Habs girls Vs nlcs

[perhapsLAter]

Hello all, is anyone like me holding offers for both schools? I'm new to this I have moved from Taiwan and there schooling is very different. I'm struggling with what makes each unique. We live in Barnet so traveling to both will be fine. Would anyone be able to share their insights? I know both will have new heads, it very confusing we only sat three exams thinking we would only get one. We are very lucky we have two offers and are awaiting HB.

THANK U for your kindness

NLCS is significantly more competitive and academic. Habs is fine but probably second tier.

NLCS has the option of IB (international Baccalaureate) instead of A level which is good.

@parietal I’ve never heard Habs Girls as being described as “second tier” before 😂😂😂.

@perhapsLAter Ignore parietal’s comments above. Both are exceptional schools for very bright girls. They do have a different feel though. NLCS probably feels slightly more academically focussed but the differences in academic results are arbitrary.

I would highly recommend visiting both schools in person (if you haven’t already been) and going on gut reaction. Where does your daughter feel most at home and fit in?

It depends how academic a child is. If your daughter was offered HB and NLCS, she clearly is. There’s a significant difference in grade 9 attainment at NLCS to Habs, have a look at the results. English in particular at Habs is low for grade 9, I think it would depend on your child’s ability.
just from memory, I think Habs is 54% 9 and NLCS is 80%.

Does that take into account the Covid "uplift"?

Hi, all 2022 gcse exams were sat as normal and marked externally, the results are found on the schools websites.
The previous years A level results, that you refer to, for internally marked papers were checked again this year and all up held.

A huge number of girls at Habs have English as a second or third language. It’s all about context.

20% of NLCS’s cohort are international students- so unless they are all first language English speakers, I’m not sure that is it.

perhapsLAter- well done to your DD. Maybe the more worrying thing is all the negativity on this forum and elsewhere about Habs Girls. Can any currents parents share their views?

Not an NLCS parent here I hasten to add- in similar position to OP

@BookwormButNoTime both schools have a very healthy mix of parentage as does HBS, the English results at Habs aren’t great in comparison and the other two schools have a much higher percentage of grade 9s.

I don’t believe NLCS supports the Tier 4 application process so it’s hard to understand what you mean as “international” and question your statistic.

Many girls at Habs come from Indian and Pakistani backgrounds and do not speak English at home. This is bound to have a knock on impact on English Language results. It does at my DDs boarding school with a large Chinese contingent (who get sixty billion GCSEs at grade 9 but fail to get the top marks in Eng Lang).

I do object to the Habs bashing though. My DD didn’t get an offer from Habs but did from NLCS. We actually preferred Habs as it felt more rounded and not just about exam results. NLCS felt a bit cold and overly competitive in comparison and we turned it down. Everyone told us we were mad, but we just knew our DD wouldn’t be happy there. You can’t get that feeling from simply comparing exam results.

Look at the 2002 9-7 GCSE pass rates:

St Albans - 90%
Habs - 92%
SHHS - 94%
Wycombe Abbey - 97%
NLCS - 98%
CLSG - 99%
St Paul’s - 99%

I would be immensely happy for my children to attend any of these schools if academic results were my only criteria. It matters not one bit that any of them might get an extra couple of percentage points higher in these statistics. What does matter is she is extremely happy. To describe Habs as somehow second rate I just find laughable and I have no connection with the school at all - as per the above DD was rejected 😂😂😂

Habs 9-8 80%
NLCS 9-8 94%
CLSG 9-8 92%
HBS 9-8 94%
all the schools have very good results. But i think the person above was just clarifying that the Habs results aren’t as high as the others.
Habs 9 54%
NLCS 9 80%
CLSG 9 they don’t publish
HBS 9 75%

i am sure there are lots of happy
girls and parents at all the above schools

Interestingly, the number of Oxbridge offers changes the “rankings” of these schools.

SHHS - 11
City Girls - 12
Habs - 13
St Albans - 17
NLCS - 21
Wycombe Abbey - 24
SPGS - 37!!!!!!

St Albans as in STAHS?

Yes. It’s usually in the mix location wise if you are also considering Habs / NLCS from Herts.

I guess my point being that having a string of Grade 9s at GCSE is no guarantee of an Oxbridge place and you can “afford” to have a few 7s and 8s in there. This is, indeed, even stated on the Oxford University website. So what does it really matter in terms of the % points above? Having a happy daughter in a school she loves should be priority.

We all know that Oxbridge are trying to level the playing field and actually these days simply getting 3 A* isn’t enough. You need to prove yourself at interview (which is probably why SPGS does so well - they really are individual free thinkers) and have a great personal statement too. I think the Oxbridge stats are actually a good indication of the way girls at these schools are taught and show perhaps rote learning vs independent thought?

Independent thinking is one of the reasons why I am so happy for my girls to be at NLCS. The leavers destinations (quite a few girls from NLCS go to the US and not Oxbridge thanks to the IB by the way), the GCSE stats are, of course, useful but ultimately I think you should base your choice on the feel of the school for you. It is quite different. Where did your daughter feel more at home? For us there was no question between Habs and NLCS (we had offers from both).
By the way the demographics are very similar, some of the comments above make no sense, but then again they come from a parent that doesn’t have a child at either school.

