Long Road or Hills Road 6th Form Cambridgeshire

[Bexter76]

Hi all, we are looking at 6th forms for our kids as we will be relocating to the UK in the next 18m or so. Has anyone got any advice or experience of either Hills Road or Long Road 6th forms in Cambridgeshire? I am doing all of my research from Melbourne via google so any local or first hand knowledge much appreciated.

Hello my daughter is starting at Hills Road in September. Hills Road has a higher grade requirement and is considered to be more academic. Sciences and maths subjects are very popular there but it seemed to cater well for all subjects when I toured. Can’t say much about Long Road except the lower grade requirement and that it seems more humanities geared.

I went to HRSFC and loved it. It is the more academic of the two. I did a mix of STEM and humanities subjects. Pretty much everyone went to university from there.

The college itself was great and I had 2 very happy years there.

As a side note, you could move from Melbourne to Melbourne and go to that college lol.

Hills Rd is an exceptional sixth form (has been for many years). You could also look at Impington Village College, which does the I.B.

Hills Road might be considered more academic but also has limited pastoral care and a lot opt or switch to Long for a more inclusive holistic environment plus they offer level 3 applied alternatives to A Levels which are more practical and have coursework as well as final exams

i was unsure when my ds switched to Long but it hasn’t affected outcomes at all, he is set for improved grades as it is more holistic and is set to go to the same Russel Group Uni’s. It really depends on you child and the type of environment that they are looking for. Both are great choices.

Both are very good. Hills Road is the more academic one but Long Road is really good for humanities, art etc. As said above, I've known people have a very poor experience at Hills Road if they need pastoral care.

A friend of mine was so appalled at how Hills Road failed to support her older dc during Covid that she refused to let her younger dc apply there last year.

My dc went to Comberton Sixth Form where the pastoral care was outstanding. Lots of their friends went to Hills Road and Long Road. We are very lucky that Cambridge has excellent educational resources.

As a side note, you could move from Melbourne to Melbourne and go to that college lol.

The Cambridgeshire village is spelled Melbourn.

pardon me of great Lord of spelling for not checking my post before pressing send.

As a native of Cambridgeshire it’s so unforgivable of me to make that mistake. I bow down before your greatness.

Just to add that although Long is seen as more humanities orientated I can’t fault the maths and technology department. The requirement for A Level maths is 7 or above at Gcse which is the same as all 6th form colleges.

I've had 3 children at Hills Road and one at Long Road. Both are good schools, but I'd think really carefully about which is the best 'fit' for your child.

Hills Road is great if you have a capable hard-working child who is keen to learn and does as they're asked. If your child is likely to need pastoral support or lacks motivation then Hills Road is not great. It is a pressurised environment with the aim of getting as many people into good universities as possible. They are not good with young people who, for whatever reason, lack motivation or application.

Long Road is considered less academic, but if you are academically inclined you will do just as well there. They are much better at pastoral support and understand that many teenagers are not relentlessly focused on academic excellence and future career prospects, so need a bit more encouragement to fulfill their potential. This understanding was very helpful during lockdown learning and their support meant child 2 hung in there and did well.

We are really lucky to have these two good schools in Cambridge, plus other options such as Impington Village College and Parkside. Another increasingly popular option is The Oakes, which friends' children have done outstandingly well at, surpassing all expectations.

We are fortunate to have several great options for sixth form education in Cambridge. Chesterton has recently opened a sixth form which I've heard good things about, the new maths school is opening this year (small but I'm sure excellent if maths is your thing), there is also CAST (science and technology) but I don't know much about it. The Oakes is good, a DD of a friend did brilliantly there (three A levels + core maths) and is now at a top Russell group uni. If you want the IB there is Parkside and Impington. Also close to Cambridge there is Comberton. Don't discount these smaller providers!

Hills and Long are both huge (about 1200 in each year I think) and quite different in approach. Hills is great for academic high achievers who are self motivated and don't need much support. They treat students almost as adults, as I understand it parents don't get a lot of information from college. My friend whose DS had mental health difficulties was not impressed but I know others who have had children who have done well there. They insist that everyone must do an EPQ (worth half an A level - about 120 hours of work) and they have compulsory "enrichment" as well. They are very proud of their Oxbridge numbers.

Long on the other hand has a much more supportive and encouraging approach and offers a vast array of different courses which you can mix and match. Their entrance requirements are not as high but that doesn't mean that students can't do well there. They have a medic/vet group and a group called "aim higher" who are encouraged to apply to RG and within that a group for those considering Oxbridge.

As pp has said it's about finding the best "fit" for your child.

