St Christophers Letchworth or Northbridge House Senior - ????

My DD1 was at St Chris from Year 7 to 11, she left last summer. I would say the school is very good in parts. She got 3A's, 5A's and 1 B for GCSE and A, A, B, B for A level. She got into her first choice of uni in the top 12 in the country.

St Chris is laid back, kids can get away with doing very little work. They are not pushed and there are no exams until the end of Year 10. This can mean it's very hard to tell how they're doing. Some subjects are definitely better taught than others, English, Maths, History, Art, Drama, CDT excellent, Science pretty good. Foreign languages and Geography not so good. Your child does need to be motivated (either by themselves or parents). A lot of my DD's year left after AS because they had done very badly and went to crammers to try and catch up. I don't think this was due to bad teaching, more the optimistic expectation by the teachers that they would work independently. But some got places at unis like Durham, Birmingham, York, Edinburgh, and Queen Mary's London. They don't spoon feed which is good preparation for uni. There are a lot of kids with dyslexia but there is setting in English from Year 9 which helps both them and the ones who don't need extra help. It doesn't feel like a specialist school for dyslexia.

DD was a boarder for 3 years and then commuted by train from Finsbury Park. Socially half her friends lived in Letchworth and half very local in London (Finsbury Park station is the key to an easy commute).

She is shy and quiet but definitely thrived there, particularly creatively. Northbridge House was our second choice, but we felt it was too small with too many boys at the time we looked. I understand it's merging with the Royal School so will probably change a lot.

Just had a look at the St Chris website hello all - impressive! It does not seem overly academic but that is a very good fit for a lot of children.

Big decision, good luck and at least you are giving yourself lots of time to make it!

Letchworth is a lovely area. We had the choice of London or Hertfordshire for secondaries and I am so glad we moved them out of London.

I don't know anything about St C but I would be wary of Cognita and Northbridge as well. Northbridge is undergoing some major changes include moving the senior school to the old Royal School Hampstead site and who knows how smoothly that will go?

Personally I also have a huge problem with privately owned, for-profit independent schools. Hate the idea of people making money off of children's education. At least they could be charities.

Only an opinion but HTH!