Thoughts on Herts & Essex High (Bishops Stortford) or Presdales (Ware)

[TempsPerdu]

Very grateful for any thoughts on/insights into either of these schools.

We're in the fortunate position of having the option to move to either of these areas for DD's secondary schooling. She's only 7 at the moment, so we have time on our side, but considering options now as we want to get her well settled into a new primary before she has to move schools again for secondary.

What we're sure of is that we're not happy with the secondary options where we are now - e.g. while DD seems to be pretty academic we don't want to hothouse her for the super-selectives, and our catchment comprehensive is a super strict academy, which we definitely don't want for her.

We very much like the idea of a girls' school for DD, but beyond that I guess what we're looking for is the holy grail: high academic standards and strong teaching but not too hothousey, and good behaviour without the micro-management and ridiculous rules. Nurturing the 'whole person' and plenty of art/music/drama would be a big bonus (a major bugbear with our current catchment school is their hyper-focus on narrow academics and lack of interest in the creative/Arts side of things).

We are familiar with both Presdales and H&E through friends, and both look good on paper, but I'm sure there must be nuances! Very interested to hear any thoughts about the curriculum offer/teaching/pastoral and social sides of things. Obviously moving is a huge decision, and we want to get it right for DD, so any advice is very welcome!

Bump - anyone?

I can message you about one of those. I don’t work there but know someone who does.

@QueenofLouisiana That would be great, thank you!

My sisters DDs both did exceptionally well at Presdales and were very happy there.

Look carefully at the admissions policy of Herts and Essex - its not as straightforward as living closest.

It's a good school, most girls I know who go there are very happy there, doesn't suit all but on the whole it seems a good school. Hoping to send my daughter there.

Thanks @Noodledoodledoo - don’t worry, we’re well aware of the less than straightforward H&E admissions policy and we even have a spreadsheet (taking this seriously!) 😆 It’s going to be a complicated move if we do go for it, which is why we’re starting early.

Also - lots of people move to Bishops Stortford and then struggle to get children into any primary school. Lots of posts on local pages asking how best to deal with this. Most schools are pretty full.

@Noodledoodledoo Thanks - yes, you're right and we've factored that in too. Unfortunately it'll be a case I think of moving DD to the nearest village school that has places while keeping her on waiting lists and potentially moving her again later.

It's obviously not ideal, but much of Hertfordshire is similar (compared to here, where the primaries are emptying out), and it's either that or accepting that she'll go to the super strict 'boot camp' style academy that is our default local option. Luckily I'm not working atm and DP works fairly flexibly, so we'd be able to suck up the commute to a primary further away, and if we move now we'd have four years to get DD into a target primary.