Recent views of Herts. school please

[ratergater]

DD has got places at a very good private school (with hefty price tag) or STAGs (without the price tag). Does anyone have any up to date info re the latter that could help DH and I make up our minds? Any info re school culture, behaviour, quality of teaching etc would be especially appreciated.

Many thanks

We got offered STAGS but we chose to put her in a 'hefty price tag school'. It was no reflection on STAGS itself. We went private with DS because he wasn't allocated a good state school so it seemed unfair not to fund DD simply because she was allocated a good state school.

I don't have any inside gossip on STAGS. All I can say is that one of the mums with a DD there is quite pushy and dare I say demanding? She doesn't have any complaints so that is a good sign :)

How come you are naming STAGS but you aren't naming the indy school? [smille] How come you don't want objective discourse on both schools? Is it because you've already made up your mind?

I would personally go for the state option and stand ready to pay for supplementary 1:1 tutoring should any particular subject difficulty arise. There will be lots of girls going to STAGS this year who in previous years would have been sent to St Albans High School for Girls. The recession is biting hard in Herts.

I didn't want to name the indy because this is not my thread :) And yes I have made up my mind.

I question whether the recession has any serious impact on private schools. Yes there will be parents who are stretching their income to put their DCs through private schools and the economic uncertainty may put them off. But think about it. If one can afford about £25k pa to put 2 DCs through the system chances are you aren't one of those people getting chopped when the High St shop closes down.

Pusheed - No I meant the OP. Ha! But about the recession. Investment bankers, Hedge funds and lawyers etc are having a terrible time out there and I know at least one Herts selective private school who've made offers to boys they wouldn't normally consider 'their type'.

I would go with STAGS and top up with tutors if need be. DD went to the indie I suggest you look very carefully at the curriculum the school is not as good as it used to be.

Swed- I work in the City. While bonuses are smaller than in previous years, salaries in general are holding up. Those that are in jobs are relatively safe (unless you are with RBS :) ) All it means is that headcounts are often frozen so skipping to a new job for x% rise doesn't happen that much these days. The lay offs that you read about tend to be on the high street side of things

Having said that, I do read about how some parents are going for grammar schools whereas a few years ago they would be going private. Just want 'ordinary' parents want eh? - more competition for the few GS places available.

The CEBR say 8.5% of city jobs have been cut in the last year and bonuses in the city declined by 8% and job losses are set to accelerate.

I work in the City and the picture Pusheed is painting isn't entirely one I recognise.

thetasigmamum - I agree. I work in the City too. Not in banking but in a profession that is dependent upon banking and the general good health of the City of London. I know lots of people who work in banking who've lost their jobs pver the past year and the vast majority do not work for RBS.

Bonuses are down far more than 8%, more like 50% and in some cases even more. Plenty of redundancies in places other RBS.

It comes down to who you are working for. Some banks have more of an exposure to toxic customers/clients/countries than others.

Mine isn't seeing the same volume as the boom years but it just means they are earning so-so profits. Once a month my bank pays for a company wide piss up so that we meet people in other teams or sections. If management starts penny pinching there then I'll know we are in trouble :)

Pusheed - You said there were only job losses at RBS and this clearly isn't the case.

Maybetimeforachange - Yes, I thought 8% seemed conservative but I suppose it's just an average. Maybe for everyone getting their < £100K bonus cut by 50% there were probably 100 others who retained their bonuses of £250. And those figures were for last year, perhaps this year it has reduced further. Dunno.

But I do know it's tough out there, and lots of people who might have opted for independent schools in previous years are opting for state schools.

I never said there were only job losses at RBS. I gave that as an example of a bank that got hit big time as opposed to an assertion that this was the only bank that is/was shedding jobs.

Unfortunately I am not what they use to call in the 1980s a Master of the Universe but a guy that I know is and his bonus was a very healthy one this year thank you very much.

This is what a lot of people don't get but the Occupy Wall St bunch do. In some parts of the financial world its business as usual.

Returning to OP's original question. STAGS is an excellent school, dd is in Year 11. It is a very high-achieving academic school that gets excellent GCSE and A level results and is now also an academy.

I did exam marking for many years and STAGS had some of the best entries for English Language that I have ever seen.

thegreylady - How do you know the papers were from STAGS?

I would go with STAGS and use the extra money for top ups, easier life

Because in the essay question several girls named their school.I find they usually do :) Also I was on a remarking panel [retired Oct 2011] and we are told school names when there has been a query.

My niece is at STAGS and is doing well. I 've heard no complaints from her or her parents

I didn't name the other school as I have a lot of information about it already from friends, family, past pupils, current pupils etc, and feel i already know it quite well. I have less informaton about STAGs as i don't have the same level of contacts with information about it, but have heard some snippets recently third hand and wanted to find out if they represented the general view or not . And no, we haven't made up our minds yet. we are still vascillating (s that the right word) between the two.