Lady manners school vs Hope Valley College, Derbyshire

[mumzy]

Just wanted some opinions & inside info about these 2 schools. We are looking to relocate to the Hope Valley area in a few years time when our ds hits secondary school age. We have been looking at properties in the area and there seems to be a cachet if they are in the Lady manners catchment area. However we have also seen a house we like in Eyam which is not in LMS catchment but Hope Valley college. Is LMS significantly "better" than HVC and in what ways and do the catchment areas for the schools ever change?

I Think Hope Valley College Is Better Than Lady Manners By a Long Shot Hope Valley College Has A Lower Drug Rate! Also My 15 Year Old Daughter Went To Lady Manners And Got Peer Pressured Into Smoking and taking DRUGS Where As Me 14 Year Old Boy Is Currentley At Hope Valley College Could Not Be Happyer He Is in a nice Non Bulling Enviroment. Also i think lady Manners Is inapropriot For Yopung People To Attend in my opinon Lady Manners Sucks!! Hope Valley College Is A very good school which is rising to an amazing standed un like lady manners!

I totaly agree mummyKinsss ...
my children found the same however they didnt get peer pressured....
i must also say since my children moved from LAddy manners i have heard bad reports and my friends children are asking to move school..
i have strong feelings for this surly if so many people are wanting to move something is going wrong..

Hello Yes I Totally Agree i think it is incresingly droping the standerds li,ke they are not botherd i think Hope Valley is by far a better school with education to stoping bullying! x

Yes i tottaly agree .
so glad my children moved when they did if im honest

Yesss Totally HVC Is Well... The Best School In the Valley To Be Honest

I am not here to be thought to be "slagging" LAdy Manners off. I am writing to advise you on what i have found with my children been at both schools throught their childhood.
However i am statinmg what i have myself found out and what my children have found on there experiences.
Therefore i am going to say how i feel about both schools .
and as i have said before we as a fmily have found out that hvc has got a hell of aLOt more to offer.

yes me too i am not slagging lady manners of i would advise any one to go to hope valley College

Three of my children attended Hope Valley College where they received an excellent education before progressing on to the 6th Form at Lady Manners. My eldest grandchild currently attends Hope Valley College and is very happy there, and particularly appreciates the high level of music education offered. Sport is also excellent.

If you prefer a pushy school, much of whose teaching is geared to the more able student and has a strict uniform code, then perhaps Lady Manners is for you. If your preference is for a school that does its best to encourage ALL students to achieve their potential no matter what their ability and where individuality is valued, then perhaps Hope Valley College might be your choice.

As for progressing on to 6th Form, there are excellent courses offered in several schools and colleges on the south-west fringes of Sheffield which are in easy traveling distance of the Hope Valley.

Yes, property prices are high in the Hope Valley, but worth every penny considering the superb environment and life style it offers.

Lady Manners is all about show which is why they are so keen on uniform. The students are often poorly behaved, in lessons and around the school, and learning is frequently disrupted. Lady Manners is very good at keeping up appearances but their results are dropping and word is getting round that the school is not what it used to be. Go for Hope Valley - their results are better and they are not full of it!

Oh God. Not fair of me to contribute really as I left 24 years ago.

But I had a miserable time at lady manners, I walked out of the 6th form due to bullying that had continued through from year 1 on and off and the school blamed me for not conforming. The ONLY thing I enjoyed about it was being involved in music. It had such a profound effect on me that in those past 24 yrs I have only ever agreed to even drive past the school once.

I would have moved it if it had been my DC's only school choice. I wasn't one of the select elite. I guess a lot could have changed by now but far far too much damage was done.
The HVC students that attended LMS for the 6th form were lovely as I remember but

A professional adult psychiatrist told me that they treat a higher proportion of adults for things, that passed through LMS than any other school in the area.

Hmm, I'm seriously considering sending my son to LM. Both my dc attend a lovely feeder school to LM, and my eldest wants to go where his friends are going. I've heard good things about HV. I need to go and see both, I think.

eastwood, do you have experience of LMS and HV. Mittz, what a terrible shame that your experience was so bad there.

