Nurturing school for DD. Surrey,Woking

[holiday22]

My DD is going into year 5. She’s struggling in her average state school. I can move her to private, and would do, but can’t find a non academic school! For now, year 6 or year 7 entry.

please help. Commutable from woking area. She can catch a school bus, but not keen on a massive commute for her (she’s only just 9!).

shes just not academic (average attainment that requires a massive effort from her) ,likely dyslexic. She has masses of potential, but her crowded state school isn’t doing her any favours.

does anyone have any bright ideas?! Thank you p

Those results are pretty low though, 50% at GCSE, that's sorted of state school level around here? What other USPs are there given the cost of it these days, especially with VAT.

I understand if it was a specialist school, like it excelled at drama, arts, sport or was an epic SEN school, then I could see it, but not sure what's the point otherwise? Maybe it has a usp beyond 'happy girls', as I'm sure all these schools, on the whole, have happy kids.

Sorry to be harsh, same goes for Priors Field, and others down the bottom end. Why? And if I recall last year's, the tables were pretty similar. Again, I'm a typical Scot, like to get maximum bang for the pound.

@holiday22 , it seems your DD is bright and working hard to get places, well done to her, if you're paying for it, make sure you're getting your monies worth.

Go see them all to see if there's a fit, but do aspire!

A couple of the schools boast big 'value add' too. Notre Dame say they are in the top 1% for value add on their website, that's worth checking out, as it's a big deal if true. tormead, despite being academic, boasted nearly a 2.0 value add, that's kids basically climbing 2 whole grades from the start of their GCSEs to their results. So academic yes, but these kids have been taught well, and I don't hear that Tormead is anywhere near a hothouse, unlike others.

Go ask about this too, as well as support, results, culture, as other schools im sure track value add.

Schools like St. T’s and Priors Field are targeting the SEN market really - girls that are high functioning autistic, neurodiverse or dyslexic. Lots of diagnosed but also lots that aren’t diagnosed, parents who don’t believe in ‘labels’, but whose girls likely wouldn’t cope elsewhere. That’s my experience of these schools anyway. In my experience, gentle and nurturing = SEN.

You're probably right. There are a lot of independent schools in he area, especially girls ones, and I think the pressures of vat and affordability of the middle classes, generally, is taking its toll. Once busy and full schools, are now panicking over places. The high intensity marketing speaks for itself in some places.

You only have to look at the league tables too, I wouldn't bother with anything under 70%. I know high functioning SEN girls and boys at top end schools and they do well, OP would do well to go see them.

The Effingham Trust is a basket case, Priors Field is a dead school walking, and there are others which seem to limp on too. What was a busy market has now consolidated and the winners are clearly on that spreadsheet someone posted.

What's the spreadsheet? I can't view it.

Not mine,just copy and paste grades 9-7

1. GHS - 87% (Grades 9–8)
2. RGS Guildford & 81% (Grades 9–8)
3. Tormead - 85%
4. Charterhouse - 84%
5. St Catherine’s, Bramley - 83%

=6. St George’s Weybridge - 81%
=6. Sir William Perkins’s - 81%
=6. Reed’s - 81%

1. St John’s, Leatherhead - 80%
2. Cranleigh - 71%
3. Farnborough Hill - 59%

10. Claremont Fan Court - 56%

11. Gordon’s - 53%
12. Notre Dame, Cobham - 52% ~13. Cranmore - more than 50%
13. St Teresa’s - 50%
14. St Peter’s, Guildford - 48%

Priors field - chose not to publish

Wow, I had no idea some of these schools performed so poorly, it’s a nosedive after Cranleigh. I do wonder how many will be around in the years to come. Telling that Priors Field decided not to publish.

Indeed, it's quite interesting to see it like this. Even cranleigh is pretty uninspiring too, especially when their results must have been pulled up to 70% by decent ish results in drama and Humanities, according to their SM.

