Recommendations for private senior school Essex/Suffolk

[Ketchupturtle]

Hi - we are looking to move schools for our daughter who is in Yr9 at a fee paying girls school in Colchester. We are exploring fee paying schools around Chelmsford and Ipswich, would appreciate people’s experience of the co-ed private schools in these areas.

What is she into, and what are your prioirites?
Many of the schools you might be looking at have quite different identities and strengths, so it's important to work out what might be a good fit for your daughter.

Thanks - she is not sporty nor interested in performing arts. Likes cookery and photography as well as history.

Our priorities are really that she feels comfortable and supported, girls schools can be quite competitive hence looking for co-ed. She is quite bright, personality wise quiet and gentle.

Have you looked at Culford near Bury St Edmunds? My friend has a daughter there and the pastoral care is outstanding. They are known for being sporty but seem to have a big range of other activities too. Academics are good but not pushy.

I have sons and my personal experience is from a while ago.
Ipswich has been co-ed for years, Pastoral care was supportive , and bullying/bitchiness was tacked firmly. It is sporty and does performing arts but many pupils don’t do either, although one of my sons regrets not being more involved with productions.
I think Ipswich High became co-ed quite recently.
Both Ipswich and St Joseph’s run buses from Colchester. I think Ipswich High does as well.
From Colchester Felsted is also an option.
If you want co-ed and you are in Colchester, had you considered Colchester High School?
My other comment is that if she is currently year 9, some schools start GCSE syllabus in year 9, so this could be an issue.

Thank you everyone - Bury St Edmond’s is a little too far for us to travel each day however I would be interested to hear from anyone who has recent experience of St Jos or RHS?

I have very good experience of RHS, which often gets a bit of a bad press from people who don't know it. The site is stunning, with good facilties. It has quite a different demographic from Ipswich, as it's much less academically selective - but that's not to say that able pupils don't do well there. The teaching is excellent - teachers are extremely committed and often go the extra mile. I'd say pastoral care is very good and pupils can tap into support at various levels. For the right pupil, it's an incredible place but it may not suit everyone. I'd highly recommend a visit.
Recenty I've heard less positive things about St Jo's.
I think what I would say is that all independent schools in the area are struggling a bit for numbers, as there are a lot of them, so visiting and getting a feel for a place is very important.

Oh - and having just re-read your post, I should say that the history teaching is amazing - some of the best teachers I've ever known!

I don't have any personal experience of either; however RHS was sold in October 2025.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2knww89jx3o

Yes, and this kind of arrangement will be increasingly common. The sale has secured the future of the school, so needs to be seen as a positive thing.

Ipswich High School was recently sold too but has really good pastoral care - my daughter really loves it there (Yr9) and food and most extracurriculars are covered in the fees so it works out significantly cheaper than most of the other schools in the area. My youngest is in Year 4 and she loves the prep school too, although I think the Senior School has the more compelling offering.

I think the enrichments (extra curriculars) are the best part though, she does a cooking enrichments herself which is nice.

I agree with usedtobe though - you really need to visit the Schools to see which you'd enjoy the most.

We are hoping to send our daughter to RHS in September (my daughter was previously at the lower school of the one I suspect your DD is at - we moved her to local primary, but know it well). I know of another parent from that school who moved her DD recently to RHS in year 10. We've looked at loads of schools for year 7 and have only applied to RHS in the end. That's not to say others weren't good or great, for the right child, but the facilities, pastoral and good results without hot housing were key factors for us. Our daughter similarly loves cooking and also art - the facilities and staff there for these subjects blew me away compared to others. Yes. It's been sold recently, but from the research I've done, the outfit seem good and a lot of schools are going that way. I see it as a positive. There's an open day coming up so suggest you go to that and get a feel for it.

Like others gave said, I'd def go to a few, if only to benchmark them. They are all so different. Also interrogate the finances - not all are as strong as they may appear. There's a lot of competition for pupils atm.

My daughter has been accepted into St Jos and RHS. Would love to know more about what you've heard about St Jos if possible (happy to DM) and why you're happy with RHS. She'll be a boarder as we live overseas but may return at some point and she'll be a day.

