Highgate Junior and Senior Schools

[ABD2]

My son has been offered a place at Highgate School. He will be starting in Sept 2024 (Year 5) and I would be grateful for thoughts on the school, especially the Senior School. Are the children generally happy and academically challenged? I have heard that there are parents who are not happy with the sport provision. Is this true?

Is there diversity? Is there a drugs issue (although I'm sure many schools have this issue and cannot always be controlled by the school).

If anybody has a child that started this school due to an occasional place, please can you let me know how you got on?

Happy to hear all thoughts on the school, both positives and negatives.

A major advantage of taking this place would be avoiding the 11 plus. He is very happy at his current school so moving to a new school where he doesn't know anybody will be difficult for him so I just need to make sure we are making the right decision.

Thank you!

I have a colleague with two boys at the school - senior now but went through junior.

He seems very happy with it - sounds like a nice place with a good range academically v extracurricular. They are quite sporty kids and doesn't sound like they miss out.

Versus the other London independent day school, anecdotally from everything I have heard Highgate sounds like a nice mix of academic v not too pressured - the kids I know who went there (albeit 10+ years ago) seemed to like it and are relatively well adjusted. Can't say I've heard it's massively diverse but if you go to a few paying school in an affluent area not sure what you expect.

it's definitely become more academic in recent years