There's a plethora of excellent provision as described above. Hills has an amazing reputation (although arguably only what you'd expect when you cream the offspring of a very highly-educated local population), but definitely does not work for everyone. There are kids getting top results in the other sixth forms too. They can choose small/large, school setting or separate, IB/A-levels/BTech, whatever suits.

At this point, there probably two things to look at. One is the applications timeline, to make sure you can get an application in, depending on when you are moving relative to start of sixth form. The other is how they will deal with not having GCSEs, particularly with Hills Road, which has a high tariff on GCSE scores to get in.

Hills is very academic, think its top of all state schools in UK for results, and it's very good if you have a bright DC who are independent. It does kick some students out and has high entry requirements. Not great for SN, pastoral care is OK but you hear of mixed experiences. Long is less academic, lower entry requirements but better for SN if they can cope in huge school, both it and Hills are huge and better for pastoral care.

There are also schools which have 6th forms, Netherhall has the Oakes, Comberton, excellent for SN, Impington, Chesterton has just opened a 6th form which is small. Melbourn stops at 16. The International Bac option requires languages so would depend if child has those or not and it's that at Impington and Parkside. Otherwise it's A levels at the others. All the schools will have good websites and generally virtual tours are available.

Thanks all, some really great info for me to get stuck into.

It is not top of all state schools in the UK for results but is in the top 10 sixth form colleges for results.

Just to pick up on the point about parental communication at Hills.
I've got a Yr 12 there at the moment, and my eldest was there 2019-2021.
I've been impressed by the level of communication, whilst still treating the students like young adults.

Do you still have to sign a behaviour contract to start at Hills? V.old now, but back in the day I was horrified at being given a contract. I went to Long, which was fine.

We probably wouldn’t recommend Hills unless you have a very motivated young person. The pressure is huge for the STEM subjects and my YP is really struggling even tho they got very strong grades at GCSE. It’s so large that the ‘pastoral care’ feels like a machine. If they fall behind their answer is more classes but doesn’t seem to be truly getting to know the YP and understanding why they specifically might find something tricky. I would recommend looking at other sixth forms first unless you have a very determined and motivated YP. Mine is more creative and will do well in the end because they are bright and have motivation underneath it all but they just aren’t ready for the independence yet. Also, it’s as though they don’t get a chance to be teenagers - they are expected to be university students. It’s definitely not been a happy experience so far and sixth form should be fun too. On the plus side, many of the lessons are interesting (apparently).

That's a shame.
It is large, but Long Road is equally so.
Alternatives are the smaller sixth forms attached to schools.
We only looked at The Oakes and it felt tiny.

I would add, as a balancing view re Hills, that my ds2 (Y13) (who I thought would struggle and might be better elsewhere - but he was adamant on Hills) is utterly thriving.

My two youngest went to HR and my eldest to LR. And I went (40 years ago!) to HR.

The truth is that HR have their place as the 'best' academically in the country and will do everything to hang onto that.

The students have to be academic, motivated, and ready to work incredibly hard. This suits some and not others. Cambridge really has the 'Hills Road factor', and it is super popular just for the kudos. Even when I was there, my mother was bursting with pride (hated it as I didn't fit the standard).
However, it's an excellent place with excellent results, but mental health is also important, and I personally wouldn't recommend it for the more fragile kids.

Hi
We live in Downham Market and my daughter commutes to Long Road 6th form college on a daily basis. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she has to be in lessons at 9am and her train gets to Cambridge Station at 8:35am. Often the shuttle bus from station to college is late so I should like to find a better solution. Are there any students who need to get to Long Road from the Station at 8:40am and who might share a taxi with her to get to college by 9:00am? Or perhaps a parent who can give lifts for which can contribute for petrol costs?

It would be great to find a solution to this.

Thank you

Bike?

She doesn’t cycle. So we are looking for some form of Liftshare.

It's really not far to walk - she could go down the guided busway to Long Road and then walk along there for a bit. 20 minutes is pushing it, but a fit young person might be able do it. There are also loads of hire scooters etc available (but you might have to have a driving licence to use them - not that it seems to stop the teenagers etc!). But I doubt you'll find anyone wanting lift sharing from there really, as it's so close and everyone cycles or walks. Could she learn to cycle? It's totally off-road on the guided busway path and then pretty easy on Long Road. Or get an earlier train?

Or of course there are loads of public buses that go to the hospital and stop at the point very near the sixth form college (e.g., the U bus or the A bus, as well as all the normal public buses that go to the main hospital campus and stop on Hills road). The A buses have recently increased in frequency to something like every 10 minutes in rush hour and they go down the guided busway so not subject to traffic jams; the B buses and others like 1, 3, 7 etc go down Hils road and although subject to traffic sometimes, would stop very near Long Road. It's likely that there would be at least one of these buses available on the days the shuttle bus is late