Moving from Oz - good schools in Truro area

[Grevillea]

Hi there,

This is my first ever post so please be gentle with me. Hopefully I'm in the right place too....

Hubby and I are considering moving from Australia next year to south Cornwall, to be close to family. We will have a 9-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl who are privately educated in a school for 5-18 year olds here in Australia.

Looking at the private schools in & around Truro, it looks like Truro Prep and Truro School are our main options. Does anyone have any experience of these schools? They look lovely on paper but are they grossly over-rated? Scarily, the fees are almost double what we pay here.

Are there any other schools (state schools) that cater for both primary and secondary ages that we should consider? We would be living anywhere from Helston up to Truro (but not too far off the beaten track!). Smaller schools would be better so it wouldn't be quite so intimidating for them.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations :)

[cressetmama]

Truro High School, which takes boys and girls but teaches them separately after primary and before A levels, may be worth looking at. It was girls only until recently so you'd need to look at how this is settling down. It has always had a good reputation academically.

State schools don't cater for primary and secondary in the UK. Primaries may be small village schools but in rural catchments, the comprehensives tend to be big and serve huge swathes of countryside. Truro also has a highly rated 6th form college, so many schools don't do much after GCSE. I'm at the wrong end of Cornwall to help more, but there was a big thread on here a few months ago about moving to Truro, and some of those folk will be in a better position to advise. Good luck.

[Grevillea]

Thank you so much. I shall hunt down the thread you mentioned & see if I can get some more info from that.

[Stickerrocks]

Truro School always had lots of kids from the Helston & Falmouth area. The public transport links aren't great and what looks like a relatively short distance on paper can take a very long time in reality, so having others from your peer group nearby is definitely useful. I was a Truro School "old boy" when it only took a few girls. Friends with children there today seem very happy with it.

Don't overlook local state schools either, such as Mullion. Why pay when there are schools with a great reputation on your doorstep.

[Sallycinnamon1974]

You can't go too far wrong with state schools in Cornwall, both secondary schools in Truro (Penair and Richard Lander) are very good. Take a look at the ofsted website and you can see their latest reports. Good lunch with your move!

[ImABigOleBadLass]

Hi Grevillea - work in Cornwall education (council related).

FYI - Truro School / Prep runs a special bus from Helston:

www.truroschool.com/senior/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/transport-timetable.pdf?e9d158

cressetmama makes a good point - there are a number of lovely small primaries (Kennall Vale etc) but all feed to huge secondaries. There's also a shortage of primary places in Truro now, owing to huge amounts of new home building but no extra facilities. Classes of 30+ for KS2 are becoming a lot more common in the best schools (Threemilestone, Archbishop Ben).

For secondary, Richard Lander is better, as Penair is currently having upheavals from several recent headship changes. Again, Mullion secondary has a new head after years of the old one, so you'll have to wait to see how he settles in and what his changes do to morale / performance there.

As for private - hear good things about Truro School. The High School is a bit cheaper but decision to take in boys this year (think their numbers were dwindling so it was out of economic necessity) hasn't gone down well with some parents. I did some work there recently and found the buildings a bit 70s and squashed in. Good teachers, though - especially for science in the upper school. If you want private, TS seems better overall, I'd say.

[Grevillea]

Thank you all so much for your advice. I hadn't realised Truro High accepted boys? Their fees seem a little lower, which certainly appeals to us. I've requested a prospectus so we'll see what comes of that.

The shortage of primary places worries me, as does the 30+ class sizes - we are lucky to have no more than 24 in a class at our current school. My son is quite sensitive & reserved so would do better in a smaller class environment where he won't stick out as not only the new boy but an Aussie one at that! Maybe he would be better off at Truro Prep or Polwhele House for the remainder of his primary schooling.

It's good to know Truro School has a designated bus, which will give us more options as to where to live.

[DorisLessingsCat]

Truro High School does not yet accept boys. The clue is in their strap line "girls first".

There are no other fee paying secondary schools in Cornwall bar THS and Truro School with the exception of GEMS Bolitho (Penzance) which announced the it was closing in July, although they now apparently have a new financial backer.

The state schools are all generally fine. Good luck with your move.

[Nekabu]

Does anyone know if Truro High is going to accept boys? The last I heard it looked like it was going to stay girls only but I'm not sure if that has changed?

[choughspotter]

In the UK system, a good way to compare academic outcomes of schools is A Level results, which broadly show where schools have got kids to, and determine where they can go and what they can do next. A Levels are the end point of UK Secondary education - you typically need to pass in 3 subjects to go on to university, but often kids take 4, and pass grades range from E (=150 points) to A* (=300 points). Three good measures how well kids do in their subjects are "Average point score per full time equivalent academic student", "Average point score per academic entry" (i.e. the average result of exams sat in the school) and "% of students achieving at least AAB with two facilitating subjects". This last measure shows the % of kids who leave school with the passport to a top-flight university education (i.e. meet the usual entry requirements for a Russell Group university- the top 24 of the UK's 109 universities). Comparing the 2014 results for the schools you are interested in, I believe the stats are as follows: Truro School achieved average 882.5 points per pupil and Truro High School 850.3; Truro School achieved average 243.1 points per exam sat and Truro High School 234.6. Perhaps most importantly, on the AAB measure, this was met by 43% of kids at Truro school and 25% of kids at Truro High School. Of course, the outcomes of both schools are fantastic compared to what is typical in the state sector - in local education authority schools in England, the average points per pupil in 2014 was 747.8, and the average points per exam was 210.5, with 10.8% achieving the AAB standard.

Exam outcomes are probably not the most important thing. I know that Truro School is a lovely community. Best of luck moving to the UK and translating the architecture of our educational system from the one you are used to!