@dddais I can't comment (yet) from direct experience like others but we did look at both for our daughter. They are very different schools, but if your DD is boarding, I would really interrogate the number of boarders at St Jos. Royal Hospital School is a "proper" boarding school with decent numbers across two girls houses, and a weekend programme to match (v important if she's not going home - you don't want to be one of a handful left), whereas St Jos is much smaller, with reliance on a much larger international cohort and ad hoc boarders I think. As someone who went to boarding school (albeit a while ago!!), I think it's so important to feel like boarding is embedded in the culture as it is at RHS, rather than a bolt on. I also understand from other parents I know who have/had kids at st jos, they are quite boy heavy, perhaps because of the strong emphasis on rugby/sport, which is not for everyone. Certainly when we looked around, they told us all about the rugby programme and specialist nutrition, despite having a DD not remotely interested in it. We came away thinking it was nice enough, but not particularly wowed. FWIW, my neighbours also moved their son in year 9 from St Jo's to RHS in last couple of years, largely for the reasons @usedtobeboss3states.

Did you consider Ipswich School proper, Woodbridge, or Ipswich High School?

From what I've heard RHS and St Jo's are struggling atm - the head just left RHS after a very short tenure and they're closing lots of the boarding houses.

@EastCoastMum1interested in your insight as my understanding is that whilst historically, a couple of boarding houses have closed at RHS to account for greater preference for day places, there's no plans to close any now that I'm aware of. In fact there is a rolling programme of refurbishment. I also have some private insight into the departure of the head which I won't share, but I was reassured. Tbf, most schools are seeing some churn in heads. St Mary's in Colchester, Felsted, Orwell Park all have new heads this year. IHS had lots of turnover until current head joined a few years back. Ipswich School got new head recently too.

From a boarding perspective Ipswich School and IHS have small numbers of boarders and only one or two small houses, although IHS does has a beautiful boarding house. Their accounts are less pretty when I looked though, otherwise we might have been more keen. If I were looking at boarding alternatives in the area, I'd look at Framlighan or Culford, but sounds like @dddais already have places at RHS or at Jos so not looking for alternatives.

Honestly you sound like you're far more clued up to the inner workings of RHS - I'm only going off playground chatter, so to speak!

I'm interested in what you mean by IHS accounts - do you mean their financials? I didn't even look into that to be quite honest

@EastCoastMum1i live in a family of accountants, one of whom was a bursar at a failing private school so I asked her to take a look. When I looked a year or two ago (when we were considering options), it had quite big liabilities. (In the millions), albeit I think largely to the Chinese owners who'd invested in the boarding house etc. After my family experience at this other school which had a similar ownership structure, it put me off a little, although we just preferred other options for our DD too.

So hard when you're talking big money and your kids education. I have now reached the conclusion I just need to bite the bullet and go with my gut of what suits her rather than try and rationalise every move of every school. Not least it's hard to keep up with all the change in the sector atm!!

Makes sense - I think they recently did up the boarding houses to quite high standard so I assume that was the investment. I know IHS was the best "value for money" option we looked at (meals included etc.) so that influenced our decision a lot.

The school itself is great though, DD1 and DD2 are both really happy there

Thank you - we didn't consider woodbridge or IHS but did apply to Ipswich and she has secured a place there too - we have accepted it as a fallback as the deposit wasn't too prohibitive (around £200). Ipswich seems to have a really good reputation but only thing - or two - that is really putting us off is that the boarding fees are a bit higher than RHS (St Jos) - around £6k once in the senior school - and it seems more of an academic hothouse - we're not sure that's the right environment for our DD (in fact, we were a bit surprised she passed the exam for Ipswich - perhaps they are less selective these days). Do you have any insight into Ipswich - is my perception of it being academic fair? We live overseas and while we have family in the area we're not too familiar with the schools and just going off the snippets of info online

Thank you - this is super helpful. You're right the number of boarders is low and our concern is that our DD is detached from the day pupils - as we're not local she can't really socialise with the day pupils outside of school. That's the attraction of RHS - seems a huge amount going on for boarders but we were also a bit concerned it could be one big summer camp and she'll get distracted. She's also going into her teenage years......

Yes it seems great value for money given the amount going on there - i just hope they don't drastically raise their fees now that they are under private ownership!
Are you kids day pupils? Are the day and boarders well integrated with one another at RHS?

Day and boarding pupils are well integrated at RHS; they are all together in the same house in Y7, and again in Y13. They are in separate houses from Y8 - Y12, but there are plenty of opportunites for mixing. It helps too that the number split is fairly even.

Ipswich is definitely perceived as being more academic - but as I said before, able pupils do well at RHS. They are very different schools though, in all sorts of ways.

Agree with @usedtobeboss3Ipswich is very academic - living in Colchester, it seems to be the private alternative to the grammars. A few of my DDs friends who took 11+ also went for academic scholarships there. We looked at it too (obvs 😂) and also found the art (important to us) a bit lacking/uninspired, but not unexpected as they have strengths elsewhere,. Music very strong and sport too (according to our neighbours son who plays rugby against them!). I think boarding numbers are quite small there though.