How to get to Queen Ethelburga's

[Ladymom]

Hi, We visited and just want to share our experience to save the 'pain' for future parents.
Because Queen Ethelburga's is really remote! A long drive 50 pounds! from Leeds airport!
We took the train from Paddington thinking the train link would bring us to near the school. But even the nearest train station (as advised by the school) is not near the school.
Best book a taxi in advance before arrival. Do not expect taxi queues like in Asia, there was no taxi in sight!
And for return, the school will book a taxi for you but at a premium price. There's this taxi company that serves this 'premium' school and therefore pay premium price.
Impression of school, staff are snooty - we entered the office and the staff chatting did not bother to ask what we there for. So we sniffed around and asked before we were asked to wait.
To us, it is a business as some said.

I hate to point out the obvious but if you've researched enough to find an international school then it's surely not beyond you to apply a tiny bit of logic 'rural school in rural county, gosh maybe i better check i can get a taxi'.

You come across like you have a superiority complex where the world should revolve around making life as easy as possible for rich international jet setters. What you will quickly realise is that most people in the UK couldn't give a shit about whether you can/can't get a taxi in asia (that well known homogeneous area ) and if you displayed the type of attitude you do on here in the company of most Brits, you would come across quite negatively.

If I was going to travel by train in the UK I would check transport most of thr time. If I was travelling internationally then chrcking transfers etc are a fairly obvious part of the trip.

I can't imagine travelling to an unknown location without checking out the journey using Google Maps first. Good job they don't use something like that as an entrance test . Find your way from the nearest train station or airport using the quickest or cheapest way possible, your choice.

And surely it's obvious if somewhere is a 40 minute drive away from a premium location like an airport, a taxi isn't going to be cheap? I'm not sure why you expected a school and an airport that are both very loosely on the outskirts of a large city to be that close to each other. That would apply whether Leeds, London, Shanghai, Singapore, anywhere really.

I used to work with a man who had worked there in a previous job. His descriptions of the school and his experiences of working there certainly livened up the office.

TheSecondOfHerName
Now I'm curious. Surely I can't be the only very nosey one who is hoping for a story.

I could tell lots of stories but they'd be incredibly outing! Basically (when I was there, late 90's and no idea now) it was just like The Chalet School but with more horses and not quite as many Nazi's.

I had no idea about the splitting of the school! Always wondered how it had such a terrible rep locally yet the radio ads are full of such glowing results.
Also surprised the horses have gone, felt like they filled 50% of the advertising in my teenage pony magazines

Is the splitting of the school designed to appeal to those with, er, lower attention to detail or less local knowledge, by any chance?

I’d never heard of this place and am properly fascinated.

I am a little puzzled as to why this school seems to be so hated on mumsnet. I just had a look at the website: it looks as though it has pretty impressive facilities (almost bafflingly lavish), and they're pretty up front about dividing the academic and less academic kids up at 14. The A level results even for the faculty are pretty good, so why is it that general mn opinion seems to be one of loathing?

Well, imagine a state comprehensive claiming a place at the top of the league tables by putting its top set in as a separate institution! Wouldn't get away with it for five minutes, and you'd probably have some thoughts about the school's levels of probity and integrity, I imagine.

Ladymon - sorry to be flip but QE does bring out the worst in MN.

If travelling costs as opposed to the fees themselves are going to be an issue then you need to concentrate on schools near the airports. Even in the home counties there is a lack of public transport and taxis once you leave the major towns. If you post a new thread requesting details of the easiest boarding school commutes from airports you will get lots of information and advice about schools that empty out at the weekends etc.

They split at ks4 candy

What is hilarious is my school in a non selective comp got comparable results (better in some places) than they did in their entire 'college' cohort (after they have pushed 'less academic' students into Faculty). How they got grade 3s and 2s after separating their cohort in 2 also astounds me.

Well, imagine a state comprehensive claiming a place at the top of the league tables by putting its top set in as a separate institution! Wouldn't get away with it for five minutes, and you'd probably have some thoughts about the school's levels of probity and integrity, I imagine
This and rightly so.

Why can't they offer different pathways (like they do currently) under the banner of one school? You know, like all state schools do?

Putting students into 2 technically separate schools has NOTHING to di with offering a good education and has everything to do with gaming league table positions.

Wow!
My interest is piqued. Especially by the 'Academic Results' page...which gives no Academic Results! here

OP, I am sorry you had a difficult journey and a bad experience. As others have said, a bit of research and planning could help - and perhaps your warning will encourage other visitors to use the info on the website, and do some planning.

I am not sure where in Asia you refer to . It is a big place, with plenty of rural areas. I have travelled in plenty of countries in Asia where convenience would not define the experience. And also where it was not easily possible to get an up to date timetable of any buses, whether their services were running etc etc.

Maybe it is time for Lovely Planet to do a Guide to Rural Private Schools. With transport routes etc.

I see the 'interesting' articles in the Yorkshire Post run out at the point where the matter was referred to Crown Court. Anyone know what happened? Important to recognise, of course, that no current members of Ethelburgers was implicated, so nothing to do with the current school at all.

"almost bafflingly lavish"

I'm not that baffled, myself. The fees for overseas students are about £45k per annum.

Though I have no idea how that compares with other boarding schools.

OK: I have seen the A level results now on the pop-up box.

They look good.

SpotAG shows it was a proper posh education with 'dehorsed'. There was only ever debagging at the comp.

Fear not the horses will return !

A horse solarium sounds great!

seek our local comp has a 'grammar stream' (Kent so it is slightly different to the rest of the country wrt grammar schools) and they post their results as two separate schools. Despite being same building, same facilities and some pupils being grammar streamed for some subjects but not others.

Why/how did you go north from Paddington?

I am guessing OP took Heathrow Express from Paddington to Heathrow & then flew to Leeds Bradford Airport which has minimal public transport links, hence the expensive taxi journey. OP next time ask on MN for the best way to travel to remote & rural schools. You’d had saved yourselves a lot of pain by just getting the train from Kings Cross to York (still would have had an expensive taxi ride though! ). The preferred taxi provider will have been a local firm that they can rely on and will have an account with. It won’t have pushed the price up because it thinks it can rip off rich prospective parents from overseas. That sounds about what I would expect a normal fare for that journey to be.

"You can hire a car for less than £15 a day from Leeds Bradford Airport. It's probably a 40 minute drive."

Wow, £15??!! For a single day??!

Do they still have the massive Transformer?

I love QE, it’s bonkers.

And regarding overseas parents and boarding school research - some of them do none at all. It’s how you end up with thousands of Chinese kids at a third rate boarding school somewhere in wales. It’s quite baffling.

Ah! A clue to keeping the results high. A poster on another thread says: "Ethelburga's also recruit a lot, or they used to. DD (who just finished year 13) was spammed by them throughout year 11 because she was predicted over 8As and told she could get a near enough full scholarship if she got 8As, then bombarded post results day. We don't even know how they got her email but she and a few friends from the grammar school (also predicted 8A*s+) were all on the receiving end of this"

They allegedly (to satisfy the lawyers) think planning permission doesn't apply to them and built 19 buildings without planning permission and allegedly did not pay the main contractor who I worked for at the time, for most of that work.
They allegedly send medicated handwipes to the unwashed local residents lest the unwashed i to protect their snowflake students should they have the misfortune to come into contact