Please share any thoughts on George Heriot vs George Watson

[NiknakG]

Thanks :)

I think you need to be more specific about what you need to know. What age group are you looking for ? What are you particularly interested in - academic results, sports, pastoral? Also and probably most importantly- where do you live - personally not having a long commute and teen DS now being able to get the bus to school are important.

@rookiemere

I think you need to be more specific about what you need to know. What age group are you looking for ? What are you particularly interested in - academic results, sports, pastoral? Also and probably most importantly- where do you live - personally not having a long commute and teen DS now being able to get the bus to school are important.

Hi, thank you for getting back. Sure, my daughter turns 5 year so interested in early years of primary. My daughter shows lots of interest in music and dance, science experiments and numbers so a bit of range. Please also share your experiences of after school club and you are right, pastoral care too. I live closer to GH. GW is a stretch.

My son was at Watson's from junior nursery to Sixth year. We were very happy with the school. They seem keen on producing well - rounded pupils.

We thought pastoral care was good and there's loads of opportunities for extra curricular sports, arts. The music department is fantastic.

Thanks Miss Barbary! We got the offer for P1 from Watsons and no offer from Heriot. So it looks like it’s Watson’s, if we stick with the private route. :)

@NiknakG how are offers shared? I am expecting my son's results today but no idea where I will get the info . . . will they be emailed to me? Same schools.

@hosnav, we got an email and a letter from GW. GH sent a letter - I didn’t see an email. That might because we didn’t get an offer, perhaps.

DH is ex Watsons. PIL chose it as they are more interested in "all round" pupils rather than a purely academic focus. Their learning support (DH is dyslexic) is apparently better too.

@SlummingAngel

DH is ex Watsons. PIL chose it as they are more interested in "all round" pupils rather than a purely academic focus. Their learning support (DH is dyslexic) is apparently better too.

I agree that Watson's looks at more than simply academic results. There are private schools with higher results in the league tables (although obviously Watson's results are still far ahead of state schools)

Our interest turned out to be the music department- it's a large standalone building with a performance hall and individual practice and rehearsal rooms.- very impressive.

Did you decide which school? We got offered both and found it tricky

Hi, I'm a bit late to this discussion and it sounds like the decision is made anyway. Just wanted to say, though, in case it makes a difference or for anyone coming across this in future: in my experience, be careful with this 'Heriot's is a bit academic' cliche (or any others about any school to be honest), as I wouldn't want people to get (potentially) the wrong idea. (We had no links with the schools we applied to and tried to test some of these claims so we were fully informed).

Full disclosure: we've just accepted a P7 place at GH for our eldest starting in August and came across this quite a lot (usually from non-GH parents) when doing our research. Clearly, I could be wrong and time will tell as we get our own experience of the reality, but the way it comes across from various parents (and the school itself) is that the grades GH achieves are a result of the school's ethos (work hard, try your best) and a hands-on teaching approach rather than any slavish/assertive, stick-led approach to exam results. If you think about it, there's quite a difference and had it been the other way round, I'd be considering elsewhere!

If you look at past results (most have them somewhere on their websites), there's not a lot of difference between them (we applied to EA, GW and GH) any way, which makes you wonder where this comes from. Anyway, my tuppence. Hope it helps. Happy to wax lyrical on anything else if people want!!

Could also be a bit of self fulfilling prophecy re exam results. Parents with academic children could put their children to Heriots as it's "academic" and those maybe not so academic choose Watsons so ends up affecting the average?

@ElephantOfRisk I would certainly fall into that category. I chose GH for my son (he is joining Seconday in August) because he is very focused on academics and everything I read said GH was the academic school.

Having said that, when I was at the GH open day (two years ago) a lady sitting next to me said EA actually has the best results which did make me momentarily waver. Was put off pursuing that though by comments in this group about there being a less inclusive atmosphere than Heriots.

So in my case, my decisions were essentially made by the comments in this group I live overseas so have little else to go on! But very happy with our choice so far.

I'm not so sure it's a cliché, a friend of my son's was at Heriot's. He's not very academic and was absolutely miserable there. Parents not at all happy with the support and moved him to a state school. I think his self confidence is gradually recovering. Watson's has a much better reputation for supporting children with additional learning needs.

Could well be a self-fulfilling prophesy: although I'm not sure I believe some of the rumours about recent application levels (this is part of the issue, right? No transparent info), Heriot's is hugely oversubscribed and you're naturally going to gravitate to what you can measure and the better performers in tests (although they did do less academic interviews/group work in the assessments too, unlike some schools).

