Cambridge online school

[Kishkes]

Does anyone have any experience with this school, especially for A levels?

A bit put off by the constant emphasis on how full and selective they are. We're also looking at Harrow online which is also selective but it's framed much more around what's right for the student.

And then that if a student submits a personal statement, there's a 300 pound non-refundable "administrative charge" to have it considered. WTF? Even for bricks and mortar private schools, you don't pay that much to apply!

We were recommended to consider Cambridge Online school for our daughter for her A Levels. It looks good, but also wondering about the non refundable charge to submit a personal statement to the principal. Also at GBP9,000 a year it's considerably more pricey than some of the other online schools.

Harrow doesn't offer the A Levels my daughter is interested in, or we would be considering that one too.

Glad it's not just me!

The other thing that puts me off is the boasting about the PhDs. I have a PhD and I know it does not qualify me to teach at all in any shape or form. You don't need a PhD to be a good teacher. Much rather they boasted about all the teahers having PGCEs for example or extensive school teaching experience.

My daughter wants to do two sciences and then an essay based third one so if we went to Harrow we'd have to go elsewhere for the third. It's doable but CHS had the advantage of offering all three.

Right now we're leaning towards either Harrow or Pearson for the two sciences and interhigh or MOS for the other one. Or all three at interhigh/MOS.

I currently have a child with this online provider - we're not happy, and will not be continuing with them next year. Issues:

1. the profiteering attitude of the proprietor. Another family's experience can be found here
   We received the same emails regarding the hikes to the fees with the ultimatum to pay up in one week or be excluded.

2. The management of the organisation has made no arrangements to ensure evidence of the form required by the exam board is gathered. CHS delivers IGCSE curricula for the CIE exam board which has very specific requirements about the 3 pieces of required evidence that are acceptable. Instead of working closely with exam centres to ensure the students will have the required evidence to receive grades, CHS have simply said it's not their responsibility and it will be up to exam centres to grade students. This is in stark contrast to other distance-learning providers, who are moving heaven and earth to ensure their students get grades.

3. number of contact/teaching hours. Before we enrolled, the website said 2 hours teaching per subject per week for IGCSE. Once we started, we found several subjects only get 1 hour. It is not viable to deliver a course designed to require 130+ contact hours when the actual number of contact hours over the 2 years is more like 70.

4. The following message/threat received from the deputy head:
   "With an ever-growing list of parents and children eager to join our school, we are in the enviable position where we can select families who share our commitment to the highest of standards. We cannot guarantee a school place for any child who does not give 100% effort. Obviously, we want our current students to retain their place at our school, but we must have the confidence that all of our students will be giving 100% effort throughout our next academic year."

It takes some cheek to email existing paying customers mid-way through their child's course of study to say "we can select families" and "we cannot guarantee a school place" and it speaks volumes about their mentality.

Thank you!
This all confirm my gut feeling. It doesn't seem the right school for us.
I think we'll focus our efforts on Harrow/Pearson and/or interhigh or MOS.

It's not easy trying to work it all out. Harrow I have looked in to, I am not sure what is the Pearson school or online offering?

I have looked at both Interhigh and MOS as well. I preferred MOS but they preferred not to work with us since we are not in the UK timezone (we are currently living overseas). Interhigh seems ok, but the reviews are very "marmite" so I'm not sure.

My daughter is super keen on CHS because they are the only one offering A Level sports science which she would like to study.

Has your daughter done online school before (other than the pandemic forced offerings)?

Pearson is basically Harrow without all the Harrow stuff. Same subjects, also have the success coaches which I liked a lot. Suits my daughter better as she will be repeating Yr12 as well as being an Autumn baby so one of the older kids as well (so she'll be be closer to 20 by the time she finishes) and wants a more college-like atmosphere. ukglobal.pearsononlineacademy.com/

With MOS, they insisted we sign up to their Asia-Pacific school due to our time-zone. i was a little put off that they don't allow us to choose the time zone that works best for us but turns out DD prefers the Australia based times more than the UK ones (to my surprise). So I am back to looking at them.

No experience other than VERY limited lockdown. DD was ill during the first lockdown so wasn't up to attending school and since then we've been lucky to be in a country where we've only had to deal with 3 weeks of online school this academic year. But DD did prefer the online learning to face to face which is why we are considering this as an option. In any case, she has to move schools since her current school doesn't offer A levels which is what she wants to do and we're trying to decide between online school and regaular school.