If we get back to the original OPs question, I would look at Cranleigh or above really. Depending on logistics. Which in my view is nearly as important as the rest of the factors, given he traffic in Surrey and these areas can be very challenging at rush hours. And location of friends and ability to travel to school independently when older. Ie good transport links.

Considering Cranleigh’s fees, I would’ve expected better.

I think a lot of these schools (Farnborough Hill and below) are changing strategy away from academic excellence and pushing the pastoral / nurturing angle. Not every child can thrive at a GHS type. It will be an interesting few years, for sure.

St Theresa's has been on a slow decline for ages, it now has Cranmore propping it up, and has absorbed the slightly strange Manor House. It's wonderfully weird alliance and I hope the board of Cranmore thought it through properly, as it doesn't look great.

Given it has ascended to the dizzy heights of 50% 9-7 GCSE grades, the same as local state schools, one needs to ask why you'd bother.

The same goes for Priors Field.. also, perhaps now Cranmore itself, and other such entities such as Notre Dame (which despite my best attempts to block) still floods my feeds with desperate adverts for places and/or Claremont Fan, which has become best known for SEN delivered badly.

Farnborough Hill being down in the doldrums is a bit of a shock to be honest, they're usually pretty good, but perhaps a coming of age of a tough market, and fair play, that part of the world isnt the most well connected or in the computer belt, so good luck to them.

I haven't seen a list/ranking like this before, but if this has been the state of play for a while, which it seems so, this is quite humbling and enlightening for those investing in this type of education. I've gone back and checked 3 or 4 years of posts and this ranking is almost the same.

I suggest those shopping around so their research.

And from my perspective, Tormead in 3rd place, for 3 years in a row, above StCats (which was always the way), and all the other big names, well, I never knew! Compared to the "big names" that's quite a eye opener and proof we all need to check what we are signing our kids up for before we commit.

We need more transparency like this going forward.

Thanks for sharing the listings. Very interesting. I knew some schools hadn't been doing well, but the spread seems huge.

As a Guildford local, I assumed all the surrounding, well known names, like charterhouse, reeds, maybe cranleigh were doing top notch stuff and didn't need to be compared to others, but turns out the likes of Tormead and StCats are rinsing them all, both are girls only schools.

That's really interesting.

What's also interesting is just how bad the others are doing, basically anyone in the bottom 50%. Yes, why bother.

The ‘why bother’ is SEN. I can’t be too outing on here, but I can confidently say I know a few of the bottom schools very well, and the amount of diagnosed and undiagnosed SEN needs is high - upwards of 50% of the cohort at a minimum.

I've been reading this thread and think the exam results are important, and schools such as GHS, RGS, and Tormead should be given credit for their very good results. However, I think this thread is treating one GCSE figure as a more comprehensive measure of a school than it actually is.

As highlighted, the table mentioned above is not actually comparing the same thing in all cases, since some schools are listed using 9–8 grades while others use 9–7. More significantly, % 9–7 is an attainment figure and does not show how much a school has added. Schools have very different intakes, so comparing a highly selective school directly with a broader-ability or non-selective school only tells part of the story.

Cranleigh is a good example. Its figure of 71% was described as rather uninspiring, perhaps because of its strength in Drama and Humanities, but its 2026 results showed 80% of grades at 9–7 in STEM and 85% in Humanities. I also don't see why performance in Drama should somehow count less; one of its productions was chosen from around 300 schools to perform at the National School Theatre Awards in the West End, where one of its students won Best Actress. That seems like a pretty significant educational achievement too.

Priors Field is another example. It is non-selective, but nearly 20% of GCSE grades this year were Grade 9. Its higher-tier iGCSE Maths top set also achieved 100% grades 9–7 this year, with half at 8–9 and 31% at Grade 9, with many then moving onto Further Maths. Outside exams, a student was national champion at this year's Young Fashion Designer UK final, another was Highly Commended, and this now makes three consecutive years in which Prior's Field students have won at the competition. A younger student was also runner-up this year in a separate Graduate Fashion Foundation competition.