However, as @Navhos says, this isn't actually reflected in exam results. I did this exercise myself and EA comes out higher (and yet you'll find grumbles about its teaching on here if you look hard enough). It's possible this 'academic' label has emerged only recently and so won't show up in the results yet given the lead time, but the facts don't really bear it out. Yet. I'd also read somewhere else that they were a bit lacking when it came to giving support, but others have said their experience on that was fine and it may be that things have improved more recently? I can't offer any knowledge there and am not going to blindly defend it just because it's the school we've chosen. It's so personal and things change over time, which is why I am just wary of these sweeping catch-all descriptions.

I wonder if it's an amalgamation of various things: I was a little unsure about its emphasis on sport or apparent lack of one. Watson's came out well on that, for instance, but we just figured that that's of secondary importance (to us anyway). And, at the PR level, the schools naturally play to their strengths. So, if you're not shouting about sport/extra-curricular but are about your ethos and studying hard, it's maybe no surprise you're going to be dumped in the 'academic' bucket in comparative terms. Who knows?

My information is a bit out of date, but at the time ( roughly 10 years ago) I knew of DCs that had attended GH nursery but were not accepted into junior school, whereas that didn't happen in GW. I believe also in GW that they would accept all siblings regardless of intellectual aptitude, but not guaranteed at GH.

Thanks, @rookiemere. Interesting. So, it is more selective in its approach at earlier levels (I see now that they confirm this on their website). Wonder if that's just a function of size and places (genuinely don't know)? GH is smaller than GW and need to whittle it down somehow, I suppose. Even so, funny how that still doesn't lead to that big a difference in grades later on in the secondary school. Shows how kids learn at different speeds, I suppose.

Just one anecdote...In the assessments, barring slight structure differences (GH ran a group test/exercise, whereas GW/EA didn't, but GW asked for a pre-prepared five-minute video), the tests my eldest sat were virtually identical at GH and GW (EA were a bit different, but not as comprehensive interestingly). They're really just testing you can cope with the P7 curriculum. My eldest's state primary just made her do a test to this end last week now she's finishing P6 and it was exactly the same as the private-school assessments she did last autumn. The point being, it's not like they're testing kids to a higher standard than other schools. So, maybe GH is attracting the more academically minded kids, or it's weight of nos: due to the large no. of applications, the more academic ones are doing better and getting in?

This chat is very interesting. My two pence worth, to put the cat amongst the pigeons. My son is currently in Heriots junior school and has dyslexia. He has been extremely well supported thus far, the support for learning team is excellent. I genuinely feel that the reason they get good results academically is because they take the time to get to know each child and understand how they learn best.

At the risk of going on a bit, since this asked about differences, the last thing I'll add is I felt there was quite a discernible culture difference between the two. Maybe I just didn't get it as overtly in my contact with GW, but Heriot's very much comes across as a family with considerable emphasis on hard work, respect and treating fellow students properly. Maybe this feeds into academic performance as well, although I suspect size is another aspect in that when you look at EA (smaller than both GW and GH).

Adding my own experience, hopefully it helps:

P7 entry for 10 year old son. Applied into both GW and GH.

We liked both schools, and my preference eventually was GH over GW.. I got the same vibe as described by @Fifeburgh7 Emphasis on hard work and treating everyone with respect. Got the small close-knit family kind of feel.

GW felt a bit more 'posh' (not in a bad way) and was nicer with a very impressive campus and massive facilities and everyone was lovely.

We have an offer from GW and were told high on the waitlist in GH. Learnt today due to high subscription waitlist not moving in GH.

So GW it is. GW is also walkable for us from Morningside over a bus ride to GH.
Cannot go wrong with both schools, so we are happy and moving forward with GW.

On the GH more academic vs GW well-rounded: I am not entirely sure what our 'expectation' is.

Our son currently in P6 is the average kid, high energy, plays tennis, likes Maths and English, is in the top group for English and 2nd from top for Maths. Generally receives positive feedback from teachers but I don't think he is especially very academically minded or competitive 'academics-wise', or at-least 'for now'. He generally enjoys what he is doing.

I am not entirely sure what our expectation is, we just feel both GW and GH are better resourced and can offer more.

What is this 'more'? only time will tell.

Hi there,
I have applied for George Watson assessment for my son for P7, entering 25/26. I started to worry that P7 entry will be very difficult, and maybe there will be no spaces. My son is on waiting list for ADHD and I am concern about his assessment. Does anyone know more about the assessment process for P7 and if Watson are neurodivergent friendly? I heard about verbal and non verbal reasoning as part of the test, is that correct?
And the last thing, do you think P6 entry more likely than P7?
I am sorry for my long post. Thank you in advance.