Habs school for Girls

[youlookalotlikeme]

Hi,

Does anyone have a view on this school - positive or negative?

Considering for my DD (yes, yes, PFB before anyone asks). Have tried asking in Education, but not getting any replies.

TIA

DD1 wants to do 5. I don't think she will, though.

There are so many other things she could learn without an exam at the end of it.

Blimey Mordion. And the EPQ? And all her music? And GS and CT? And the journey? And with the exams all going linear?

She's welcome to talk to mine if you want her dissuaded :)

@yellow exactly. But ...and the is a but....music only takes 2 years. She wants to do performance studies A level at the theatre group she goes to (you might know it). She'd be going to the classes anyway, she would die rather than give that up, the singing element would be so synergistic with other stuff, it might be useful for the EPQ, and it would be very useful for her future career in all sorts of ways. And they get amazing results - they only let a few kids do the course and they have all got As or A*s so far. And while her first and second study instruments will only get more full on, she's going to be winding down the other two a bit once she's in the 6th form. If she was doing a less effort intensive 4th subject than geog then I'd be less concerned. But she is (timetable allowing) so I am. If geog falls through timetable wise then her fourth choice at school is drama so that will change everything.

If they are very keen on something it's best to encourage it. Mine seemed to take almost a PhD in the the subject "the very barest minimum to get us to where I want to go" and I'm not saying that's good.

3 academic A2s with good grades are a good start. You do get some children doing more.

What is an EPQ?

Extended Project Xenia. A long essay, not quite a dissertation. Best if it's cross curricular. In points terms worth an AS. But good for independent learning, university interviews etc.

My DC seem to think Habs girls are good. Fun, nice, very clever and accomplished etc. The eldest five babysit for a Habs Boys teacher (a very seasoned one). He's great. Fabulous really. What's the deal with Habs Boys according to you babybarrister? I know what this particular teacher says about the ethos/ results/ parent body but I'm assuming you think Habs Boys falls short in comparison to Habs Girls? How?

The people we know doing 5 a levels literally have no life at all. No time to be in plays, or be prefects or do all the other stuff that being in the 6th form means.

And they are risking spreading thselves so thin that they don't do as well as they should- so they lose out all round.

Hmm not sure about that as a universal truth seeker, since I know friends of my DC who have managed five and a life. But Further Maths is usually the fifth, and life is squeezed. At the end of the day I doubt that fifth makes any difference to university offers and that the university offers would have come flooding in to those particular students whatever.

I didn't say it was a universal truth. I said that among the people I know here in the real world it is the case. The exceptions being a maths whizz and a girl who is bilingual doing an additional a level in her first language.

Could anybody tell me if knowing few languages is actually a good thing when applying to HABs or NLCS? My daughter is a trilingual child and I am worried that her English won't be as fluent as others. I am not English myself so can't give her a good level of English.

Thanks

mummyru are you talking about a 4 year entry or an 11 year entry? Personally I wouldn't think it would have a negative impact at 4 but it wouldn't be an advantage either.
At 11 it would depend on the level of fluency but I would think it might be seen as an advantage. Some children at the school are fluent in other languages eg Japanese, chinese, hebrew, gujerati (sp!)

mirry2, I consider a 4 year entry. I just wonder if they take it into account. I would really want her to try an academic school. She is only little (21 month old), but very strong willed and just loves numbers. At about 12 months she could indentify big number (e.g. 231, 187 etc). Now she could do some equation - add, subtraction, multiply, devide in her head (up to 100). But its only in my native language. Reading is also in my language.

Phone the school secretary and ask. They're used to these sort of questions.
You could also just enter her for the assessment. Check when the closing date is. I thik they may charge a fee for the assessment so check that and as long as you can afford it I would just go for it. The worst that can happen is that she is turned down.

OP hasn't been back to tell us how her daughter has a place when the assessments haven't taken place yet

Thanks. just was wondering if somebody had similar experience. I was even considering to get an English tutor to get a decent level of English.

My daughter with 4 English grandparents often seemed just about the only child at Habs who wasn't billingual actually. I would say most children are at classes on Saturday of their mother tongue and that was very varied from Hebrew to Polish to all the others. So I would say it was normal to have another language. I would imagine that if the child at 4+ doesn't speak though or cannot understand English that is when there might be a problem.

I don't think you need to read at Habs at 4. My oldest who was a later reader at 6 and did very well got in and her younger sister who went to NLCS didn't and at nearly 4 could read every book they brought to her in the reading scheme on the interview day so they clearly weren't looking for early readers that day.

Mummyru, NLCS asks about other languages the child speaks on the application form and asks parents if they want this to be taken into account at the 4+ assessment so they definitely take it into account - but you should still make sure he can speak English, otherwise it will be very hard for them to assess

I don't think an English tutor will help much at all at that age, children mostly learn from other children so i would highly recommend sending her to nursery where she will pick it up quickly.

