Royal Alexandra and Albert School

[RAAS]

Hello,

Does anyone have an experience of this school? We are thinking of sending our Dc there and it would mean moving in to the local area.

Would love to hear your views, good and bad before we make the move.

Also, the school have said we really need to live within about 1 mile of the school. It's proving difficult to find a property for sale as 1 mile radius of the school is almost all woodland / parkland :) There are only about 10 roads and many of those seem to be mainly council houses and not really finding any for sale (could be wrong, it's just a guess from the exterior of them). Any one moved into the area specifically for the school?

Thanks!

Lisa.

Priority area is about a mile from the flagpole apparently. tbh there are mixed views locally, have you visited . Most people move to that area of Redhill for St Bedes so property close by has a premium on it and there is significant development being built in Merstham which might impact longer term. Not many "council" houses are that near tbh. Not sure you can rely on getting day places anyway, how old are your dc.

Thanks LIZS, our children will be applying to start Sept 2014 Sept 2015 and Sept 2016 (3 of them).

Within 1 mile seems to be our target distance. May have to rent for a while.

Not looked at ST Bedes actually, we've only decided this week that we like RASS, got the open day in March so won't move til after then.

I was a border here, when I was ten (16 years ago now ) if its the boarding school im thinking of, i was a week boarder, and was there for 6 months. (Short stay Not down to school due to bereavement)

As a ten year old I remember lovely food (i loved to eat!), nice pool, nice stables, nice house mothers (no idea if They are still called that!)... Anyway i guess that isnt much help but that's what I remember

What age are you looking to get them in at ? Day places for other than Year3 or Year 7 are rarer than hen's teeth. St Bedes is an ecumenical church school so huge majority of places go to C of E or RC baptised and practising children (220/240 iirc) but there is talk of it becoming an academy so something may change. The children I've known go to RAAS recently are not the most academic, a few dyslexic and borderline SpLD, although the Head is keen to shake off that image. It achieves decent results and is improving each year , but tends to struggle with a broad subject range in 6th Form so uses resources at other schools/6th forms for certain subjects. The dvd is very glossy but ds didn't like the look of it at all when he visited.

Thanks Strawberries - Soudns like yo have a lovely experience there!

Our will not be boarding so will be flexi boarders, coming home each night (as we will have to be living within 1 mile).

Thanks for the info LIZS very helpful. We are not practicing so would be very unlikely to get into St Bedes.

They would all be starting for Year 7. Will def visit before we make any decisions though, quite excited actually!

(this is RAAS by the way)