Sylvia Young School

[parent1984]

Can anyone give me some feedback on Sylvia Young School ,please? My daughter is 12 (Y7) and got a place at Tring Park but it's way too expensive, and she is thinking to audition for SY as well.
Anyone's kids not living close by to the school, how do they find travelling there. We are in Herts, abt 30min by train to Euston, so not that far.
How is the school from an academic perspective as well? Any bullying etc? Anyone's child got in with a Scolarship? How hard is it?

Thank you in advance

Thanks 🙏 It’s actually quite difficult to get the right information and insights from outside UK!

Well… yes, I’ve seen the prices… impressive!

Yes, same in France for professional work…
I understand the point with GCSEs but timing feels right on our side. Let’s see if a solution shows up! Thanks again !

Above all it depends what you are after.

An fun "experience" year in the UK that involves more performing arts than a normal school... go for it.

If what you actually want is really top training or to get an edge in terms of professional work later, then there are better routes and times. I would wait till 18+ and spend it on things like summer schools at Juilliard or RADA. Or masterclasses and more 1:1 training now. There is a LOT more choice of decent classes at high level at 18+

Places like Sylvia Young, or Arts Ed or Tring are convenient for parents, but a lot of the kids there are also training privately alongside. Certainly the SYTS girls my DD was friends with were all taking private singing classes, weekend training at Spirit Dance Company and taking 1:1 or small group screen training lessons on top of what they did at school. And the days where these schools had the monopoly on who was cast are long gone.

The other issue with some of the schools is that there is very little in the way of internal school productions as it gets in the way of professional work (but a lot of that is things like educational VO work which is more of a faff than anything) so there's probably less of the fun performance stuff than at your average private secondary.

Christ's Hospital might be worth a look if they like music a lot.