Yes @BookwormButNoTime is totally wrong about Habs girls not speaking English at home- of course they bloody do! Where do you get your information from? Neither are they generally of Pakistani origin but of Indian origin.
They aren't fresh off the boat ! Their parents are highly paid professionals on the whole and if they speak another language at home, it makes them bilingual, not lacking in English skills.

I don't know anything about those particular schools, but as a parent of bilingual kids, it is a fact that not speaking the school's language at home, or even speaking the school language BUT having parents who are not native speakers of the school language, can have a knockon effect on language attainment at the higher levels (which is what you are getting into at GCSE level).

It won't stop the girls being perfectly fluent speakers of English. But they may not be getting the full range and depth of idiomatic English and cultural references that you will be getting if you have an educated native English speaking parent at home. I'm thinking of a couple of friends I have from South Asian backgrounds. They come from prosperous middle class backgrounds and are well educated, but they sometimes don't "get" certain cultural references, British historical "stuff," references to rural British things, or certain idioms/turns of expression when they come up in conversation.

We are in Japan and my daughters speak both languages at home - my husband is a native speaker of Japanese. I have friends where they are their spouse are both foreigners and both speak English (or English plus another language such as Russian), while sending their kids to Japanese school. Of course the kids are fluent in Japanese. But the lack of home input can create gaps as kids get older which then lead to somewhat weaker performance in kokugo (Japanese language and literacy, as studied in the Japanese school system). It's a very good idea for parents to be aware of this and think of ways of supplementing the kids' vocabulary and cultural references in the "school language" (Japanese where I am, and English in the UK).

So it's entirely plausible that performance in the language arts may be a little bit lower in a school in the UK where many kids, even highly educated ones, speak another language at home most of the time, or are speaking English but with a parent who did not grow up in the UK. We are talking in relative terms, however, and I have no doubt that the girls in question are still doing extremely well in English by any reasonable person's standards, as well as in their other subjects. All the schools referred to in this thread will be very good schools, so personally I'd focus on where my daughter was likely to thrive and enjoy her school life.

Yes, you are correct, the IB route takes a lot of the down the Ivy League route and many study medicine at UCL. The vast majority of girls are bi lingual at NLCS.

@BookwormButNoTime St Pauls Oxbridge take up was 31 not 37 and st Pauls has slightly higher GCSE and Alevel results. 20% of NLCS take Oxbridge and a higher amount take a combined LSE / Imperial/ UCL and kings. My daughter is a happy high achieving NLCS child. The original posting from the OP was a choice between three schools and someone pointed out that one of the schools attainment is lower than the others.

@TealReal Your comment is highly offensive so I have reported you. At no point did I say that. Nor did I say that they don’t speak English at home or weren’t British born or that they didn’t come from professional families.

What I did provide was an explanation as to why the Habs Eng Lang results seemed low but once again the school bashers seem out in force.

I might not have a child there but I have plenty of friends who do. Some live in multi generational households and do not speak English as a general rule at home as a result.

At no point have I said anything negative about NLCS, other than it wasn’t for us as it felt too academically driven. My point has been somewhat proven by other posters falling over themselves to try and discredit Habs as being somehow “second best” and not give the OP some sensible advice about how to choose between the two schools I.e. choose the one of best fit not get bogged down in analysing exam results. Which to add are pretty exceptional at both schools.

It makes me so sad to see parents so fixated by which are the “best” schools that they forget to look at which is the “right” school.

@PPLs St Paul’s is definitely 37 Oxbridge offers as per their website (see screenshot).

@BookwormButNoTime Just checked as we have an offer from STAHS also - it’s 7, not 17! I think the figure is quite consistent year on year. I get your thinking on how Oxbridge numbers are a useful indicator on the type of teaching at these schools. I’m surprised about the CLSG number though- I thought I felt that free-spiritedness, independent thinking there. The boys’ school does phenomenally well in this respect (42 offers this year). My DD is desperate to go to CLSG, but Habs and NLCS are far more local to us.

@Herewegoagain78 regarding demographic being similar at Habs and NLCS - really? I know both are served by a large coach network, but I had the feeling that Habs was less diverse.

CLSG is hands down more diverse given its location - I can’t help but think this is such a positive, leading to a breadth of viewpoints/thinking in the school. (Sorry OP for taking the chat off-piste with CLSG).

@Kokeshi123 really interesting post- thank you.

Congratulations @perhapsLAter

Both schools are academically selective and your bright daughter will have academic peers in either. On an individual level a child is likely to achieve the same grades at either school as the differences in grades are most likely down to differences on the cohort rather than the quality of the teaching.

OP, you might get a broader range of answers not just focused on exam results if you posted more about your child.

1. What kind of environment does she thrive in? Is she competitive, anxious, 'resilient' etc?
2. What is the pastoral care like at both schools
3. Would the IB suit her better than A-levels?
4. Are there any extracurricular activities that she's specifically interested in (like a sport/ music) that one school might support her better in?

I'd look into those points and visit the school again to see if the ethos and general atmosphere feels like a good fit. Some schools are more pressured than others and some have more of a culture for external tutoring and mental health issues so these are the things I'd try to dig into when speaking to parents and the school when making the decision.

Life is a long game so picking the school where your child will thrive holistically and become a happy secure adult is the best chance for long term success in the broadest sense of the word.

@FreneticVerses Yes, sorry, I got that one wrong. I picked the data off the map not realising it was aggregated data. Seven is still pretty good though!