Hi @gcayte95. I'm going to preface this by saying ours haven't started yet, and this is our takeaway and everyone has to form the opinion that's right for them and their child, we made the decision on our children's abilities, interests and personalities. Ask me again in a year I might say differently for all I know! And I'm aware there will always be an element with all schools where parents have to believe they made the best choice because who can face the idea they haven't sent their child to the best place they could?
Have you been to visit yet? Visiting made it pretty clear to us which was our best option, and speaking to aquaintances solidified that decision.
However while we intended to wait until secondary to send both of ours we have been so impressed by Yarm that we've made the decision to move our younger child over to the prep.
We didn't like that in national league tables Teesside High does significantly worse than Egglescliffe, while grades aren't everything I didn't fancy paying a grand a month to quite possibly do worse on an individual level than the local state school. They did explain this to us as they get children with additional needs who don't meet the criteria for specalist provision, but who would struggle in a large state environment. So it's great that those children have this option and clearly it's a good choice for them however with such small year groups we were concerned that there isn't the ability to meet the needs of both ends of the spectrum if their results are that mediocre. Additionally one of ours has social and emotional support needs, but is academically doing very well, and the senco (or whatever the title was at Yarm) spoke to us for more than 2 hours to make sure they could meet their needs in a way that would help her achieve what she's capable of while feeling supported and they put a plan in place even for her to do the entrance exam and settling in day. We really loved this.
TH didn't seem to be confident in their capacity to provide stretch goals for one of our children who is extremely gifted in maths, it was a very general 'oh we'll give him extra work if he finishes early', they kept talking about no child being left behind, which is great, but actually we are sick of him being unchallenged and loosing interest in a subject because he finds things too easy.
We felt that Yarm was much more invested in the child as an individual. We had an email after the open day where they clearly remembered my child in detail from the visit, we had a call from the head after the entrance paper talking through their results and how they would tailor their offering to his level (this was at prep). On the open day they spoke to my child rather than us, making us feel like it was the child they were interested in rather than us as a customer. They certainly spoke to us as well to answer questions or make us aware of things that might not matter to our child but our child took the lead with them. Even when arranging the taster day to the prep they asked him his interests and suggested days to us when those would be on the timetable
Everyone we know who has gone to Yarm sings it's praises, but we have a friend who has pulled their child out of Teesside High and another who is currently struggling with the school not managing bullying well and considering their options. So it's very anecdotal but the sample of 10 or so families we know at either school were much more mixed for TH than Yarm.
For our eldest child there was just a much better range of subjects offered and we liked the promise that no A levels would be cancelled due to low numbers, as this is something friends children have struggled with that their A levels are either cancelled, or they work to fixed blocks ie pick one from column A, B and C whereas Yarm takes everyone's choices and tries to build a timetable to that (they do acnowledge usually there are 2 or 3 choices a year they can't make fit).
One of our children wants to work in a specalised area of IT, my DH also works in IT but in a different area but does manage people in her area. He came out and said he'd employ someone from Yarm at the level they've reached by age 16 into their dev programme starting on £45k because their curriculum was exactly right for the modern world. Both TH and Egglescliffe he said were what he'd expect and follows the national curriculum, but they're relying on further education to make it possible for someone to get a job in IT. Not saying everyone should strive to leave school at 16 and work, but if you already have that solid basis at 16 it's going to make the next stage of study feel a lot less daunting and it's also giving those IT skills to make use of tools such as AI, VR, 3D and laser modelling etc just part of their standard lexicon not an extra hill to be climbed.
Yarm is highly ranked nationally for sport, both of ours love their sport, but the prep school's attitude of 'everyone gets a turn to play on the school team if they choose to' was not something we've encountered elsewhere.
We loved the outreach work in Yarm, working with local businesses, getting outside speakers in very regularly, their emphasis on making starting your own business seemlike a normal option and skilling them to do so, charity work being integral to the children's education, also the huge range of trips, outside club provision and outdoors education. We felt that it was less likely to lead to a private school bubble mentality.
My brother went to Yarm, he's still close friends with his group from there, they're each other's best men etc, but more importantly they're all very happy, confident young men. I really feel Yarm's 'educating for life' motto is more than a slogan, they were given the tools for life to be content and self-assured and that's more important than any grades in a lot of ways. All of them are polite, well rounded, and generally nice people who you'd be proud to call your son/partner/employee. None of them relate to this perception of a grind mentality that some people talk about when thinking of private school, they felt supported to achieve rather than pushed to do so is how my brother described it.
But to be honest while we were certainly leaning one way TH did have a very caring attitude and smaller class sizes so we were considering it until the end of our visit. At that point the deciding factor was we took my parent around with us who is an educational consultant for a nearby authority, and they told us not to even think of sending them to Teesside High and if we couldn't afford Yarm to go to Egglescliffe instead. They felt that they were educating in a fixed and old fashioned way and if they were subject to ofsted they would struggle.
Please don't think I'm saying Teesside High is a bad school in any way, the staff seemed very friendly and welcoming and children feeling at ease in their environment matters a lot, we do know people who are very happy there, and they've obviously improved their facilities a lot in the last decade since I was last there, but we just didn't find a single area except for the fees being lower that we felt it was better suited to our children than Yarm. We felt like we'd always wonder what they'd have been capable of at Yarm if we picked elsewhere. Our decision came down to Yarm or Egglescliffe (we did visit Red House as well and really liked it and would certainly have considered that if they were starting earlier, but the lack of a Sixth Form ruled that one out for us personally because they move over to Yarm anyway at that point by what the teacher said), we ruled out Teesside High quite early.