This is really interesting. I attended both HVC and LMS and I'm really pleased to see that the relaxed atomsphere and relationship between the staff and pupils has continued. I absolutely loved my time at HVC, but had to attend LMS for sixth form - we were known as valley scum but not in a serious way and we integrated pretty well with the LMS lot (well i married one of them 3 years ago so as well as can be expected!). Going from HVC to Lady Manners was a bit of a culture shock and I hated in at first. Mainly because of the change in our relationship with the staff. At HVC we were on first name terms with some of the staff, drama productions were all inclusive and anyone could be involved, the school was just a fantastic community! However at LMS it was very odd having to call people sir and miss and being basically treated like a baby again! I was also really into drama (i studied it at A level and GCSE) but LMS only did musicals at the time so unless you had a good singing voice (which i don't) you couldn't get a decent part where as at HVC everyone was involved in productions. I also happen to think that (at that time) the drama department was very poor. I loved drama at HVC which is why i studied it at A level but LMS had drafted in a PE teacher to teach A level drama who i personally don't think was up to the job. I did settle in an make some good friends and my English and Sociology teachers were fantastic. But i still look back on my time at HVC with more fondness (proud to be valley scum!) I also think education wise LMS is no better than HVC (i was much more proud of my GCSE results than my A Level results.) Also i was always given the impression that LMS kids were snooty, some are but i don't think that's to do with going to LMS, but i foudn that there was more of a 'drug problem' at LMS than HVC.

I have had personal experience of LMS, yes. I really wouldn't recommend sending a child there!

'...upper class rugby playing snobs' at LMS?

Clearly, lolo23, who contributed that opinion, has a completely misguided view here, a view that I can only presume is derived from an inverted form of snobbery all of her very own.
My personal experience of LMS came from having my 4 sons at school there from around 1984 through to 1998-ish.

Things may have changed there since then, I don't know. (I now live in Brussels - and no, I am not 'a Eurocrat' - and thus open to being dismissed as being 'a snob' myself?)
Throughout those 14 happy years at LMS all 4 of my sons played school rugby, each of them eventually making it into the 1st XV and onto the school's first-ever foreign rugby tours (to France then, but much wider afield since).
All of this development and achievement - only a few years ago LMS was considered to be the top state school for rugby in the UK, 23rd overall - has been overseen over the past 20+ years by the now head of the P.E. dept, Mr Chris Weeks, and I cannot imagine therefore that the egalitarian ethos towards the pursuit of excellence on the rugby field that he encourages would have changed at all. I can personally vouch that 'snobbery' had no place there during the 14 years when my sons were playing rugby at LMS, and I very much doubt it exists now.
It is true that in any large community of schoolchildren there will be some who might adopt a superior attitude outside the gates of 'their' school towards others, but in my experience such individuals are very much the exception at LMS.
All 4 of my sons had a happy, supportive, sound educational (and social!) experience during their years at LMS and they all look back on their school years in Bakewell with much fondness.
I couldn't possibly comment on the merits or otherwise of HVC as I've never had any experience of the place (beyond the few 6th formers I'd met from the Valley who'd made it into the LMS rugby 1st XV, and they seemed happy enough to be where they were!)

My eldest started HVC this year. We looked at both and found LM too big and too rigid. My son (well, both of them actually) has autism and LM was very much 'this is how we do it, it's always been this way' whereas HVC was more flexible and more about assessing the needs of each child and meeting them. I didn't see the same arrogance in HVC. LM Senco was very much We Are Lady Manners, Bow Down Before Us, whereas HVC Senco was much more interested in ds1 as an individual and how they could meet his needs.

Also I know people who work at LM and one of them said that it was "living on past glory". The other who works there was very scathing of the Head's outlook and approach and was looking at moving their own child to another school! I think that says it all

Our boys went to a LM feeder school and so impressed were we with HVC that we made the hard decision to put ds1 there, even though he knew nobody and to move ds2 to a HVC feeder school so that he at least would not go to HVC in the same position as ds1.

I am currently a pupil at lady manners school, although it is not my local school, and find that it is a fantastic school. In response to rosiemole, the drama department is fantastic now, with dedicated teachers, who are putting on three shows this year, one of which is not a musical. Can I just point out that LMS pupils are not snobby, but simply and rightly proud of the school we attend, and its history. Although the teacher pupil relationship is traditional, this encourages mutual respect, and a positive environment. Behaviour is strictly monitored,and bad behaviour punished. Yes, it is old fashioned, but why spoil something that has worked well so far, on our parents, and grandparents. Sorry, i know i'm not a mum, but i felt the need to defend my school!

Also, i do not believe the HVC kids who threw stones at our bus were entirely supporting of the schools supposed acceptive ethos!

I currently go to Manners and i wish i'd gone to HVC, it seems that people learn and have fun whereas it's the opposite at Manners. My parents also believe i should have gone to HVC and that LMS are living on an old reputation.

