Is Ricards Lodge a good secondary?

[SanFris]

My DD has just got a place at Ricards Lodge. We had visited the school last year. It seemed nice. But we don’t know anyone who studied there. If anyone of you has any experience with the school, please share your opinions. Thank you.

It was a horrible school a few years ago some of my friends went their.I went Burntwood and I wouldn't put a dog in there at all. I think it's easy to wear blinkers and only focus on one type of behaviour amongst a given cohort. Loud, mouthy girls exist, I'm sure, in all schools (even private ones!) and they will be the ones you'll remember from bus journeys, rather than the quiet and well-behaved ones who tend to merge into the background.

RL has a mixed intake (although becoming less so as the school's reputation goes from strength to strength), so you might expect there to be some rough girls. Don't tar them all with the same brush though! Lots are from SW19, including the roads around the school (heading into 'the Village'. I challenge anyone to find rough girls in those neighbourhoods!

Thanks for sharing your recent experiences.

We’re expecting to be offered a place at Ricards next month. I got a great feeling at the open day - the girls I spoke to were impressively articulate, polite and engaged.... but... I have a few nagging worries about the academics. Other local schools publish a full breakdown of exam results by subject so you can see what options are being chosen as well as the outcomes. And Ricards just... don’t. Surely they would have this information on the website in a flash if it looked impressive. And from what I gleaned at the open day their Maths results are quite a way below national average (so a long way below other Merton schools).

Anything you can say to reassure me? I really want to love it. We didn’t go for the grammars because the commute would have been so long, but I’m worried now that it wasn’t the right choice (a bit late now I realise!)

They may have more polarised pupils than some schools? They've had a couple of less high achieving year groups? I would have thought that you would be wisest to challenge the SLT with your worries tintenherz.

This is totally irrelevant to the OP as this was about 100 years ago but loads of girls from my school had a big fight with loads from RL back in the 80s over a boy. It made the papers, even back home in Ireland I was shamed! Can't even remember who the boy was, can't imagine he was anything special of the local talent was anything to go by!

Conscious that this is responding to a question posted a while ago - but I just had to respond and alert parents to this schools ineptitude.

We moved to Wimbledon in the summer and Ricards Lodge was the closest school for my DD to attend - plus it seemed to have great reviews.

Previous to living in Wimbledon we had lived in Surrey and Hampshire. While in Surrey my DD was decelerated at year 3 due to her severe dyslexia so she repeated year 3 (this was in Surrey). And to be honest was never an issue.

When we moved to Wimbledon, Merton council were happy for her to remain decelerated and go into year 8...however, the headteacher at Ricards Lodge insisted that my DD go into year 9 because of her age.

As a result, DD not only missed half of year 7 due to covid lockdown - Ricards Lodge then pushed her forward a year so she has essentially missed all of year 8 as well.

Before moving to Wimbledon my DD was in the top sets for English and science and really thriving. She is now in the bottom sets for everything. She is anxious. She says the children shout, are disruptive, are on their phones and have their hands up all the time. The head teacher has refused to meet with me, the office staff are not particularly helpful, the governors have not responded and yesterday the school left DD outside in the cold and rain for more than an hour as they said she should be self isolating. That had actually finished.

They do not care. And I would NOT recommend this school.

We are fighting against being forced to send our daughter to Ricard’s. We have withdraw her from school pending a tribunal. It is precisely the lack of interest and engagement with families and their concerns that puts us off

Yep Wobbles - they are completely dis-interested and don't seem to care a jot. I'm unsure how they have gained any kind of positive reputation - although it seems if your DD is in one of the top sets it may be better.

I also had a conversation with one of the teachers who I had sent my daughters ed. psychologists report to (which we paid for ourselves) - and she said there was nothing included that she was particularly concern about - in complete contradiction to what the ed. psych had said...

Unfortunately all other schools are full. It is so disheartening.

@MrsScrubbingbrush

My DD is at Ricards as is very happy there - she's just coming to the end of Y8.

They work them hard (especially in Y7 when they get lots of homework) but it's a very friendly school. She's in one of the 2 top sets and there's very little disruption but I can't comment on the other sets.

They did throw them in at the deep end on the first day, they gave them their timetable and said 'off you go and don't be late for your class' even though none of them knew their way around the school. The older girls were very helpful as were the staff and she soon settled in.

I'm sure your DD will be fine there especially if she enjoys music, drama and dance.

Do they offer something specific for dance and drama. My daughter is dance trained with a lot of competitions. Also very keen on Drama.