St Columba's College, St Albans

[happytodayhappytomorrow]

Does anyone have any personal experience of this school please?
We are looking at it for DD for Sixth form.

TIA

My only comment is that the school is literally just starting to admit girls into the sixth form with a move to making the whole school co-Ed over time. What sort of provisions are they making for girls sport? Are they offering the A-level subjects your daughter is interested in? Number of female teachers, particularly in more pastoral roles. It’s a very male heavy school right now and I am not sure that feel will change very quickly. I might be wrong.

It has a great reputation locally for pastoral care but does suffer from being known as the school you send your child to if they don’t make it into St Albans. I guess it’s all just a bit of an unknown at the moment.

Not sure what is prompting the move but there are other schools in the area that you should also look at - even at state schools where catchment areas aren’t as tight for A-levels e.g. Sandringham and STAGS. Private you have Aldenham, Berkhamsted, Queenswood, Haileybury and even Bedford Modern and Bedford Girls on the direct train.

I have friends with boys at St Columba’s and they are all exceptionally happy with it though. Not trying to put you off, I just think you need to look really hard at how they are managing the admissions of girls.

I agree it is hard to predict how a girl would settle in there as it’s just started taking them. However, STABS & Verulam have been taking girls in the 6th form for a good while & generally girls settle in well to all-boys schools as they are all new to the school so no existing friendship groups to break into.

I don’t know that the A Level results are so amazing in comparison with state schools that I’d pay to send my daughter there, but you may have different reasons for looking at it.

Thank you both for your comments; I really appreciate them and they have certainly given food for thought.
DD herself has asked to look at St Columba’s - it wasn’t on my radar at all as it’s even further away from home than her current school.