Tiffin Girls & Nonsuch Open Evenings 2011

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ThreeKids
Posts: 199
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2011 1:16 pm

Tiffin Girls & Nonsuch Open Evenings 2011

Post by ThreeKids »

Well Nonsuch is yet to come, but I thought it might be useful to combine the two in one thread rather than one for each school.

Went to Tiffin last night, arrived early and saw the Head's speech straight off. I could probably go on and on, but the core of my impression was that this is a really great school. Girls were friendly, enthused and very very helpful. There was something going on everywhere. Intended to spend about an hour and a half there but ended up spending much longer as DD just kept wanting to see things. Loved all the massive artwork hung round the school. Now there's just the test :shock: ........

Nonsuch would be geographically the one for us and we'll see what DD thinks of that.
Cheammum
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2011 9:29 am

Re: Tiffin Girls & Nonsuch Open Evenings 2011

Post by Cheammum »

Threekids I would have to agree with you.

I also attended the open day and found the school and its girls very informative and impressive.

Geographically Nonsuch would suit us best but can not help but think that our second daughter would be better suited to Tiffins.

Eldest daughter is currently at Nonsuch and is thriving incredibly well and has made such lovely friends but I'm conscious of not pigeon holing them both into the same school due to convenience as it will be nice for both to have different experiences.

Looking forward to Nonsuch's open day to see what DD thinks...
mynameisbond
Posts: 170
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:53 pm
Location: south west london

Re: Tiffin Girls & Nonsuch Open Evenings 2011

Post by mynameisbond »

Glad to hear you both loved Tiffin Girls - as parent of a Y7 girl I can assure you that all you have said about your impressions of the school are true - it's a fantastic school and the girls are very lucky. I think the nicest thing about it is the sense of community and the mix of girls. They all seem to have an incredible loyalty to the school which begins very early on - maybe that is because in GS terms it's relatively small - 120 girls per year - best of luck to both your girls if you apply.
Cheammum
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2011 9:29 am

Re: Tiffin Girls & Nonsuch Open Evenings 2011

Post by Cheammum »

Hi mynameisbond,

the sense of community jumps right out at you and is very visible to see, I really did love the fact that the girls come from different areas and I did ask if that affects them meeting up on weekends and in the holidays and the reply was no.. also worth mentioning is the pride they have towards their house system..we will certainly apply with fingers tightly crossed..

DD will be sitting the nonsuch exams first so that will give us a marker as towhether she stands a chance with the Tiffin exams.

It will be nice to know from parents of previous years on what their take on the two exams are - is one generally harder than the other.
Scoopy19
Posts: 82
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2010 10:04 am

Re: Tiffin Girls & Nonsuch Open Evenings 2011

Post by Scoopy19 »

Hi All

I totally agree. I loved the school and I thought the head was great. She didn't focus on the academic achievements (that's a given) but focussed on the girls and their "enrichment" as she described it. The head's speech led me to reflect on the Wallington head's speech from last week. As commented below, the head banged on about "if you're lucky enough to get into the school" which sort of gave the impression that they'd be doing you a favour by taking your daughter. Whereas the Tiffin head really sold the school to you in her speech.

The whole scholl had a wonderful, caring and fun feel. Amazing artwork, great, enthusiastic and polite girls. A host of extra-curricular stuff.

I was secretly hoping that I would hate the school as it is a bit of a journey for us, although the Year 7 I heard speak comes from Ealing so that gave me hope. I came away a bit like a giddy girl, I liked it so much. Is that sad to feel like that about a school?

My DD loved it more than Wallington and she raved about that last week. On the way home I stressed how long the journey was and how late she would get home if she did after scholl activities however she wasn't phased at all and said she thought the journey would be an adventure (we did the trip by public transport).

Here's to tomorrow and Nonsuch.
stressedparent
Posts: 126
Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2010 1:30 pm

Re: Tiffin Girls & Nonsuch Open Evenings 2011

Post by stressedparent »

Hi,

We loved both schools and really had a very difficult time to decide our first preference, what swayed our decision in the end is having our DD1 in Tiffin's already. As for the exam you will find the same girls sit both tests and your daughter's ranking will not change much if she performs to her best potential on both days. I think my DD2's Tiffin's score was only one standardised mark higher than Nonsuch. Whatever choice you make will be a great choice. We have experience with Tiffins with DD1 and I can confirm that the school is excellent in all aspects including pastoral care. Good luck and all the best.
stressedparent
mynameisbond
Posts: 170
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:53 pm
Location: south west london

Re: Tiffin Girls & Nonsuch Open Evenings 2011

Post by mynameisbond »

Hi cheammum - glad you liked Tiffin. When our daughter sat the Nonsuch and Tiffin exams two years ago she definitely found Nonsuch the harder exam, as did all her friends. I think this was because the NVR for Nonsuch was in timed sections and once your time was up you had no chance of going back to any missed questions. The Tiffin NVR was very hard according to her but at least it was 80 questions in 50 mins in whatever order you wanted to do them.

Good luck and do let us know how she gets on
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