The Cheltenham Ladies College

Assalamualaikum! Greetings from *another* LADIES COLLEGE

I see HLC had made an introduction for us, yup, we are from...... 

The Cheltenham Ladies’ College

Currently, there are 4 of us here, 2 of which had just joined me (Isyrah) and Ziqah this year, our (clingy) junnies Ainuna and Dalia!

The Cheltenham Ladies’ College, or more widely known as CLC, and ‘college’ amongst CLC girls, is, kinda obvious here, situated in Cheltenham, a mere 5 minutes away from the town centre! Actually, the town centre is just behind our school, lol.
                                          

We are a boarding school for girls in Lower Colleges (LC1, LC2, LC3), Upper Colleges (UC4, UC5) and Sixth Form Colleges (SFC1, SFC2) with 10 boarding houses, 4 of which are sixth form houses. There are houses for day girls (non-boarding girls) as well. Our houses are very dispersed around the neighbourhood, mixed in with private residency, with the closest house being 2 minutes away from college and the furthest (our juniors’ house, actually!) being 15 minutes away. This is, ofcourse, if you’re brisk walking, or ‘normal walking for UK people’. Ziqah’s and mine, Alhamdulillah, is not that far, 7 minutes away, or 5 minutes if we’re in rocket speed or, um, we just woke up late, and, um, left the house later than we should. Ehem!

Should we take you more into college life? Alright then.

Our registration starts at 8.20, and we have prayers at 8.30, which is essentially, an assembly at the Princess Hall or PH (everything at college is abbreviated!) where there will be short presentations ranging from subject departments, to a group who’s just got back from a school trip, to different societies in college. Then we sing hymns followed by a prayer.

The first period of lesson starts at 8.50 and lasts for 30 minutes. 4 periods in the morning and these takes us to break at 10.50. Period 5 then starts at 11.10 and 4 periods later, lunch time at 1.10!

We will go back to our houses for lunch then go back to college for afternoon registration at 2.30 (or go to respective places for sports every Tuesdays). Lessons then start at 2.40 and the last period of the day ends at 4.40. You get to leave early if your lesson ends before 4.40! Yay! Clubs then start at 5 and usually end at 6…blablabla.

Well, interesting isn’t it? Mmhmm.

Here’s a picture of our Main E.

 (main entrance. Toldja everything’s abbreviated)

What’s good being here? Hmmm, well, being an established (and posh) independent school, we are offered various academic and other opportunities. Our school has this ‘bond’ with its previous girls who’s left college and had lead successful life of their own (CEOs of companies, doctors, lawyers, and any career you could imagine) that they can easily give one a call and ask them to hold a seminar or give advice or work experience opportunity to current girls in college. 

College also has these ‘connections’ with various charities that make it easy for us to get volunteering experience.  Another, would be the vast range of nationality at college, which make you feel less overwhelmed for not being from the UK as much. (I personally think there are more Asians than English people!)

This is a very big tree at college known as……

‘the tree’

Oh yeah....

We…. are famous for….. our green uniform, haha!

The new uniform. Mmhmm

Here’s a picture of Ainuna & Dalia 

in their uniform. bahahaha

I mean, very, green. Poor LCs and UCs, they had to wear a green jumper over a blouse and a green skirt! We SFCs, just have the green jumper and navy trousers. They had changed the uniform this year though, to “get a smarter look and not the scruffy one we have with our jumpers by trying to get everyone to wear very expensive blazers” and all the new girls have to wear them. 








We, the SFC2s don’t!  The younger girls have a pretty decent uniform, I think, with navy blazer that you have to wear everytime and…a kilt. The SFC1 girls are still heavy with green, with their green blazers and navy skirts or trousers. They don’t have to wear the jumper with the new uniform but oh, if you do, you have to keep on the blazers at all times. Yeah….

And…..! Its our 160^th anniversary this year! Yay!

Okay I’ll stop the college talk!

Now, Cheltenham town? Yeah?

The town centre is small. 30-45 minutes of exploring and you know where everything is! That is, if you didn’t stop to ‘get a look round’ the shops, which, if you’re not careful, can make 2 hours fly, just like that! The shops are not those of Oxford St in London of course, but fair ranges of brands and varieties to keep one contented. (H&M had just opened recently! Finally, lol) 

There are only 3 Halal places - kebab place, grilled chicken place and a Thai restaurant - currently known to us, but I believe there are more, a little bit out of town, though! If we get tired of those three, we usually just go to a Chinese restaurant and get some seafood fried rice.

As for tourist attractions, our town is known for holding the Cheltenham Festivals every year, which attract people from all around the UK. This consists of the Literature festival (JK Rowling was here last year!), Music Festival, Jazz Festival and the Science Festival (I went to a talk which featured James Watson!). Cheltenham is also a centre for horse racing and hold competitions frequently, and you will know it’s that time of year even if you don’t horse race; it’s when every bar and lottery places in town get packed with millions of people! Okay, slight exaggeration there, but you know what I mean. Right? Maybe not.

Cheltenham is about 2.5 hours away from London, so we go by train from here to Paddington in London. Fortunately the train station is just 15 minutes walk from our houses so we don’t have to pay for the extra fares for cabs. (Except if its half term or end of term and our luggages are just too heavy to be dragged for 15 minutes!)

I think visiting and seeing Cheltenham for yourselves would be better than having me trying to sum it all up in paragraphs, yeah? ;)

Get the hint people! We welcome you here!