The Royal Masonic School for Girls

An incredible school- our daughter is thriving here, and I wouldn’t want her anywhere else after experiencing the academic excellence, pastoral care and happy/well balanced upbringing RMS offers their girls. Strong leadership, excellent and dedicated teachers, outstanding facilities and opportunities beyond our expectations. It’s a healthy balance here of pushing the girls to excel whilst looking after their wellbeing- our daughter goes to school with a smile on her face. It’s a worthwhile investment and we have every intention of keeping our daughter here for years to come.

My 2 daughters attended this school as boarders, whilst the education and extra curricular activities were fine their boarding experience was horrific. It is not a home away from home unless in your home you bully your children, shout at them, belittle them and ensure they live in a constant state of anxiety. The boarding house staff are awful, they also use teenage girls from abroad on gap years to bolster staff numbers in the houses, at least one of them bullied my 11 year old daughter. Pastoral care is abysmal. Apart from the terrible staff whilst some of the girls were lovely, many were cliquey and bullied the younger girls in the houses in full view of staff. We tried for months to communicate with the staff to improve the situation my girls were experiencing but nothing changed and in the end we had to remove them in the middle of the term. My children went there happy, confident, high achieving girls and my youngest left with an eating disorder and mental health issues. We hugely regret ever choosing RMS for Girls and would advise you to avoid it at all costs for your daughters.

I was a student here for a year and half when I was 11 years old. I was bullied relentlessly and endlessly and the staff did nothing about it - they watched it happen and let it happen. I was miserable, I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. Eventually I refused to go back to the school and it has now left me with severe mental health problems. Do not send your children here.

My daughter has been attending RMS since the age of 2. She attended Ruspini House, Cadogan House and is now very happy attending the Senior School. My husband and I are thrilled with our daughter's experience at RMS and the amazing opportunities she has had to try new things. Our daughter plays in 2 of the many musical ensembles and orchestras. She sings, she competes in a variety of sports, she takes part in Academic scholar classes, is a member of the Army Cadet Force (based in the school), she performs Drill...the list goes on and on and on... in fact there are over 60 extra curricular clubs on offer.
I love the fact that the teachers know our daughter so well and can therefore support her to get the most out of the RMS experience. The food is lovely, the facilities are wonderful and the pastoral care is exceptional. As parents we get the chance to speak to staff on a regular basis, visit the Forest School, attend school events all with the the objective of making our daughter's experience at RMS - a family one.

My daughter had a bad time at RMS sixth form a couple of years ago. There was barely any integration of new girls and the pastoral care was appalling. They use all the right words and school is very good at self-promotion. The sixth form staff are particularly proud of their pastoral care and will continually praise the girls for their "maturity" and their "friends for life" connections, but the actual reality is that a lot of the girls are bullies. The pastoral care is weak. The girls are cliquey and there is a culture of exclusion. One example out of many others- my daughter would sit down to join a group of girls and then was told to move away because she wasn't welcome, and the teacher present pretended not to notice. A lot of the teachers belittle the A level students as though they are children, and talk down to them like they are stupid. Staff were too often overlooking my daughter blatantly being disrespected and mocked by other students in the middle of a lesson. Ms Roberts was deputy head of sixth form when my daughter went, and has since been promoted, but she was nasty to my daughter and condescending.

This is to every girl wondering if this school is the right one .
Firstly, yes. Choose RMS. You can’t do anything wrong with this school.
When I had to choose between all the wonderful boarding schools on this earth I did the same as you, I Googled each one my agents suggested and the first thing I saw when i googled RMS was a Google review from a girl describing her time here as the worst of her life. This scared me a lot and I wanted to eliminate RMS from my school pool, but my parents convinced me to give RMS a chance so my mother and I flew to England and 2 girls showed us around. Eventually I (with subtle influence of my mother) choose RMS and Gosh I couldn’t be happier I made that decision.
This turned out to be so much more than a school, it became my home and honestly more than half to the things I love about this school are not on the internet. Of course to you this is just a random strangers opinion on a random school but behind RMS there is caring amazing staff, so many clubs for literally anything, endless musical and sporty opportunity’s amazing friendships and lessons, the huge grounds and everything you could ever wish from a school. (And as I have learned, if you want something they don’t have or don’t offer: just ask they really do anything for you to be happy)
And the only thing I haven’t mentioned is academics (because it’s quite easy to take from their gcse, a level results or where their students study at) but of course the lessons here are brilliant. But a warning, this school is more fun if you like learning something or at least have an interest in anything because if you’re a boring person, a good school won’t seem special)

daughter was an international boarder a couple of years ago. when she called us every evening she would say everything was fine. once she had finished exams and left the school she revealed to us how difficult this school had actually been. the mental health neglect above all was horrific, especially from a school that we thought took the issue seriously. she has now received medical treatment for the issues neglected there and is doing much better, no thx to the school. regret ever sending her here. i once considered legal action against this hell hole.

The years I spent at RMS were definitely the years that shaped me as a person the most.. literally- they made me skinny (from obese) because once when I was in year 7 (and still morbidly obese) one of the boarding house staff fat shamed me for eating an egg yolk and then literally in the same week another one made a comment about how much sugar I put on my pancakes and why I was eating another burger. I think thats where the eating disorder started! ... but thankful for that for making me skinny. Also once in year 6 when I was crying because I was 10 years old and missed my mother ...... they told me to "grow up and get used to it" . Also met some really weird people like my room mate who used to not shower. but my time at rms rlly did help me become more of an individual despite the eating disorder and trauma. all in all im giving 3 stars ( 2 stars for making me skinny and one star because it was near London)