From a St Catherine’s Exchange Family: The entire family has enjoyed the exchange and would whole-heartedly endorse the exchange programme. Our daughter benefited enormously. It offers the opportunity to experience many new frontiers: visiting Sydney, surfing in warm waters, living in a city and developing lasting friendships across the globe are all an integral part of the exchange. However, by far the most important ingredient, is the positive experience she acquired by living with a different family and coming through the odd moment of feeling a long way from home. There can be little better for building the self-confidence of a thirteen year old. The programme requires a high level of commitment from the family but this is repaid many times over by the positive benefits for your daughter. We were initially unsure as to whether the exchange was a good idea, but were persuaded otherwise by our daughter and she was correct.

St. Catherine’s engages in a number of external competitions annually, including Oxford, Cambridge, ESU Mace, LSE and Imperial.  We also engage in “friendly” debating with RGS and GHS. Debate club runs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and aims to build students’ confidence in presenting their arguments and encourages them to keep abreast of world affairs.

What our Debating Prefects have to say:

Debating is an activity that requires you to be able to think intelligently and concisely under pressure, something I consider to be a fundamental life skill. It also teaches you how to construct a clear and coherent argument, whilst picking apart the argument of the opposition. It does not matter if you have no prior knowledge on a particular subject either, as through practice, you will be able to tell where the fundamentals in every argument lie; this is always where the most interesting debating takes place!

For me debating is, more than anything, a chance to express your own thoughts and opinions backed up by evidence and reason. It gives you the opportunity to show your passion for current affairs.  You also get to hear the different viewpoints of a variety of other people which can often influence your own take on issues. As well as this you learn that sometimes you must take a stance and defend something that you may not actually believe, which I think although can be difficult is a vital skill. In fact, simply being able to address others and speak coherently in front of an audience is really an invaluable skill. Lastly, debating is something which will not only improve your eloquence but also your general knowledge and reasoning ability and it really is so much fun too.

St Catherine's offers girls the opportunity to take part in residential trips and tours in school holidays which underpin academic study or enhance the enjoyment of extra curricular sport and music-making.  

Residential Visits & Tours 2016 - 2024

Individual ClarionCall emails are sent to those invited to consider taking part in all these trips/tours, well in advance of the tour itself. This grid is therefore a record of past activities and forecast of the known future plans. Please accept that a past pattern of activity may repeat but may be subject to variation.  Trips and tours should not be assumed to be offered ahead if they are not published here. 

For current parents who are interested in the potential costs of the trips, please visit our community pages here.