St Catherine Bramley and Reigate Grammar School, which one to choose?

[babyisthebest]

We will relocate to Surrey and received Year 8 offer from both St Catherine and Reigate Grammar School. My daughter is strong in academic, keen on sport, music and drama. She would like to join a school that with more extra-curricular activities and allow students to participant even she is not very strong/ talented in it. We, as parents, would like her to join a school with encouraging atmosphere in both academic and activities, together with great pastoral care.

For St Catherine, we are pretty sure she can keep up the grades of GCSE and AL as from the previous comment of the school focuses on assessments (please correct me if I am wrong/ not updated). For activities, I heard from current parents that the activities are not too much when compare to other independent schools and the facilities are also not strong enough.

For RGS, we do love the variety of school activities and residential trips. We can also experience how caring and how good the pastoral care the school is from our communications with admission staff. I am sure my daughter will be thrill there. However, our concern is how is the teaching in RGS to keep the grades. Is the learning atmosphere strong inside RGS?

Grateful if there is any current/ past students and parents can share their views. Thank you in advance!

RGS has supportive teaching - the pastoral care is very strong in all aspects in our experience.

They do have expectations of each child achieving to their best ability, but they have amazing teachers who go above and beyond. We can’t fault it and are nearly through now with 2 very different children, both who have enjoyed school. Which is the most important thing as far as we’re concerned!

It sounds like you have a good choice though, and I hope your DD enjoys her new school.

Good to hear positive comments from current parent. Thank you very much!

We will move closer to school, may I know are most families live at Reigate/ Redhill? Or students are from all around Surrey? I found the school coach coverage is quite good. Do most of the students take school coach to school? Thank you.

Happy to help! Mine get the bus and a lot of their friends do, but I know plenty that live in walking distance too. Some friends are in places like Oxted, Guildford and Epsom. I’m guessing it’s a bit of a mix!

Thank you very much! Mind if I pm you for more details? Thank you.

RGS is largely perceived as a local school with many pupils living within walking distance, although its bus routes do extend further now than in the past. Some dc find the academic rigour hardgoing and leave for Reigate College(state sixth form) after gcses. It has a strong performing arts department and sports like rugby and girls hockey(although you will find those who are on first teams also train out of school at club/county level).

RGS is very academically rigorous, but as it's also exceptionally academically selective, nobody who gets a place is unlikely to be up to the task. There are absolutely tons of clubs and activities. All round, its an exceptional school. I'd disagree strongly with the post above that says its a 'local' school. We live in Reigate and my son's biggest disappointment so far has been how few of his new friends live locally. Most come from all over the place, as far as Guildford, Horsham and Cobham. Dunottar is the more local private school. RGS is more selective and therefore draws from a much larger area.

As RGS has been judged "Excellent in all areas" by the Independent Schools Inspectorate in 2023, I imagine that includes pastoral care.
With most private schools the catchment area is large. My kids friends were always scattered over a large area.