Herts senior school for academic but NOT sporty

[WhiteAmericanoNoSugar]

Please can anyone recommend a school for my son. He is very academically able but not sporty and doesn't like PE. I know a lot of private schools have compulsory event/matches for all abilities - this would not be the right school for him.

Please share any that might be a right fit. Thank you.

Bishop’s Stortford College might fit. From Year 9 (I don’t know the Prep School) pupils have choice of sports including a generic multi-sports or swimming option and they don’t send out many teams (usually only A & B). Options increase in Upper Fifth too.

It’s not a super selective school but can provide for the academics with lots of co-curricular things going on (debating etc). No cadets if that matters (though some do Police Cadets as a co-curricular).

Aldenham?

That's good to know. I did o to see it and it was huge which put me off. Just enormous.

It felt like a hot house in the prep from year 3 onwards so Im surprised to hear it's not super selective. How do you know how selective they are? So many indies ask for 11 plus exams. Are they not academically selecting?

DD goes there. BSC is selective, but less so than many others (CAT score around 115 iirc). It is big, though in part that’s because it’s an all through school. Year groups in the senior school are approximately 140.

what made you feel like it was an academic hot house? And what year is your DS? Have you thought about putting him in a smaller Prep school until Year 8?

PS yes they do have entrance exams, the CAT score I mentioned is their guide.

BSC- I felt it was a hot-house from the amount of homework, constant end-of-topic unnecessary tests for the children, etc. This was juniors prep age! 140 in a year group is a lot for a private. It was so big it felt like a uni campus.

Aldenham - loved the prep but too sporty. I hear this school has a particularly spoilt cohort.

If you don’t find what you need in the private sector, go for a stand alone Academy?
We were in a similar situation and our boy now goes to Katherine Warington in Harpenden. It’s a sensational school in a fairly new building (6/7 years old?) and he is very happy. Their extra curricular offer (not just sports) is superb.

What is it about academies you recommend?

St Albans School, Habs Boys etc. But really you need a guide to his ability with CAT scores or the equivalent to really be specific.
All schools will have some type of exercise/sport as part of the timetable as it's really good for their mental health and wellbeing and just generally to get children away from books/study. In the same way pupils will be required to do a certain amount of drama/art/dt until they choose their GCSEs. Working as a team player in the F team is good personal development and learning team skills is really important from a young age - as is winning/losing etc, plus also they actually end up enjoying being part of a fun team! So don't be too put off by games/PE on a timetable. You don't mention what age he is though. Happy to advise more if you want to PM me...

Of course, they must have PE on the timetable but the independent schools have a greater focus on competition in sport and PE, with enforced participation. One of my children has great difficulty with this.

I have a child at a very academic school (mentioned here) and even they have enforced sport competitions between local schools. It’s not just about ability, it’s about taking part and the team work. Have you talked to your DS about that? My kid isn’t massively sporty (more academic / artsy) but she still enjoys it.

Based on the little shits children I have had the misfortune to interact with / have had to endure their too loud convos at Bushey DL (and who made it known they were at aldenham) I'd agree with the "spoiled cohort" comment.

Sportiness is present but isnt mandatory at Habs (but guessing it's too academic for your liking?)
St colombus or st albans might be worth a look?
The reality is sport is good for us all and so is present / emphasised to some degree in all schools.

My DS is at St Albans - he doesn’t mind sport but he’s not particularly sporty.
They have compulsory Saturday sport but we’ve found with rugby that if you opt for touch rugby or are otherwise not particularly good at rugby then there are very few matches for the fourth team. Next term it’s hockey and then cricket so we’ll have to see how they pan out.

I agree with PP who said that most independent schools will have a certain amount of compulsory sport including matches for all abilities - this is a selling point for many. So you’ll probably struggle to find one where you can opt out of competitive participation completely. My instinct is that this may be easier at the more academic schools where there is strong focus on the academic side. The less academic ones may just throw more at sport.

I’d suggest looking at St Margaret’s in Bushey as I didn’t get the impression that they push compulsory/competitive sport (though I’ve not asked). Not as academic as Habs or St Albans but feels like a school on the up, both academically and more generally which is rare in this climate! Head very impressive.

Thank you, my son is very academic but likely dyspraxic and had other medical problems that make sport hard for him. Bushey DL - David Lloyd? lol.

Definitely he needs to do PE - but sadly we are looking for as unsporty school as possible so he doesn't feel awful.

I know Mount House doesn't have facilities for sport but it's not academic enough and I have read on here about toxic bullying and due to how tiny it is that you can't escape those you don't like.

thus might help: https://www.goodschoolsguide.co.uk/best-schools/hertfordshire

I wonder if what you need is not an “unsporty” school - because I think they are all more sporty than you’d like - but a school where they are willing to consider your concerns and your DS’s needs and to accommodate that to an extent at least.

If you can get a formal dyspraxia diagnosis that may help, but that said I suspect a lot of
PE/games/SEN professionals may take the view that an appropriately tailored sports programme (rather than doing as little sport as possible) would be really beneficial for him.

In addition, even if your DS struggles with and doesn’t enjoy sport, there is a risk as he gets into the secondary years that he won’t want to feel different from his peers.

I would try to contact SEN and heads of sport at the schools you’re interested in, share your concerns and ask how they would approach this as I’m sure it’s something they’ve dealt with many times before.

When we were looking at schools I was adamant that my DS would not play contact rugby, due to concerns about head injuries. I was prepared to find a sympathetic neurologist to say he shouldn’t play if necessary! I contacted the head of sport at St Albans about it and got a very long and thoughtful response, the upshot of which was that they even though all boys had to play rugby in the first term, they do offer non-contact rugby, and that’s what my son has done.

When he started the school we went to a talk about the sports programme, part of which was extolling the virtues of contact rugby. However, this was again very thoughtfully done, and was absolutely not a hard-sell. So I was left feeling that they did respect parents’ views, and were not pushing a “one size fits all”.

In addition, the school runs a club called “Fun Fit Fridays” which is (as the name suggests!) a fun, casual way to take part in sports. Pupils can choose whatever they fancy - table tennis, badminton, swimming (nerf gun battles?) and join in for as long as they want, or not bother at all if they don’t feel like it that week. My DS and his not-very-sporty friends all love this.

So I think a good school will want to be inclusive towards your DS by offering him sporting opportunities which suit him, well beyond the competitive rugby etc option.

I would take a look at St Chris. The top sets are pretty academic and sport is handled well for dyspraxic dc. They are getting good academic results and in the last set of GCSEs got higher results than some of the top North Herts selective schools. In the last two years eg have sent to Oxbridge for Architecture and Law.

Should have said St Chris is in Letchworth if you don’t already know it.

Aldenham is not all spoilt there are loads of normal (within the realms of private school) kids. Some have stupid money but plenty who are sacrificing a lot to be there or who are in private because it meets their needs but have siblings in (good) state schools.

The beautiful of the school is that they also have phenomenol music art and drama so there are plenty of kids who actively dislike sports. Yes it’s sporty, Miles Lewis Skelly (Arsenal) was there but there are loads of them who couldn’t care less and actively dislike sports. There’s no pool so no swimming in the senior school and no rugby at all which is a big win in my book

St Edmund’s college in Ware.