Tanbridge House / Millais girls / Forest boys - Horsham

[ducdo]

Morning all,
We are looking to move to Horsham and have a daughter for Yr7 and son for Yr9 and trying to find the best schools for them.
Would love to hear any reviews/feedback on these 3 high schools so we can try to make our decision on which is best. Thanks in advance.

Millais - all girls, viewed locally as the next best thing to private, high standards etc, not sure what the situation is on in year entry as they are always massvely oversubscribed and the catchment area is very important.
Forest - all boys; unfortunately had its ups and downs, think its now rated 'good' at ofsted but had a few problems in the not too distant past.
Tanbridge - seems good, don't hear much about it as many seem to head for 'The Weald' at Billingshurst, again though is normally oversubscribed.

Conventional wisdom is Millais for girls (fabulous school) and Tanbridge for boys (not in the same league as Millais, but perfectly fine).

Have you visited them?

not visited them yet, just spoken with them and the local council regarding application process. lots of research on line but value knowledge of those who actually know the school/live nearby and can give their honest view on how these schools are performing and how good they really are.

be nice to send our children (daughter and son) to the same high school which would be Tanbridge, however if the girls/boys schools are better performing then that would be 1st choice.

any thoughts much appreciated!

Do look at the Weald. Recently rated as outstanding. I have had three daughters educated here. My eldest left with two As and two As at A level and a string of As and As at GCSEs. My younger two are currently sitting A level exams. All their GCSEs were A*to B. Hoping for As and Bs at A level. We have had very few issues over the years. I think this school would be preferable to Tanbridge or Forest.

Sorry forgot to add we are extremely lucky in this area to have the choice of such excellent schools. There are no bad choices.

Rascalls3 touches on an interesting subject... sixth form, if you plan to stay that long. The Horsham schools all feed into Collyers 6th form college, which definitely has a 'college' (fend for yourself a bit, step between school and uni) vibe.

Back in the day, I knew full well that I would slack off big time in such an environment, so I went to Reigate Grammar for 6th form and got the As I was capable of.

Both my dd's went to Millais & then on to The Weald for 6th form, (youngest is just finishing yr 12 there). As the others have said Millais is good for girls but if you want both together then Tanbridge or The Weald in Billingshurst are better. It will also depend on where you move to in Horsham as Tanbridge & Millais in particular have catchment areas which can make them hard to get into if you are outside the catchment areas. Tanbridge though has recently announced that they are having new buildings to extend the school so might have more room in the next couple of years, but with all the new building on that side of the town the extra space will quickly get used up.