Hello,
Hope I could hear some opinions on the independent secondaries in Herts. We live in St. Albans and so far visited St. Columba's, STAHS and Sherrardswood. This spring we will go to the open days of Queenswood, St. Margaret's, Abbot's Hill and RMS and we will revisit St. Columba’s. I'd also like to visit Aldenham (no open day announced yet) and possibly Berkhamsted Girls (open day in September). Out of these which ones would you recommend and why please?
My daughter is academically average in some areas and slightly above average in others. She loves history, enjoys maths and is very much into sports and dance. She loves to engage in extra curricular activities and give new things a go. For personal reasons, it would be a bonus if either of these schools offered German however it's not necessary.
I can't see her in STAHS, as even though the facilities looked ok, I didn't get the right vibe from the school. It seems too pushy where a sensitive girl like mine, who sometimes lacks confidence and needs encouragement, wouldn't thrive. If it's true that they only accept the most academic girls, she likely wouldn't get in anyway and even if she did I would probably not want to put her through the ordeal of always trying to be at the top or feeling worse. I believe there is more to a school than pure academics.
Sherrardswood seemed a bit too small and lacking great facilities. I'm not sure I could justify paying the fee just for smaller class sizes and more individual approach vs state school but compromise on the facilities.
St. Columba's is our nearest school to which she could walk - a massive bonus! Being in the city, the sports facilities didn't seem to be as great, which puts me off slightly. Also, as they have only recently started enrolling girls, they seem to be lacking girl friendly subjects such as textiles, dancing or food technology and my daughter pointed out that they are very much into basketball whereas she loves tennis, swimming, gymnastics dancing and would like to try lacrosse. Otherwise it seemed like a lovely school with great science labs and an overall good vibe to it. I wonder if they're going to become a bit more girl friendly by introducing new subjects to their curriculum and extra curricular offering.
As I mentioned above, I've not had a chance to visit the other schools yet. Based on my research I may not like Berkhamstead Girls if I didn't like STAHS. I'm very much looking forward to visiting the other schools. Ideally I would narrow it down to 3-4 schools to not make her sit too many exams/ interviews but to also give her a fair chance of securing a place in one of them.
Thank you 