Putney High School

If your daughter likes ideas, the kind of girl who follows a question past the point most people stop, Putney High is a school that will keep up with her. It is an independent day school for girls in south-west London, part of the Girls' Day School Trust, taking girls from nursery age through to the sixth form. It sits close to the river in Putney and was founded in 1893, one of the later schools to join the Trust, and over the years it has built a name as an academic school with a distinctly modern feel.

The school sums up its approach as "modern scholarship," by which it means learning that is challenging, fun and relevant, with lessons that range from entrepreneurship to oracy. The Good Schools Guide picks up the same thread, calling Putney "academic with a very modern edge," and pointing to the breadth on offer, the weight the school puts on wellbeing, and the way it accepts each girl as she is. Pupils, the school says, are encouraged to be unafraid of a hard problem, and there is a spirit of openness and creativity that parents tend to feel as soon as they visit.

The pace is quick and the expectations are high, so Putney rewards a girl who is genuinely curious and willing to take up what is on offer rather than stick to the safe and familiar. Led since September 2023 by headmistress Jo Sharrock, it suits a confident, inquisitive daughter who is ready to think for herself and throw herself into a busy, ambitious school.