HVC is a magnificent school.

I have attended HVC and there is a huge family atmosphere and a sense of family and friendship all around.

Not having a sixth form is a good thing in my view, as it encourages other schools in Sheffield as well as LMS.

On the subject of the uniform, I think it is extremely comfortable and the fact that you can where trainers and jeans means you can show a little bit of personality and something individual to yourself, which doesn't happen in LMS which has a stiff, unnecessary blazer and tie.

HVC has a special something that in my opinion LMS doesn't. HVC isn't all about the grades (although we do have excellent grades) it's about opening doors and making you believe in yourself.

Further up the page it has been said that people think LMS people slightly look down on HVC students, from my experience some of them do because they think we are rough and that all of us are naughty, when that is blatantly untrue.

At HVC everyone is themselves and there aren't little groups : The rich group, the popular group, the nerds. It's a happy, fun, exciting, educational brilliant place to be!

Woop Woop!

Two very different schools, but HVC comes out on top!

HOPE VALLEY COLLEGE MASSIFFE!!!!!!!!

To add to that big message above :S ^

I'm sure it's a good school, but I go there every Friday for band, and I find it extremely imposing, and I can't imagine what it'd be like for year sevens! But I walk around that school with my HVC sweater on with pride, even if we are Valley Scum :) UP THE VALLEY SCUM :D

(sorry that I am not a mum by the way just thought I would express my veiws)

HVC vs LMS... Well, I think LMS is a good school, but HVC, to be frank, is better
:D

I think theres a lot of bias on this thread- while there is some good discussion as to experiences from schools your children have been sent to you cannot rely on rumours and hearsay.
I went to HVC, and I had friends who went to lms. I would stress the importance of the relaxed atmosphere I was educated in, as said before it definitely builds social confidence, and means you can communicate easily with the teacher on work, but i also felt motivated whilst working there, and I'm sure this is the same with LMS, as they get better grades than HVC.
There is a lot of freedom within each subject at HVC, the art course for example is unendorsed, meaning you can study who and what interests you. My friends went back to studying classic painters such as van Gogh. I'm not saying I favour either way, its just two different ways of getting to the same result, although it definitely moulds your outlook and maybe even future.
When it came to moving to sixth form, most of my friends went to LMS, and enjoyed the social life, the students completely gelled, and found no difficulty in transport. However in the second year my friends were annoyed a few teachers, and often complained. This didn't affect their grades and they achieved highly, although they told me the added stress was a hindrance.

If you haven't visited either school, go and have a look at both and decide.

HVC increasingly vocational. eg Students choosing Art or Business Studies having been assured these were GCSE courses were told 3 weeks in, that the BTEC course had been selected instead.

Inclusivity of HVC can be problematic for the well behaved children as at times the pervading additude of supporting students means that lessons are disrupted by bad behaviour.

well I live in Bamford and have 4 kids, 2 of them go to LMS and 2 are in primary - my two enjoy manners and wouldn't even think of changing to hvc, they have fiend that have changed and deeply regret it they say it is rubbish and is full of horrid people, fags ect and have friend that changes to manners and are glad they did!

I knnow that Hope Valley College have some problematic children, and it is an issue. But it isn't 'rubbish' or full of 'horrid people' what so ever. In fact, the majority of people are very nice people, who not only get good grades but learn important life skills.

Although there are some naughty people that smoke and drink or whatever, but that doesnt mean all of us do that. And if Lady Manners wont take people that do those things, who's going to help them? HVC does have people that are cheeky and naughty, but they do everything in their power to help them. We have special groups set up to help people and everyone mixes with one another.

It's unfair to say it's full of 'horrid people' because I go there and I know for a fact that it isn't.

My DC was happy at LMS and did very well there but we've always lived in the catchment so never had to make a decision about it.

There's a wide mix of pupils and it's a big enough school for pupils to find friends of like mind. It's not particularly snobby - you get that in all schools round here, I think. It's that sort of area but your DCs are likely to meet people from a wide range of backgrounds.

The drawback - and this is true of HVC as well - is that the catchment area is huge so you can bet your life that your DC will become best friends with someone who lives miles and miles away.

The musical activities are excellent, though I think the same can be said of HVC.

Buxton Community School and Highfields are also good so I say find your house and go with the flow as far as schools are concerned.

I liked the uniform policy at LMS, even in the sixth form. No arguments in the mornings!