Recommendations for private senior school Essex/Suffolk

Yes we did! It was a lovely morning!!!

@royalhospital 😆 I suspected that's what you meant! I was going to suggest you check out the more general open day tomorrow. Hope you get the same "feel" as before. 😊

Wasn’t a gut feel I mean

Absolutely! I’ve checked their account first thing this morning, and it ensured me that yesterday was only a gut feel.
The fact that they introduced BGA too, is a sign that they might be struggling…

we are popping in tomorrow morning for the RHS open day just to have another look, for before we tour Norwich School next week 🫣

@royalhospitalWe're at Royal Hospital School atm. I saw your post on another boarding school thread the other day and responded with some thoughts there, but without repeating that post, we've been really impressed.

Re other options FWIW, we looked at all of them albeit for year 7. I liked both but Woodbridge was too far and my husband didn't like it for our DD, and I was put off IHS when I interrogated their accounts. I know from friends who've moved (and left) there that they have boosted numbers with scholarships but I would urge you to look at their accounts just to satisfy yourself. I really don't wish to bash it as I actually liked the school and facilities, but you need to go in with eyes open. May not be an issue for just two years but I've been scarred by a previous bad experience as a governor of a school (where some of my family also worked) with similar issues/ownership which makes me a little cautious! Perhaps other pertinent point is that both Woodbridge and RHS have decent sized sixth forms with a good number of new joiners whereas IHS is still quite small relatively. Even more important is where your DD feels comfortable... 😊

Just joining this thread actually…

we are looking for a sixth form for our daughter. So far we visited RHS, Woodbridge and IHS.
all lovely schools.
Loved RHS the most to be fair. Anyone from there? Experiences? Views? I would be ever so grateful ❤️

I am current parent at Ipswich School if you would like any specific feedback.

There is anecdotal evidence to support kids being asked to take exams elsewhere but this appears to have been with children who have completely opted out of school and who aren't doing a stroke of work. The school has always been very clear with us that if our child is struggling to keep up with their peers to the extent that school is becoming an unpleasant experience for them this will never be presented as new news suddenly.

The school will certainly push the kids to achieve but I would not describe it as a hothouse. There is a whole class of kids doing Foundation level maths at GCSE for example as well as a small cohort winning Maths competitions. As with all schools there is a big range. The average results are higher than many schools in the area but while I'm not a statistician, if you have larger pupil numbers to start with then a few poorer grades will not have the same impact as a sixth form of 30 for example.

In my experience, kids are more likely to be exited for ongoing disciplinary reasons with accommodations being made for children with SEN who are proactively managed with additional pastoral support where it is driving difficult behaviours.

The boarding house provision is actively growing with a newly acquired building refurbed as the girls house. I assume the boys house will benefit in due course and small 2 bed lodges are used for sixth formers so they have a bit of independence and a kitchenette for snacks.

@Soma is absolutely right - music is very strong at RHS, in terms of the variety, the standard and the level of participation. Strong choral tradition, marching band and great rock and pop.

@dddais RHS also has a very strong music department, with excellent teaching.

Yeah - I would suggest RHS, IHS, Woodbridge, or St Jos as they are all less academic.

St Jos - sport focused, as the others said maybe a little skewed boys
RHS - Good boarding, generally higher boarder numbers than others in the areas, I think a good all-round option too
IHS - Strong focus on extra-curricular activities, pastoral care and activity options etc but boarding is more boutique. Personally feel best value for money fee wise as everything is included
Woodbridge - Great all round school but again lower boarders

Thanks - this is what I've been worried about. It's been relatively ok securing a place - I think because they may be a bit shorter of numbers but my concern is as my daughter would
prgress towards exams they really pile on the pressure - and yes if you risk impacting their standing on league tables they ask you to leave

Ipswich School is basically "the academic" school in Ipswich.

This is just hearsay but maybe one of the others can confirm - they push their kids really hard to maintain high grades and if you're tracking lower than they deem acceptable they will ask you to leave, or you will take your exams at another centre so it doesn't appear on their official records (unsure how true the second part is)

IHS integrates everyone together yes but the boarding is very "boutique" so you're looking at a close knit boarding group with the day pupils making up the majority.

My girls are day pupils and occasionally do this thing called Day+ where they can stay until 9pm with the boarders which is nice - DH and I sometimes go out on a quick date!!

thanks, really helpful...we're just not sure how well suited our daughter would be to a really academic environment - she's done her primary school at a local school in Singapore and while they are quite focused and push them, it is different to an academic independent school in the UK....we're probably more leaning to RHS at this point ....the difference in fees is a factor too...

Agree with @usedtobeboss3Ipswich is very academic - living in Colchester, it seems to be the private alternative to the grammars. A few of my DDs friends who took 11+ also went for academic scholarships there. We looked at it too (obvs 😂) and also found the art (important to us) a bit lacking/uninspired, but not unexpected as they have strengths elsewhere,. Music very strong and sport too (according to our neighbours son who plays rugby against them!). I think boarding numbers are quite small there though.

