Opinions from LEH parents please

[3muskateermum]

We have offers from LEH, KGS and Surbiton and some scholarships in the mix too. Our instinct is to choose LEH but keeping hearing negative stories about girls who didn’t enjoy being there. I’d love to hear positive stories from current or recent parents. Our DD is bright, a self starter and very creative, two of her other scholarships are for art and she also loves drama and singing. She’s also very normal, state primary school, values straightforwardness. How would she get on at LEH do you think? She doesn’t tend to love very preppy type girls…and she’s not very into team sports yet. We want her to have lots of opportunities, a warm environment and good friends. I’m sure her grades will be the same wherever she ends up… help please!

Forgot to add we have a very happy DS at Hampton… but they do seem like very different schools.

Hey, just got your DM. Your DD sounds like ours with her values and background. She’s at LEH (we had offers from tiffins and SHS too). The campus, facilities, proximity to home and academic focus swayed it for us. There are a lot of “preppy girls” (many coming up from the junior school, sorry!) but the school is large enough that you can avoid these girls if you want. Our DD is straightforward, hard working, sporty but not massively so. She has found a small but lovely group of friends. She’s been in drama productions, found niche sports to try, loves the food, loves the teachers and is very happy. I have a few friends at LEH - junior school mums seem permanently caught up in friendship drama, less so in senior school. I really like the PSHE talks that regularly happen and girls are encouraged to seek pastoral support when needed.

Similar position here, similar background so watching with interest 🙂

thats so helpful thanks @Conundrummum She is good at avoiding friendship drama at her primary school and I guess with 100+ girls you will find ones you like! Are the classes mixed up at all or do you do everything with your form? Any worries about the dip in results this summer?

I hated it 30 years ago - very bitchy culture, about half my year group were people I'd cross the street to avoid. It really wasn't great if you weren't rich either. I didn't consider it for my DD as I'd been so unhappy.

Having said that, I got 4 As at A-level, went to Cambridge and have had a successful career and a happy marriage, so it didn't do me any long-term harm. And being unhappy may go with the territory in the teen years

Classes are mixed up and steamed in certain subjects so they are not entirely form based. Not worried about the results - from what I hear it was a cohort specific (and largely Covid related) problem for that year and we are fully expecting results to be back up this year. Plus I’m only focussed on my DDs performance (rather than cohort as a whole) and I can see she’s on track to do well.

So funny @reallypissedoffhouseseller i am an ex LEH girl too and likewise didn’t massively enjoy it 😂 but looking back it served me well

Ah well, my experience is very out of date now - I was there in the Candy era and there've been several heads since. Good luck with choosing for your DD!

I could have written something very similar 😂

I'd like to think things have changed now but at the same time my main objective while my daughter has been going through the 11+ process has been to chose a school where she won't have as miserable an experience as I did at LEH

My DD recently graduated
she sounds similar to your DD
She had a great education and was really happy there. She wasn't very sporty but still participated in younger years (as they went down to from memory Teams E and F 😉). She did loads of drama and had lots of friends from Hampton. Her friends were happy too- they all now visit one another at uni regularly. I've heard other people mention they've heard it's not a nice culture but not something I recognise and tbh will be completely dependent on cohort and as with any school will just depend on personalities in the year group! Well done to your DD :-)

That’s so helpful thanks @Roundstone its just what I wanted to hear!! With DS at Hampton it makes sense…and the drama, music and art offering really seems unbeatable