Royal School Haslemere

[NotBadRacoon]

Are there any Royal School parents on here? We are considering it for our child for secondary school and would love to know what you think of it. I wonder if they are not too relaxing, as they promote themselves as a small 'family' school, and also if teachers are strong.

We will appreciate any information.

Hi. I've just seen yourpost. I have had my 3 children at the Royal school for 6 years. My youngest is about to go into year 6, middle about to start year 10 and oldest going into his final year. So between the three of them, I've effectively had 18 years of Royal school life!
The school is small and friendly. It prides itself on being non-selective yet getting very good results and helping all children toachieve a grade or two higher than expected. My two older children are academic and would have got into selective schools but we didn't want them to be hot-housed and felt they would do better if they were in a happy environment. So far, this approach has worked for all of them. They enjoy school life and theyare achieving highly. We like the fact that not every child is incredibly academic. There are some extremely bright children there and there are also those who struggle more with learning but support is provided for them.
The Royal has gone through its ups and downs for the last few years but was taken over in 2019 by United Learning which owns a large group of schools including Guildford High and Surbiton High. So I think it is fairly safe in terms of remainingopen. They are planningto invest heavily in the school in the next few years and have a new head who arrived justbefore the pandemic began. She has previously turned around another private school which is now over-subscribed. My children think she's very good and very progressive. She has her own teenage children which I think must help her to understand what is important. Despite being part of United Learning, the school has retained its character and friendliness. It is a Church of England school but any and every faith is welcome, rightly so, and the curriculum allows for them to learn about any and every faith which personally I think is important. There are a number of foreign students from various countries which is nice but most are from the UK and relatively local.
In my opinion the teachers range from good to outstanding. There have been one or two over the years who don't seem to be as inspiring as others but I think that is the case at any school. A couple of teachers I believe can be overly strict but I think they probably have to be with a bunch of teenagers, especially the boys. Most teachers are bright, intelligent and enthusiastic and my kids have a very good rapport with them. They are also very easy tocontact and approachable. Whenever I have had any queries or problems, I have always received an immediate response and teachers will do everything they can to help. The head is also very approachable and happy forparents togo directly to her. I feel the school would rather that parents contacted them with any issues and sort them out rather than have parents fretting about things.
To my knowledge there is not much bullying - I think there is the potential at any and every school whatever a school may say, particularly with girls' friendships during their teenage years. My children are fairly open with me about what the other children are like and haven't been subject to bullying. The kids mostly come across as well-mannered, polite, grounded and generally nice. There also does not appear to be any problem with drugs as is so often the case with secondary schools. I know of various well-known private schools in Surrey where drug-taking is fairly common amongst the older students in particular (this coming first-hand from students at the schools). That is not the case at the Royal.
If your child has any sort of talent, the school will celebrate it. Because it is a small school, there are a lot of opportunities, for instance my son joined the Book Club in year 8 and a group of them entered the Kids Lit Quiz.. Out of 20 Surrey schools, theycame one point off being 3rd, up against schools like RGS and Portsmouth Grammar. In a large school, he may not have got that opportunity because the best children would probably have been chosen by teachers. In this case, all the children who wanted to go were able to. The head of drama is excellent,in fact both drama teachers are and the productions which take place are really good. The head of music is also very good and I think there is a resident school composer. The choir is good, they get to sing at St Paul's every year (pandemics aside) and there are some talented musicians.Re sport, as it is a small school, years 7 and 8 play together and so do years 9 and 10. There are weekly matches unless for some reason they have been called off due to weather etc. If you are good at sport, you will play in the A team. My son hated all sports until he joined the Royal but grew to really love playing rugby after the first year.
I suppose the main thing for me is that the teachers really get to know your children very well. When I read their reports, I am always surprised at how well they really know them and recognise their strengths and weaknesses. They are well-placed to offer good advice at GCSE and A 'Level and offer excellent support through the UCAS process. The other good thing for me is that because class sizes are small your child has to be involved in lessons. They can't sit at the back and daydream, theyhave to contribute to class discussion. There is just a lot of opportunity to be involved in every aspect of school life and there are plenty of extra-curricular opportunities. If you are looking for somewhere that is friendly, nurturing and inclusive that also achieves well academically then the Royal is a good bet. I won't say I haven't had small gripes over the years but these have been dealt with. And I am very happy with how our children have been treated there. If you haven't already, I would go to an open day as you will hopefully get a feel of the school from speaking to some of the children there. I hope this helps.

Tinywelcome, thank you so much for that informative replay. It is really helpful for us.
I like the atmosphere of small schools but they have their ones pro and cons.