Ipswich is definitely perceived as being more academic - but as I said before, able pupils do well at RHS. They are very different schools though, in all sorts of ways.

Day and boarding pupils are well integrated at RHS; they are all together in the same house in Y7, and again in Y13. They are in separate houses from Y8 - Y12, but there are plenty of opportunites for mixing. It helps too that the number split is fairly even.

Yes it seems great value for money given the amount going on there - i just hope they don't drastically raise their fees now that they are under private ownership!
Are you kids day pupils? Are the day and boarders well integrated with one another at RHS?

Thank you - this is super helpful. You're right the number of boarders is low and our concern is that our DD is detached from the day pupils - as we're not local she can't really socialise with the day pupils outside of school. That's the attraction of RHS - seems a huge amount going on for boarders but we were also a bit concerned it could be one big summer camp and she'll get distracted. She's also going into her teenage years......

Thank you - we didn't consider woodbridge or IHS but did apply to Ipswich and she has secured a place there too - we have accepted it as a fallback as the deposit wasn't too prohibitive (around £200). Ipswich seems to have a really good reputation but only thing - or two - that is really putting us off is that the boarding fees are a bit higher than RHS (St Jos) - around £6k once in the senior school - and it seems more of an academic hothouse - we're not sure that's the right environment for our DD (in fact, we were a bit surprised she passed the exam for Ipswich - perhaps they are less selective these days). Do you have any insight into Ipswich - is my perception of it being academic fair? We live overseas and while we have family in the area we're not too familiar with the schools and just going off the snippets of info online

Makes sense - I think they recently did up the boarding houses to quite high standard so I assume that was the investment. I know IHS was the best "value for money" option we looked at (meals included etc.) so that influenced our decision a lot.

The school itself is great though, DD1 and DD2 are both really happy there

@EastCoastMum1i live in a family of accountants, one of whom was a bursar at a failing private school so I asked her to take a look. When I looked a year or two ago (when we were considering options), it had quite big liabilities. (In the millions), albeit I think largely to the Chinese owners who'd invested in the boarding house etc. After my family experience at this other school which had a similar ownership structure, it put me off a little, although we just preferred other options for our DD too.

So hard when you're talking big money and your kids education. I have now reached the conclusion I just need to bite the bullet and go with my gut of what suits her rather than try and rationalise every move of every school. Not least it's hard to keep up with all the change in the sector atm!!

Honestly you sound like you're far more clued up to the inner workings of RHS - I'm only going off playground chatter, so to speak!

I'm interested in what you mean by IHS accounts - do you mean their financials? I didn't even look into that to be quite honest

@EastCoastMum1interested in your insight as my understanding is that whilst historically, a couple of boarding houses have closed at RHS to account for greater preference for day places, there's no plans to close any now that I'm aware of. In fact there is a rolling programme of refurbishment. I also have some private insight into the departure of the head which I won't share, but I was reassured. Tbf, most schools are seeing some churn in heads. St Mary's in Colchester, Felsted, Orwell Park all have new heads this year. IHS had lots of turnover until current head joined a few years back. Ipswich School got new head recently too.

From a boarding perspective Ipswich School and IHS have small numbers of boarders and only one or two small houses, although IHS does has a beautiful boarding house. Their accounts are less pretty when I looked though, otherwise we might have been more keen. If I were looking at boarding alternatives in the area, I'd look at Framlighan or Culford, but sounds like @dddais already have places at RHS or at Jos so not looking for alternatives.

Did you consider Ipswich School proper, Woodbridge, or Ipswich High School?

From what I've heard RHS and St Jo's are struggling atm - the head just left RHS after a very short tenure and they're closing lots of the boarding houses.

@dddais I can't comment (yet) from direct experience like others but we did look at both for our daughter. They are very different schools, but if your DD is boarding, I would really interrogate the number of boarders at St Jos. Royal Hospital School is a "proper" boarding school with decent numbers across two girls houses, and a weekend programme to match (v important if she's not going home - you don't want to be one of a handful left), whereas St Jos is much smaller, with reliance on a much larger international cohort and ad hoc boarders I think. As someone who went to boarding school (albeit a while ago!!), I think it's so important to feel like boarding is embedded in the culture as it is at RHS, rather than a bolt on. I also understand from other parents I know who have/had kids at st jos, they are quite boy heavy, perhaps because of the strong emphasis on rugby/sport, which is not for everyone. Certainly when we looked around, they told us all about the rugby programme and specialist nutrition, despite having a DD not remotely interested in it. We came away thinking it was nice enough, but not particularly wowed. FWIW, my neighbours also moved their son in year 9 from St Jo's to RHS in last couple of years, largely for the reasons @usedtobeboss3states.