I'm sure you can find equivalent examples at other schools in science, music, drama, sport, debating, art and more. That's really the point. None of these examples proves one school is better than the others, just as a lower 9–7 percentage doesn't prove the reverse.

For the OP's situation, I would want to know much more about how children starting from a similar point progress, what kind of learning support is available, whether they gain confidence and what opportunities they have to discover what they are genuinely good at.

Exam results are part of the picture, but a GCSE percentage can't capture the whole picture. Any one figure is bound to simplify something much more complex, and relying too heavily on it risks undervaluing schools that serve different children well or excel in different ways.

I agree that 9-8 and 9-7 figures shouldn't be treated as interchangeable, but I don't think anyone is doing that here. The table very clearly identifies where a school has only published 9-8 data, notably GHS/RGS, rather than pretending those figures are directly equivalent.

For the rest of the schools being discussed, the comparison is overwhelmingly the same measure: the percentage of GCSE grades at 9-7. So I don't really see that as a reason to disregard the comparison altogether.

The same goes for the examples given for Cranleigh and Prior's Field. Of course 80% 9-7 in STEM at Cranleigh, 85% in Humanities, almost 20% Grade 9 at Prior's Field, or excellent results from particular sets and pupils are all achievements worth celebrating. But they aren't substitutes for the whole-cohort 9-7 figure. The schools achieving 80 to 85%+ 9-7 overall will also have their own standout subjects, Grade 9s, musicians, actors, sportspeople and individual success stories too, potentially, more of them.

Value added is another useful piece of the picture. Notre Dame claiming to be in the top 1% nationally for value added is genuinely impressive. Equally, Tormead advertised +1.7 value added this year alongside 85% 9-7 overall, which seems a particularly strong combination of progress and final attainment.

Ultimately no single statistic tells you which school is right for an individual child. Pastoral care, SEND provision, co-curricular opportunities, ethos and happiness all matter enormously. But equally I don't think we should tie ourselves in knots trying to explain away overall results. If one school achieves 85% 9-7 and another achieves 60-70%, that's meaningful information. Every marketing department will also try and spin the best bits - some cherry picking if you will.

It doesn't mean the former is automatically the better school for every child. It simply means it achieved stronger results overall. And pointing to particular subjects or individual success stories at the latter doesn't alter that especially when the higher-performing school will almost certainly have plenty of comparable success stories of its own, on top.

I wasn't suggesting that the 9–7 figure should be disregarded, or that individual subject results and other achievements somehow replace it. I said exam results matter. My point was really about how much we can conclude from that one figure.

If one school has 85% 9–7 and another has 60%, then yes, the first has stronger GCSE attainment on that measure. What I don't think follows automatically is that it has provided the better education, or that the other school is therefore “poor”, “why bother” etc. Those figures reflect both what the school has done and the cohort of students it started with. If one school is highly selective and another takes a much broader range of abilities, we would expect their final attainment distributions to be different even before trying to judge the quality of the education. What seems more relevant is how children starting from similar points actually progress at each school.

That was also the point of the Cranleigh and Prior's Field examples. They weren't meant as substitutes for the overall result, but examples of things that the overall percentage doesn't capture. Tormead, GHS and St Catherine's are also likely to have excellent achievements in drama, science, sport, music etc, but again, those may be exactly the things that make one school good for one child and another school better for someone else. Including them makes the picture more complete, not less.

I'd also be a little careful with the Tormead value-added figure. Their wording is that value added reached as high as 1.7 grades across several departments, rather than saying the whole school had +1.7 alongside the 85%. Notre Dame's top 1% value-added result is very interesting though, and exactly the sort of information I think is useful alongside attainment.

Thanks chatgpt 😁..

But in all seriousness, I think we're probably agreeing more than disagreeing tbh!

I don't think anyone is saying results are everything, or that 85% vs 50/70% auto makes one school better for every child. Of course it doesn't.

I suppose the struggle, which most people on his thread seem to agree with, is why some very expensive schools, in similar areas, are producing overall results quite a long way behind others charging similar fees.

