Leicester High School for Girls

For a daughter currently in Year 5, Leicester High is one to note early, as the move to Senior School happens a year sooner than at most schools. Girls join the Senior School in Year 6 rather than Year 7, but the transition is gradual: they begin the year still based with their Year 6 form group, then relocate fully into the Senior School by the summer term. It is an independent day school for girls, situated on London Road in Stoneygate, south of Leicester city centre, and caters for girls from three to eighteen.

It is small. Around 250 girls across the whole age range, and a sixth form of about thirty-five, in a school the Department for Education records as having room for 435. That cuts both ways and is worth looking at with your own eyes, but it means a Year 7 of one or two forms and, in the school's own words, girls who are 'never just another face in the crowd'. The three houses are named after places a Leicestershire family will have walked in: Beaumanor Hall, Bradgate Park and Charnwood Forest.

The school began as a kindergarten in a house on Alexandra Road at the turn of the last century, moved a few times, and bought Portland House on London Road in 1926, which it has been adding to ever since. In 1974 the parents' association took it over and formed the charitable trust that still runs it. Girls can arrive from half past seven and stay under supervision until six. Entry is assessed rather than sharply selective, and places go in the order applications arrive. It suits a daughter who would rather be somewhere she is quickly known.