The other thing is that while I've been searching for reviews of CHS, I've come across quite a few posts that sound very similar in tone and style (and a little pompous and arrogant) that seem to also match the person posting in that bizarre post from the school attacking the mum in the thread that was linked to.
Like this (in both cases, the last post):
forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/687200-any-experience-with-uk-specific-online-schools-myonlineschooling-cambridge-home-school-etc/
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/home_ed/3237631-Interhigh-other-online-schools-comments-experiences-please

Hi, just want to add that we are also in APAC timezone, and thus forced, with MOS, to take their APAC subject offerings (which based on current Yr 12, we are not keen on) so would have to wait and see what their actual courses offered will be for Yr 12 starting Sept 2021. We are not in Perth, but in the same time zone +/1 I hour so the timings are better than forcing all the contact hours in to late evening (our time) which is what would happen for any UK online school that offers "actual classes in real time".

Thanks for sending the link to the reviews of schools - what I've learned, over time, is that folks generally only review schools if they are super happy/unhappy. This is for brick built schools too!

Anyway, still working on our decision. I just thought I would put here the online schools I am looking at:

interhigh
my online school
harrow online
kings college online school
Cambridge online school
Wolsey hall

Have a great weekend

I was pretty underwhelemed by the APAC mos school. The coordinator I spoke with didn't know the most basic things like about UCAS applications and they still don't know the course offerings for next year. Annoys me that we can't attend the UK school if we want. So MOS isn't for us.

@homeEd2021

I currently have a child with this online provider - we're not happy, and will not be continuing with them next year. Issues:

1. the profiteering attitude of the proprietor. Another family's experience can be found here
   We received the same emails regarding the hikes to the fees with the ultimatum to pay up in one week or be excluded.

2. The management of the organisation has made no arrangements to ensure evidence of the form required by the exam board is gathered. CHS delivers IGCSE curricula for the CIE exam board which has very specific requirements about the 3 pieces of required evidence that are acceptable. Instead of working closely with exam centres to ensure the students will have the required evidence to receive grades, CHS have simply said it's not their responsibility and it will be up to exam centres to grade students. This is in stark contrast to other distance-learning providers, who are moving heaven and earth to ensure their students get grades.

3. number of contact/teaching hours. Before we enrolled, the website said 2 hours teaching per subject per week for IGCSE. Once we started, we found several subjects only get 1 hour. It is not viable to deliver a course designed to require 130+ contact hours when the actual number of contact hours over the 2 years is more like 70.

4. The following message/threat received from the deputy head:
   "With an ever-growing list of parents and children eager to join our school, we are in the enviable position where we can select families who share our commitment to the highest of standards. We cannot guarantee a school place for any child who does not give 100% effort. Obviously, we want our current students to retain their place at our school, but we must have the confidence that all of our students will be giving 100% effort throughout our next academic year."

It takes some cheek to email existing paying customers mid-way through their child's course of study to say "we can select families" and "we cannot guarantee a school place" and it speaks volumes about their mentality.

I completely agree with you. Our children have been left high and dry in terms of assessment for exam centres. My son is going his GCSEs there and we are so stressed out. Two weeks ago we got an email saying that they wouldn't support our children with teacher grades but they would submit their portfolios to the exam centre. Three days ago this had all changed that they were in fact now supporting the children but they all had to now do online mocks with no notice at all. This shift in what is expected has caused so much confusion as before the February half term there was this drive for all learners to complete all their assignments and ensure their folders were top notch. Now it's three online mocks per subject which is in fact more demanding than what CIE guidelines stipulate. I am now seriously considering deferring to November or enrolling my child at another provider to sit next March. I just don't think learners have been given enough opportunities to achieve their best.

OP I would steer well clear from this provider if I were you. The whole PHD thing is fair enough but I cannot say I have been impressed with the quality of their teaching nor their communication style. It seems they are in it purely for money, no regard for learners

MyOnlineSchooling has been such a disappoinment for us. We have been shocked by the openly racist views of some teachers and though we received cookie-cutter apologies, both teachers are still employed by the school.
There are a lot of reasons to stay far from this school aside from the racism, including turnover of staff!

hi everyone, my daughter is unhappy at her school so we are moving her to online school as she would like to do it and we both agreed it would be best for her.
I just want to ask how have people got on with homeschooling in secondary school and mostly GCSEs/ igcse years (10 and 11)?

she's currently in year 10 and she wants to start as soon as possible. after looking at some options such as kings InterHigh, Cambridge, Wolsey, Pearson online academy, Oxford homeschooling and some more.

She mostly liked the look of harrow school to only realise it was a sixth form but really just want to know peoples reviews on online school and what is the best you've found?
please feel free to comment on this as it would be really helpful and if you have any other school suggestions. many thanks