St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School or Chelmsford County High School for Girls which school is better?

Chelmsford is the better school but living in London is better for long term opportunities, including living at home while attending a London uni, doing internships and general extracurriculars, and being independent as a teenager, later downsizing to provide a house deposit etc.

Which school did you and your DD feel would be the better fit for her, when you visited and we're considering which exams to have her sit? Or will her DM being told by random strangers on the internet that School X is the best mean that she knows that that school is best for her, even if she isn't happy there and preferred School B (or even School C / D / E / F)?

Which area of Essex giving your DD a sensible journey to school attracted you to apply to CCHS?

Do you (and ?your OH) work solely from home, or do you need to factor in a commute for yourselves?

Do you have other DC to consider- there is not necessarily a place in the televant year group in an Essex school (especially for primary, it always strikes me how easily Londoners seem to have got a place at their nearest/ most desired school and cannot grasp that this doesn't necessarily happen elsewhere).

I don't knowingly know anyone with DC at St Michael's, but do know a couple of young women who attended CCHS (albeit one only for sixth form, having attended a different grammar school local to us but rather less local herself up to GCSE), who have both done well and seem to have liked the school. Would I have looked at it for DD if we had lived nearby? Yes. Would I have moved house specifically her to go there? No.

I know you are a good few years away from this stage, but St Michael’s A level choices are very limited, and a lot of girls leave to do a wider range of subjects elsewhere.