There may be perfectly good reasons - different intake, SEN, genuinely good value added, a deliberate emphasis on other things etc. But presumably EVERY child at Cranleigh, Prior's Field or any of the schools further down the table, isn't there because they need a particularly nurturing or SEN-focused environment, or require massive amounts of value add to succeed.

That's why I do think the overall results matter. Notre dame s value add claim is a bit unclear, but sounds good, tormeads is 1.7 across some subjects, apologies I missed that detail, but to get overall cohort level results around 85%, that's still some good teaching. None of he others have advertised any value add, they have picked departments or individuals that did well, surely if their value add was good too, they'd cherry pick that Info too. Who knows.

If I'm paying £25k/£30k+ a year and one school is getting 80-85% 9 to7 while another is getting 50-70%, I'd at least want to understand what's behind that gap and what I'm getting in return.

I'm sure all of them have brilliant individual pupils, departments, drama, music, sport etc...but so will the schools getting the stronger results overall.

None of which means I'd choose a school on GCSE percentages alone

I just find it slightly odd to argue that results are not a fairly important part of the picture when comparing schools, in a shared geographical area, at this sort of price point.

There is simply context that is lost in these chats. A top world university, lets say MIT, churns out incredible engineers and scientists, but the student cohort is very different from other universities very near it, the way they educate isn't best for anyone interested in engineering, and the price is similar to other universities near them. But it works because they take the students they know work in their system. That context is not appreciated in many chats and discussions that look at schools, even if similar comparisons can be made.

Those statistics from Prior’s Field are typical marketing guff. The top set maths had a handful of girls in - of course you’d expect them to achieve good results - by virtue of the fact it’s the top set! It’s telling Prior’s Field didn’t include any cohort statistics and instead point to specific subjects / sets / students. It reads as very suspect on their website, if I’m honest.

Take any non-selective school, private or state, and the top set might be similar to the entry requirement at a place like GHS or a highly selective state grammar. So in an attainment metric, those can likely be considered reasonably comparable cohorts.

When I am considering a school for my child, I’m not interested that 10 people in top set achieved a grade 9 - those girls would’ve likely achieved good grades at any school. I am interested in value added and the cohort as a collective. I do not like the cherry picking of statistics to masquerade that results were better than they were. It is fine to admit that you are a non-selective school, with a comparatively high proportion of SEN and learning difficulties, that produced results worth celebrating and happy children. There does not need to be a pretence that you are competing with the likes of GHS.

Yes, but ranking GCSE results is doing exactly that, without acknowledging the underlying cohort bias.

I think my point is slightly different to what you are arguing. What I dislike is the marketing guff where a school avoids publishing a clear whole cohort figure and instead highlights a particular subject, top set or handful of pupils because those numbers look much more impressive. If a school is non selective, has more SEN etc, then just say that. Publish the overall results, publish value added if you have it, and explain the context. There’s nothing wrong with saying “our results are lower than GHS because we serve a very different cohort, but our pupils make excellent progress and are happy here.” What I find disingenuous is cherry-picking something like “100% 9–7 in top-set Maths” in a way that makes the academic results of Prior’s Field sound comparable with another local highly selective school, when the whole cohort picture is quite different.

If advertising certain sets achieve something, just be clear on the sets. Maybe someone has a child that would be in a top set, but they are looking at a non-selective school and want to know how similar students do in that environment. Everyone has a different angle that fits their situation. One side of the coin is it is just marketing spin, the other side might be addressing a common question they receive from prospective parents. I'm not one to judge intention. Best solution is just talk to the different schools and ask the questions that personally matter.

Another thing to consider the cohort size.
I’ve heard quite a wide range of cohorts for y7 this year, maybe as the VAT impact starts to impact families. Smaller cohort might result in a more nurturing / more individual attention for child.

Lvs in ascot ? Is that near enough. I dont think yiu have to pass exams to get in and my friends kids who have gone there have thrived

ACS International School Cobham?

School website