St Albans High School for girls

[pubandstate]

Can anyone tell me more about this school, specially under the new management with their new Head.
I visited the school few months go, went for an open day well before the lockdown,
I need some advise about this school, its culture and how they are comapred to good state schools.
Do they really nuture their students as they say or is it an academic factory. Pls help

thank you Zodlebud, great info.

@Zodlebud I agree with you completely on fees. STAHS fees are not cheap for what they offer. I probably would say they are a lot better than most of the independent prep/ primary schools as they teach academic subjects to a very high standard and teach girls to be independent, take responsibility for their own learning. Tech is introduced early on, so by the age of 10 they can easily blind type, do a lot of research and prepare zillions of slides decks on Google classroom. I liked that side. But the poor provision of sport and art is what I am concerned about. Their main focus is on academics, and from what I Have heard of senior school - it's a LOT of maths and english, and sciencies and not much of anything else. Yes, they have pool on their site but because the school is so crowded they use it once a week for one term only! That's not sport in my books. Facilities are not that great. Some of the other schools we considered in the country offer a lot more for the same money and some offer a lot more for £1000 LESS.So it's all about what you want for your child. We want a happier life for our DD, so we will not be considering STAHS or similar schools for her.

For Q - we did not like their 'mobile policy' when girls are allowed to keep their mobiles through the day and even encouraged to use them to copy material etc. ALSO I have heard about quite a few bullying cases there that had not been handled well, hence it raised red flags for us.

I doubt you could find a school that has no bullying. I have looked at the mobile phone and internet policy at Q and personally I think it’s sensible. I wouldn’t not reject a very good school because it trusts its pupils and teaches legal and sensible use of devices. This approach is typical of Queenswood. It’s not the sort of school that forbids things and makes constant checking of policies a drag on teaching resources. It expects the girls to behave sensibly, receive instruction in e safety, and it’s a more enlightened approach. It’s not as if girls are on their phones through lessons!

It tends to attract families from quite a wide catchment as most St Albans kids go to the excellent state schools. So pals can be very spread out. Fine if you are happy to help drive them around.

is STAHS worth the money they ask,at St Clement Danes, they offer exactly what STAHS is offering.
Do you get better children at these private schools

newgirls there’s truth in that.
But in Y7 they do try to put girls together by area.
So DD went into a class with quite a few in an easy radius.
But that said, she did end up with pals from all over.

pub I don’t know that other school at all, so can’t say.
For us we were happy with the value fir money but - and I’ll be brutally frank here - we could easily afford it.
If we’d been making sacrifices I might have felt differently.

Clement Danes is up there as being one of the best non-selective state schools in the country. If you are in catchment you would be mad to not give it full consideration.

thanks everyone.
Zodlebud, I see your point. thanks

Many students at High School decorate their blazers with so many badges, l find it very cheap and destroy the outlook of their uniform.
Why cant they award the achevements as certificates or any other.
Many other top private schools stay well awy from this kind of culture.

Why St Albans ?

@pubandstate that is not true. You will see it in all the schools. They have earned their badges , so why not wear it? Don’t think it looks cheap either. And yes, they give our certificates and cups and all sorts as well... like in any other independent school

I have no problems with badges. Many many schools use it as a reward system. If you have earned recognition for something then why not be able to wear it with pride? It is actually more prevalent in independent schools than state. I really don’t see a problem.

I guess the problems arise for those children who never earn any badges......

Bored2,
I appreciate your point of view.
I have studies many independent schools and have notice that very few almost none of the traditional independent schools promote this kind of practice.
all that they are doing is making their own blazer look ugly. one ot two badges makes sense.
I am sure all top independent schools that does not promote this will have much better way of awarding achievements. such as school colours, certificates, trophies and so on.
also as long as parents and management does not understand this, we will see girls at high school doing this. I personally find this completely inappropirate and cheap for such a school.

Zodlebud,
appreciate your view, but I believe high school should be on par with their main competitors or even better schools in the country, not just indies which has no history or traditions that promote badge galore.

I think there are other things you should be looking at when evaluating a school other than whether the pupils are awarded and then allowed to wear badges......

@pubandstate King’s, CLC, Roedean, Haileybury - are these traditional enough? All wear badges, personal choice and see no issues.

Wow this is a novel complaint! Badges on blazers...can’t see the problem myself

Bored2,
I see, pls note all these schools been realistic, one or two badges which is fine , campared to high school, so many badges and stars name tags, there is no place left on the blazer once a child reach Year 11. at this rate they will encourage girls to wear them on the other other side of the balzer. its not a school uniform some sort of scouting kit. how could people not see this. high school has everything in a nutshell but with this culture they are killing all what they have so cheaply. something for the parents teachers and the BOG to rethink.

I think I have seen just a few girls with more than a few badges so far. Most will have one, two or none. Sorry but I can’t see the problem. The culture the school sets is to achieve, not wear as many badges as you can. But if you worked hard and got them so why not? I wish my dad could wear all her medals round her neck 🤣

I dont want to post any school childrens pictures on this website. Its not their fault, its the culture which needs an overhoul. Pls see the high school facebook page, they have one school prefects video, you will see the bardge galore i'm talking about, I bet you want be able to count them. so many.
pls take time to do some research.

Don’t need to do any research as my kid goes there. Like I said very very few kids will have more than 2 badges and it’s personal choice if you want to wear them. Def not the school’s culture. I am not the fan of some things at STAHS but can reassure you that this is not the school’s culture. They do encourage girls to voice their opinions and go and achieve things. Some do get overinflated ego though . Nothing to do with badges

If you are considering Clement Danes, what about the other SW Herts Consortium (state) schools? Watford Girls Grammar and Parmiters also get excellent results. They are pretty competitive to get in to because they are academically very good, but obviously free.

Parmiter’s students don’t have too many badges on their blazers, if that is an important factor in your thinking.

Pls many are understanding my message incorrectly. how can one say its not their culture to encurage this practice. Grammars do a wonderful job providing a good education and extra curriculars with their limited budget, I am not comparing them with Indies which charge 20k or more as high school. Parmiters is a very good school with a rich history, they even provide school colours to sporty children, not as badges but proper school crest which they can decorate on their blazers. even the hertmere MP is an old boy of this great grammar school. I expect high school to practice better ethics rather giving cheap badges to all their high achieveing students, like giving candy, pls see their top students, how many badges they wear, If someone says they only wear one or two is giving misinformation. surely they should be taught to wear one or two high end badges if they want to, which is a fair practice and surely they should discourage these enthusiastic children not wear all the badges they received from year 7 onward to year 11. which makes them walking bells and cheap. which really put people off. can you see any of the top public schools do this. such as eton, harrow,, winchester, marlborough. They will laugh at this. I still want you all to see the video clip on facebook and tell me how many badges they have.

Bored2,
how could you say its not the school culture.
Because the school does not see the damage its cousing to their rich outlook. If they see that why give so many badges and showing off on their top end girls.
honestly its more of an embarrassment rather than achievement for these talented girls. the sad thing is school does not see this and keep promoting it, the worst thing is some parents also joining the bandwagon.