Established in 1853 and renowned around the world as one of the leading independent girls’ schools, Cheltenham Ladies’ College has an impressive alumni and incredible academic results to match.
Wondering just what it’s like to attend one of the world’s most respected schools, SoGlos delves into a day in the life of Valentina, Cheltenham Ladies’ School’s Senior Prefect.
Having boarded at the college since she was 11, Valentina gives us an insight into everything from Harry Potter potion making clubs, to singing in the heart of Venice.
For more information visit cheltladiescollege.org directly.
How did you become Senior Prefect?
There’s a voting process where girls in the lower sixth form are allowed to put themselves forward to be a prefect. The younger years, older years and staff are allowed to vote for them to be a prefect.
30 prefects are then selected and committee prefects are selected. After that there are interview processes. I explained I had an interest in being head girl. I had two interview stages; one with the deputy and one with the principal.
Can you describe a typical day for you?
For a boarder, there’s breakfast at 7.15am and then we walk down to school together for 8.10am. We have prayers in the morning which is an assembly with presentations. Then there’s lessons, breaktime and I do a lot of extra music lessons.
After the end of the lessons, we have lots of clubs. I often have hockey training and then back to the house for dinner at 6.30pm. They are quite busy days.
What’s a normal meal for you as a boarder?
We’re really lucky with the catering. Each house has their own head chef. One night a week, we have something called ‘house choice’ which is where we’re allowed to say whichever meal we’d like and the chef will make it for us.
As the girls are from all over the world and from different cultures. We’re really lucky with traditions like Chinese New Year, they’ll always make us an amazing Chinese meal.
Is there a moment that you’ll always remember from being at Cheltenham Ladies’ College?
One that I’ll never forget is last year when I was on the Choir and Orchestra Tour, we went to Venice and sang in the St Mark’s Basilica.
We’ve just had a trip for Biology to Sri Lanka. There was a big sports tour where they went to New Zealand and Australia. Our physics department has also visited NASA. We’re really lucky with the trips on offer because it gives us the opportunity to apply what we’ve learnt outside of the college environment.
What’s the coolest thing that you can study at Cheltenham Ladies’ College?
One that I think is really cool, is where we built our own car. This year, they’re running the club again but building a green-powered electric car. We have some really wacky clubs – there’s over 160! One of the clubs is a Harry Potter potions club where they apply chemistry to make the actual potions from the book.
We also have design clubs where girls can try and make video games. There are also lots of sports including skiing and polo, it’s really endless!
What’s your favourite part of the day?
In the morning it’s a big tradition that we have prayers where we all get together. As a whole Cheltenham Ladies’ College community, we get together and it’s a moment of stillness before commencing your day.
Tell us something we don’t know about Cheltenham Ladies’ College?
I think something that is really interesting is that despite singing being really important, we don’t have a chapel as part of Cheltenham Ladies’ College and that’s because our founders wanted us to immerse in the Cheltenham community on Sundays.
Instead of having services in college all the time, we go out and have our services in church outside of school which makes us really different.
For more information about Cheltenham Ladies’ College see Cheltenham Ladies' College, call (01242) 520691, or visit cheltladiescollege.org directly.
