LEH or Tiffin girls

[FluentScroller]

DD has been offered a place at both schools. Looking for honest responses from parents of children already at school.

For Tiffin, we have a public bus which stops right outside our house but takes about 1 hour to get to Tiffin.

For LEH, DD would have to walk 10 minutes to a stop and use LEH coach service which would be much quicker to get her to school.

Financially, educating both kids in private would be significant chunk of our savings, but we have it saved up. Thought process is that no point in taking it to grave if it can be used for making kids happy.

About DD, keen reader, we hardly prepared her for English. Got through both exams with 3 months of intense preparation. 1-3 hours a day.

As both DH and I have busy jobs, we have not been able to get her involved into many sports, music etc. Apart from Gymnastics on which she is super keen. Ideally, we would like secondary school to get her involved into many extra curricular. She self-doubts and needs to be pushed for these, would like school to do this.

During visit, from insignificant sample size of 3-5 girls in both schools, I found LEH girls to be lacking in confidence. Could be just the girls I came across. In comparison I found Tiffin girls to be very serious, driven but confident. None of the places looked fun tbh.

For DD, friendships are an issue in primary. This is most important factor for her. Don’t know anyone going to either of the schools. DD is also intimidated by the prospect of starting in Tiffin. Is it a rat race in either of the schools once in? Are parents too pushy?

look forward to responses, thanks!

Sorry, I should have quoted the entire question.

Note that prices are what they are currently and prices (the purchasing power of
money) are the same in States A and B.

The survey had several other questions. The income one merely drew the headlines. But if you don’t believe that positional concerns are important to and drive competition between high achieving students, we can leave it here.

There should be some positional concern, but only to a certain extent.

Let me give you a thought experiment:
A. Live with your family in a large house, where the neighboring houses are even larger.
B. Live with your family in a small flat, where the neighboring flats are even smaller.
All else being equal, I believe choosing A is a no-brainer for almost everyone. What do you think?

Again, the atmosphere in a school will have nothing to do with what you or I think. It will be driven by what the students think.

If we assume that Harvard students could have used their (hypothetical) income to purchase housing, it would follow that over half of them would have chosen B in your thought experiment.

My issue with your post was that you were asserting that "the school expects excellence across the board—from academics (both humanities and STEM) to music, sport, drama, debating, you name it."

It's completely incorrect about SPGS. The school expects no such thing. In fact, the school's entire ethos is about encouraging students to discover their own passions / interests / skills - whatever they may be, and however eclectic - and to enjoy things even if they're no good at them. I don't know a single girl at the school (or, indeed, anywhere in the world!) who would fit your description.

It's just really unhelpful to other parents who may be searching for information about schools to post things on a public forum that aren't based on any knowledge or direct experience.

I should have been clearer with my wording. To clarify, my comment was less about a specific school and more about a type of institution. A top-tier private school excels in every field and maintains high standards across the board. This creates more dimensions of potential pressure than a grammar school, which primarily focuses on academics.

Just saw your question re. coaches. My DD gets a mix of the late coach and train. Pretty much all of the clubs/activities that are after school finish in time for the late coach which leaves at 6pm. Many girls who don't live locally get the late coach. My DD also rows though which is often not at school and in those instances the girls tend to get the train. If your DD gets into sports etc... she will definitely be wanting to stay for some of the after school training/clubs so definitely look at what travel options you have if the late coach doesn't go to your area x

Thanks! And how do they get to the train?

20 min walk to the train Hampton or 111 bus, with waiting for a bus is also...20 min. R70 goes around so it would take too long
I live here and see the green bikes around school. They take those publicly available bikes

Thanks!

My daughter is Yr 13 at Tiffin. She had offers at LEH and many others. Best decision we ever made. Yes there’s academic pressure but she’s also done tons of music and drama. Plenty of teams if you want competitive sport. Ok they don’t have the super shiny facilities of the private schools but they do an amazing job with what they have. Big range of clubs. I also like the fact it’s culturally diverse and not everyone has a ski chalet or a second home in Cornwall….
Staff are excellent, great shame the head is leaving but his successor is well regarded within the school (deputy). Pastoral support for us has been good.
i would say save your money and choose Tiffin.

So, just to confirm, has the current Deputy Head officially been appointed as the permanent successor? I'm asking because I recently saw an external advertisement for the role.

Yes officially announced