum »

Loopyloulou wrote:The best girls school in the country is St Mary's Ascot. No doubt about it.
Is Catholic - not at all sure that you would get a place if you were not one, a friend of mine (very committed Anglican keen on church school) abandoned application for her daughter for this reason.

The daughter of another friend has just finished here. I think that generally the school was a success (all the Mary Ward school have a strong ethos that some will find attractive - some of the others are easier to get into, take more non-Catholics and are less socially elevated) but two caveats:
little commitment by staff to organised actvities at the weekend, they rely a lot on older girls for this, if I was sending a child from overseas I would want to investigate further;
my friend did seem to have to spend a lot of time pushing to sort out things like music exam entry and Oxbridge entrance, not quite what one might expect from a school with this sort of reputation (I might expect and be willing to do this if I'd chosen a school specially not for academic selectively but some other factor).

P's Mum
P's mum
Sassie'sDad
Posts: 459
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2008 3:36 pm
Location: Rugby

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by Sassie'sDad »

Why exclude boys? My family's girls (who have enjoyed single sex education) have all turned out terrifying So embrace co-education. Get real!Floreat Rugbia! The premier co-educational boarding school.
Kent99

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by Kent99 »

Hi Phaedra

If you do decide to look at co-ed schools then I would advise you to look carefully at the balance between facilities aimed mainly at boys and those aimed mainly at girls. Now I know that gender stereotyping is "A Bad Thing" but the reality is that 25 rugby pitches and a netball court would suggest a certain bias...

I'm old enough to remember when certain well-known boys' schools started taking girls (usually initially into the 6th form) and remember one headmaster being quoted as explaining that it was in order to give the boys a more rounded social education. I remember thinking "right, I'm not coming to your school then- I'm a person in my own right, looking for a good education for ME, not a teaching aid!". I also remember a female cousin at a co-ed boarding school decrying the fact that the boys were allowed to eat as much as they liked whilst the girls (whose parents paid the same) were restricted to one, often inadequate, helping. Funnily enough I had a friend at a private day school who said the same; the girls subsidised the boys' food.

I would hope that a generation down the line attitudes had changed but I did notice whilst visiting one "premier league" co-ed school recently that sports facilities WERE more orientated towards boys than girls. Similarly the metal and wood working shops were not balanced by any textiles or cooking facilities. Now, for many girls (mine included) that would probably be just fine but it did give me pause for thought about how equally they prioritised girls' and boys' interests.

As to the other schools mentioned on this thread, well I note that you have 4 thumbs up for Benenden. I have to say that I am not sure that it is quite as swish as some of the schools you have considered; boarding houses looked like they could do with a lick of paint etc. a few years ago, although there was a major refurbishment program in place so that may have changed. St Mary's, Ascot is THE boarding school for daughters of the Catholic aristocracy (brothers probably at Ampleforth) but they take very few non-Roman Catholics and they do have a reputation (deserved or otherwise) for a certain social exclusivity. I actually suspected Looploulou's post to be tounge-in- cheek. Sorry if it wasn't Loopyloulou :)
solimum
Posts: 1420
Joined: Wed May 09, 2007 3:09 pm
Location: Solihull, West Midlands

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by solimum »

Kent99 wrote:Hi Phaedra

I have to say that I am not sure that it is quite as swish as some of the schools you have considered; boarding houses looked like they could do with a lick of paint etc. a few years ago, although there was a major refurbishment program in place so that may have changed.
My only experience of Girls Boarding (apart from a teenage devotion to Malory Towers etc!) was a Kent Music Service orchestra course at Benenden some thirty-odd years ago (gulp!). I do remember sleeping in a very uncomfortable bed in an rather tatty oak-panelled dormitory in the main building, as well as walking through the extensive grounds (complete with sheep!) to the local village. I can also remember some of the music we played (Arthur Bliss, "Things to Come", great fun) but not much else!

Sorry this is no help to the OP but at least I can say I have slept at Benenden (maybe in the same room as some famous ex-pupils....)
Loopyloulou
Posts: 878
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:20 pm

Re: Recommendations for Girls' Boarding Schools

Post by Loopyloulou »

Ooooh K99 you have forced me into responding! Much though I'd rather not.

No tongue in my cheek at all.

It is a terribly sad but necessary fact that if you're not Catholic you'd need a very good reason indeed to be accepted at St Mary's. So unfortunately the great majority of readers can click away now.

Why is it special? First, it is of course girls only and boarding only.
Next, academically it is extremely good. Most league tables place it well into the Top 50, which is good enough for me, but it never seems to appear in the Top 10, suggesting that pressure for results is not overdone.
Next it is small. This, I think, is where it scores over the male (now mixed) institutions of Ampleforth, Stonyhurst and Downside. There is only one, small, single sex St Mary's, and the school is very selective both in those who apply and in those amongst them who are chosen.

It is the people who make the difference. The teachers apply, and are chosen, for a reason. The parents apply for a reason. And the girls who are chosen are chosen for a reason. The entrance examination is by no means the deciding factor, because behind all these people is a desire for and commitment to the school's all-pervading Christian ethos, the school's determination in pursuing it and the success with which it does so. Christian values of love, tolerance, sympathy, hope, and charity are at the core of what the school wishes to instil. I am not saying that other schools do not value such things, often greatly, but at St Mary's this is the very heart of school's very raison d'etre, in which everyone involved shares.

I am sure many schools strive in this direction. St Mary's, I feel, tries harder than most.

No doubt some would hate it.
Loopy
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