I went to Henrietta Barnett School, ask me anything

[exhbsgirl]

I went to HBS from year 7, then left in year 11 (before GCSEs) around 5 years ago as my family moved away. Unfortunately as it was a pretty long time ago I don't have much proof other than some old messages that would identify me, but I'm willing to show those to a moderator if anyone is skeptical.
Ask away!

Why do you think anyone would find this interesting on a worldwide forum?

This post says all that’s needed to be said, really…
Honestly 🤦‍♀️

Great! Similarly, I went to a school that you will never have heard of, what do you want to know?!

It is a worldwide forum, but heavily UK biased, even more SE England biased and HB school does come up in this topic fairly ofte ,

If you haven’t heard of the school, why post? It’s an AMA, if you have nothing to ask, just post somewhere else.

I used to teach at Henrietta Barnett!

It's probably interesting to the parents of the approx 2000 kids who apply each year and don't get one of the 100ish places (if they want to hear how awful it is so they can be glad they didn't get in) and to the even larger number each year who must consider doing so as some of them will decide not to put their child through the stress.

A fair proportion of those people will be mumsnetters, but with 8 million ish unique users, it's a fairly minority interest.

This ama is peak middle class north london mumsnet!!!

Never heard of this school, so I will ask, What kind of school is this?

Your parents took you out of school in year 11 before your GCSEs? Did you go abroad or to another school in England? If so, how did your GCSEs go?

My DS has a really good friend going to HBS in September. She is incredibly innately talented and not just academically. Were a lot of the girls like this when you went as well? Like gifted?

It's the most sought-after girls state grammar school in a particularly well-heeled part of North London such that a large proportion of the applicants will be ending up at £25kpa private schools instead, and the people who have that kind of money spend it like it's going out of fashion while their child is in y4-y6 to tutor them through the exam as this is way cheaper than 7 years of fees.

It was a really nice place to work. We always had to tune out some of the parents, though, they could get OTT.

Well, yes. Who do you think started/owns Mumsnet?!

@exhbsgirl Do you think that the teaching and facilities were genuinely extraordinary? or do you think they just manage to recruit people who are so talented that they’re going to get the best results? What was the workload like?
my friend’s DD couldn’t get in inspite of being brightest in the school all through primary. When she went to the entrance exams there were people who’d travelled hours to get there and were prepared to move house!

I would also say it’s one of the most difficult schools in the country to get in @SheilaFentiman
Possibly like a free St Paul’s school for girls - same results

Sorry didn’t mean to tag you @SheilaFentiman - meant to tag earlier poster you were replying to 🤪

If you left 5 years previously, the school could have changed dramatically in that time. Local private school to me went from being very popular 5 form entry to struggling to fill 2 forms to closed in 10 years.

Do you have an excellent career/ income now as you are obviously extremely bright?

It was pretty close to the beginning of the year so I had a good amount of time to catch up to changes between exam boards for certain subjects, plus HBS tends to rush through the curriculum (at the cost of quality of teaching, it's honestly not good) so I was a bit ahead of my new classmates. And yes, I stayed in the UK and my GCSEs went fine.

The girls at HBS were all talented academically but nothing insane, I moved to a very well-rated comprehensive school afterwards and there wasn't a particularly significant difference in intelligence between the top set students and the HBS students, especially once you reached A level. As for other talents, there were loads of talented musicians as parents push their kids into music as music grades look good on uni applications, and some talented athletes and artists but not an abnormal amount as HBS parents don't see them as particularly useful so don't push their kids into them.

Er, no - it’s as competitive as it ever was.

Who was the headmaster / mistress when you were there? Did you like them?

It's a grammar school in London, one of the top performing schools in the UK and probably the most selective. I know it's talked about a fair amount on here as my mum was posting here a lot when she was preparing me for the entrance exam so I thought I might be able to help some parents of prospective students curious about the environment if they're unsure about sending their kid there as I'm pretty aware of all the positives and negatives of it.

Ms Cooke, but she's left now, she was really nice although I didn't talk to her that much during my time there

I could imagine haha, it would be cool if you don't mind telling me who you are because I'm wondering if you taught me