Aldwickbury in Harpenden

[NigellaTufnel]

Any views on this?

[Minniem111]

Hi all, want to revive this thread as DS just been offered a place at Aldwickbury. Any further thoughts or experiences anyone could share to help us make our decision? I liked the school but slightly put off by comments I've heard!

[VictoriaMcdade]

What comments are troubling you?

[Penguin78]

Hi there, we are considering Aldwickbury for our son. I'm interested in hearing if parents with children at the school at the time of the last post are still happy with Aldwickbury. Have there been any changes over the last 2 years with respect to class size and staff turnover? We live on the doorstep of a highly rated primary and are having second thoughts about sending him (class sizes, general lack of information on what the children are actually doing). Aldwickbury were very impressive on their Open Day, however it was hard to tell if the exoerience lives up to the marketing.

[BubblesBuddy]

Class sizes in ks1 are limited to 30. They often have a teacher and assistants in ks1. What they will be doing is the Early Years curriculum followed by the national curriculum. Exactly the same as most independent schools. Obviously Harpenden is an affluent area (I know it) so plenty of children go Private. Perhaps your natural tribe will go Private so you are not comfortable with a state school but the reasons you state are a bit odd, especially the curriculum comment. Private isn’t necessarily better and small classes are useless if you have a crap teacher!

[Penguin78]

Thanks for replying.

Yes, I am familiar with the Early Years curriculum and my comment was not about that. Rather there is little communication from the state school on what the children are doing on a periodic basis so parents can reinforce it at home. For example, if they are learning about timestables, Romans etc. in a particular week. So far it seems a black box with the occasional comment on whether the child has eaten his lunch or not.

Class sizes at the local primary have exceeded 30 quite regularly including this year so yes, the smaller class sizes in private schools are appealing. The test results and leaver destinations are also impressive, but that's another topic.

I totally agree that private is not necesarily better! I am less familiar with private schools having only personally attended state schools, hence my questions above.

Some of the previous comments on this thread indicated staff turnover and class sizes creeping up at Aldwickbury so I'm interested in finding out if this is still the case. If any Aldwickbury parent can shed some light, it would be greatly appreciated.

[ImDivingIn]

Hello there - I’m a parent at the school.
Class size - I reckon it’s pretty stable. We’ve generally never had more than 16 in a class and that’s in a big year. I think the classes in reception are quite small this year.
Staff turnover - it has quite a lot of staff so there is some movement but tbh it tends to be ‘understandable’ from what I can see; retirement or someone at the start of their career moving on after a few years. Tbh it’s not really been something that has affected us massively.

Info - I feel pretty informed but and I reckon that if you want more info the teachers will engage with you.

I cannot talk for pre prep though as we did not have a lot to do with the current head.