St Richard Reynolds secondary school

[Orangebadger]

Is there anyone here who has any first hand experience of St Richard Reynolds secondary school in Twickenham.

My DD is in yr 5 and looking at secondary options right now. She is baptised catholic but we are not church goers at all, my DH is the religious one. I was born catholic but not practising. How religious is RR and what is the pastoral care there like? What's the behaviour of the children like? Academically it seems to do well and I understand it has a good music department.

Interested to hear all perspectives!

I have two children at SRR- one graduated and one in the high school. I have nothing but great things to say about it and my kids have lovely - and well mannered- friends. I think at every school there will be children who do not have the exemplary behaviour you would hope for. My son transferred from a very highly respected catholic school where he was completely miserable due to bullies. He said that the school was more interested in your uniform being tidy than children being kind to one another. He is happy, thriving and working hard now.
to the posters above I'm sorry to hear your daughters aren't happy as I know it's horrid to see your child miserable but I don't think it's a universal experience at SRR at all

I am on the waiting list for SRRC - fingers crossed for us 🤞

I stumbled across this thread, interested because I have a DC in Year 7 at SRR. Wow. Interesting mix of views. We are still in our early days so my opinion is still being formed, however, so far, our experience has been positive. Especially the teachers who are overwhelmingly great. One or two exceptions, of course: we do not like Mr Burke. Our DC says he's hardly seen at the school and we've only seen him at major events, which he stalks with the Chair of Governors looking for money and telling us parents how fortunate we are to send our children to the school. He's not wrong on the latter. It is a really good school, but not as amazing as he thinks it is. We find him arrogant and no, the school is not stacking up to the nom-dom schools in the area that achieve such fantastic exam results. He needs a dose of humility. Also, my DC is in a great stream with great kids, but the abuse of uniform is a shocker. My DC says you don't know where to look with the mostly older girls shortening their skirts to their pant line and the boys pulling their trousers down to below theirs. Behaviour in the upper school too is not brilliant either from what I hear from other parents. A close friend's child is in Year 10 and is finding the peer pressure to mess around and vape in the toilets overwhelming. The leadership seems a bit weak and reluctant to sort it out. These are the negatives in a school with a lot more positives. If we'd wanted our DC to go to a super strict school and (unrealistically) be pushed to Oxbridge we'd have sent them to St. Mark's. We chose SRR because we believe the school will help them to achieve without damaging their mental health for life. It's a very supportive and kind environment. I think we've made the right choice here but agreeing a little with some of the earlier posters who are/were unhappy with the school, many parents would like to see the school adopt a more rigorous approach to raising standards and behaviour. If that means being a bit stricter and adopting harsher penalties for taking the mickie out of how the uniform is worn and the like we'll totally support the school. For anyone reading here and considering SRR for their children I'd say yes, go for it, it's a great school. Just like any other school you're looking at however, grill the senior team and don't fall for the marketing BS. There's a lot of that at SRR and now they're 10 years old they really need to start delivering on everything they say they are.

Hi. Wow. Reading your post on the SRR thread can I say this has not been our experience of SRR at school. The school has lots of faults but it is really proud to be a Catholic school. I have heard lots of stories of crummy behaviour but overwhelmingly the kids seem good, kind and proud of the Catholic values they are being taught. We went to the welcome Mass at the school last September and it was (tbh) shambolic but it didn't feel like anyone was ashamed to be Catholic. Maybe it's because there are such a high number of Catholic children there but honestly nobody is picked on for their Catholic faith as far as I can tell.

Anyone looking for Catholic schools for 2025 onwards might be interested that Gunnersbury in Hounslow is going co-educational: https://www.gunnersbury.com/page/?title=Statutory+Notice&pid=252

@AFantaShadeofTan i am not looking at St Marks but I didn't realise it was like that. I actually have no idea what it's like only that I know many parents who rave about it as a very holistic school. My only knowledge is total hearsay so really interesting to read what you have said about it been very strict.

I have never ever heard anyone describe St Mark's as holistic before. Many parents from my DC's year 6 class put it down as a first choice but not many got it with my DC's friends mostly going to Gunnersbury and a few to SRR. The ones who did go for St Mark's went for it because the headmistress gave a lot of waffle about it being the best Catholic school in the country and their amazing exam results. When we did our research however it wasn't everything she said. We also asked lots of questions about their safeguarding (our DC is dyslexic and was bullied for it until his brilliant primary head steamed in to stop it) and it seemed shocking. We heard first hand accounts of a massive cover up of a serious sexual assault (pupil on pupil) at the school which put us completely off. They are all about results and that's about it at St Mark's. The children have to stand up when an adult walks into a classroom and a friend of my DC who's there got a detention for scraping their chair. Pathetic. Poor child is terrified of school and says they only like you there if you're really clever. We may not like Mr Burke but we really disliked the headmistress at St Mark's. Honestly from what we've seen and heard, St Mark's does not hold a candle to St Richard Reynold's. It's far from perfect but our child is safe, very happy and the teachers are as I say just brilliant. We wanted co-ed and Catholic for our DC and fee we made the right choice. If the school works a bit smarter to improve their exam results and gets a bit stricter on uniform and behaviour we'll be ecstatic. Really interesting to find out that Gunnersbury is going co-ed. If they'd done it for this year we'd probably have made it our first choice but we are so happy we went with SRR. Honestly we are.

I have kids at 2 of the other catholic schools mentioned here and know many, many parents (and teachers) at SRR. None of the schools are perfect, we all have our gripes and issues. They all have different a demographic as well so choosing the one that suits you and your child is the main thing. it's true that St Marks is more academic but I've found the pastoral care for my tricky 13 year old to be brilliant, I've been very impressed on that front. However, the sport St Marks leaves a lot to be desired so if your child is at all sporty avoid that.

We've all heard rumours from all the schools and I wouldn't stoop as low to mention the ones I've heard about SRR as I suspect they're BS.

My No.1 tip for Schoo tours is rather than to grill SLT or teachers, is to grill the students showing you around. Are they happy? Do they have fun? How do they interact with each other and their teachers? They're often 6th formers so make sure to ask if they attend that school or if they moved.

I have been interested to read these posts. Are there any more opinions on this school currently? Has anything changed ? I posted in another thread about my reservations of the sport provision at SRRCC.

@ListeningPost , the HS ofsted section 8 report has been released today, it's on the HS section of the school website and the school has maintained its Outstanding grading.