Help - Clare House? Unicorn? (Beckenham)

[Rooster2021]

We’ve just been offered our first choice school (Clare House, Beckenham, Bromley) after accepting our second choice (Unicorn School, Beckenham).

We didn’t think we would get a place at CH so we put our all into Unicorn. We love Unicorn, the facilities, the grounds (it’s on a nature reserve and has a great forest school), the school trips and access to music classes and extra curricular activities. It’s a great ‘all round’ school that looks like a lot of fun to be at and offers a multitude of experiences to shape the whole child. It’s ofsted Good, the results are not the best in the area, and it’s a 25 min walk from our house.

Clare House is a 10 minute walk, generally regarded to be ‘the best’ school in the area, very good reputation and great results / year 7 destination schools. It also has a lovely sense of community as the school has been going for so long.

does anyone on here have experience of either school and can help us make a decision ?

We have told our daughter she is going to Univorn and she is so excited, we’ve been to the spring/summer fair and have attended stay and plays. She is so enthusiastic about attending Unicorn. It’s also called ‘unicorn’ so I think it will break her heart to tell her she’s no longer going. So this is weighing on my mind too.

It’s a brilliant problem to have - the choice of 2 good schools. But it’s a hard decision and one that will affect us all for years.

@Rooster2021 I’ve visited Clare House in a professional capacity and it’s certainly a very ‘good’ school. I don’t have any experience of Unicorn, unfortunately.

The closeness to your house is also a factor.
25 minutes walk to/from your house is quite a big ask for little legs when they already find school so tiring at first, so if it could be avoided, that might be better.

I was in a similar situation to you with my oldest and ended up choosing the ‘friendlier’ school rather than the one with the best results. It was also a bit closer. Even now, I couldn’t tell you if it was the ‘right’ thing, but a decision had to be made and I agonised over it for ages but was lucky we had the choice of two decent schools. I think DS would have been ok in either, but at the time it was so stressful.

Is it possible to ask CH if you could visit again with your daughter to see how you feel about it now you have been offered a place, before making a decision? Any reasonable school would allow this. (If they say no, then that would make the decision for me - it would then be Unicorn all the way!) If you do visit, it’s a good idea to ask if you can walk with a member of staff through the corridors during lessons to get a feel for behaviour and see how the staff interact with pupils. You could then do the same with Unicorn, (but without your daughter, given how invested she is in it already), and compare the two.

However, I wouldn’t necessarily worry too much about changing to CH if that’s what you do decide. Your little one might be upset for a few days if you told her now that she wasn’t going to Unicorn, but time stretches so differently for children - September is unimaginably ages away from her perspective and she would probably have forgotten all about Unicorn by then. (Sounds silly, but she could also have some unicorn stickers and hair ties instead, which would probably cheer her up.)

Good luck with whatever you decide

Clare House every time and it's nearer to where you live

Thanks @MissMoneyFairy , do you have children there and know much about the school from a parent perspective?

Thanks for your reply, I will ask for another tour. Everyone is telling me distance trumps it, but another thing I liked about Unicorn is how green it is, and our walk through the woods to get there. However in reality this might not live up to it when it’s a daily schlep! I’ve only ever heard good things about CH but I wondered if it was still as good now they have a new head. Also sometimes you can caught up in parent hype and it clouds your judgement! Yes it’s an outstanding school with god results but is it as nurturing as Unicorn, I’m not sure.

Good luck with whatever you decide @Rooster2021

I would go for Clare House. I have 2 friends with dc there and both are happy. The walk along the main road to Unicorn (and length of the walk) would put me off.

My child went to Unicorn and really loved it. I have friends who work in both schools- you can't go wrong with either. I teach at a primary school close to both, and the area has lots of excellent local schools. I would be very happy to pick Unicorn again- the teaching is very solid and the fact that the teacher turnover was close to zero the whole time my child was there speaks volumes.

Just seen date of post, what did you go for in the end? Either would be a good choice.

Clare House. I have two friends who have withdrawn their kids from Unicorn.

Both terrible drug problems.

At primary school??

I can categorically assure you that there are not any drug problems at either school!