My DD (just over 2) is trilingual, neither me nor DH speaks English with her but bc she's been in nursery full-time since she was 6 months old, she's picked up a lot of English and even speaks with a cute London accent which is very funny for us. And it definitely isn't from the nursery staff who are mostly Eastern European, so it must be from the other children! She says "more please darling" when she asks me for food which we find hilarious.

A tutor can never teach a child at that age what they could just pick up while playing with other children. Even three or four mornings a week in a nursery will give your daughter a perfect chance to have a good level of English by the time she's 4.

sanam2010, my DD will be 3,5 y.o. when she goes to nursery. So she will have 4 month nursery experience before the assessment. Obviously I go to music and art classes everyday with her. She can understand and say some odd words in English. My DH is also English but works alot abroad . My concern is that she won't have the same advanced level of English by the time she is 4. She also does another language (Chinese) with a tutor. She has started from September and by now can understand the teacher, point at things, numbers, some Chinese characters.
Im curious how can you manage 3 languages with your daughter ? You say she goes to English nursery full time from a very young age. I speak and do alot with my daughter in my native language (Russian). After the day my throat hurts I speak so much lol. Still I am worried that she will switch to English when she goes to nursery and wont speak Russian properly. The same thing with Chinese (second language). She does 2 hours every day (6 days) with a tutor otherwise it won't be a good level of Chinese. So I dont know how to compromise and will the school understand this.

I am not worried about other things because I do activities all day long with her. Spend all my evenings preparing materials though :(

As the testing is in English (as far as I am aware) it is sensible to make sure they can speak English reasonably well.
Some of it is down to luck. Our second one who didn't get into Habs but went to NLCS at 7 we always thought in part did not get in as triplet girls got three places although who knows what the reason was and she did pretty well at NLCS anyway which is arguably marginally better (for A levels anyway).

Mummyru, why don't you just start her in nursery earlier? 4 months is indeed a short time to be picking up English. Music classes etc. aren't really the same I think in terms of learning.

How do we manage three languages? Well I don't know really how well she'll speak all of them, I assume English will be dominant, but as long as you meet up with fellow natives from your country and do some holidays with grandparents etc. I think it's fine. As long as she can speak the others fluently (even if her writing is not fluent) I don't mind as her schooling will be in English. And there's a lot of time later, you could always do Russian school etc. later when she's 7 or something like that. Languages come naturally to children as long as they're exposed to them, I think one summer away will fix anything. I don't worry about it bc I know many multilingual children, children who moved continents and they were always fine and picked languages up quickly. My nephews moved to West Africa at 3 and 5, neither of them were native French speakers but they went to French nursery and then French school and they are both top of their class at 6 and 8, just took them a year or so to settle in. I know many such cases. If your daughter is bright (and from what you are saying she certainly sounds like it!) i really don't think you need to worry, as long as she mixes a lot with other kids she'll pick everything up in no time.

I also registered my DD at a couple of schools that do first come first served just in case the assessments don't go well, which I think can easily happen at such a young age, so she has a place at Hill House Intl School just in case, but NLCS sounds fantastic so we'll try that when the time comes...

My recollection, although entry may have changed, was that they genuinely were not looking for crammed learning but just can this child interact (it is hard to assess those who sit in a corner sobbing, those who don't say a word and those who go round thumping everyone for example), do they respond to questions, perhaps can they recognise their name from a pile of names or the first letter of their name, can they work in a group with others, do they seem on the ball, a bright spark, interested in things etc etc.

#We never knew what exactly happened in the assessments. I think there were 2 stages - at the first visit all the girls were taken off for a playgroup assessment while the parents were left in the staff common room. Girls who were shorllisted at this stage, returned on a separate day when each was taken off for a one-to-one with an admission teacher. Trying to prise out of a 3/4 year old what went on in either session was almost impossible.
All I know is that the room was set up like a nursery school/reception class, with a book corner and a home corner.At this stage the parents had individual meetings with one of the senior teachers where we talked about fairly inconsequential matter.

I suppose at the very least, any girls giong through this selection process would need to be confident enough to leave their parents and go off with an unknown teacher.

I'm not up for the fight, and neither is my DD. We're quiet. Keep ourselves to ourselves.

I wouldn't send a shy/less confident child to Habs. I am exceptional among the Habs girls I know who is exceptionally grateful for the bits of paper and the hardening I got but it was not a happy time.

I would say this: the current head was deputy when I was there. She told me mother that 'I know DD2 is poorly but DD1 is acting out. You should spend more time with her. Take her shopping or something'. My sister was critically ill, I wasn't attention seeking and anyway my mother and I both hate shopping. I just hope her pastoral skills have improved.