St Albans

[meeraa]

Hi,

Can you give me some of your personal experience of St Albans please? We are applying for Habs, St Helens and St Albans. Even though Habs comes top of the table academically, some thing about Habs saying it is not for my child. I can’t explain it, but just a feeling. I loved St Albans.. But my husband disagree. (He wanted the most academic school for his daughter).

I would say my daughter is well above average, and easy going, but I feel with the right school, she would thrive.

Any information about St Albans girls would be much appreciated. Do any of you have daughters there and how do you feel now?

Meera

[pheasantchick]

I used to live in Harpenden. St Albans High (as opposed to STAGS - St Albans Girls School) always had a good reputation.

For good state schools - try St Georges, St John Lawes and Roundwood in Harpenden.

[meeraa]

Hi

Thanks for your reply.
I am looking at the STAHS independent school. I should've stated that clearly..

Sorry. Any advice please?

Thanks
Meera

[yogkruti]

Which school did your DD like?

[Daogroupie]

Hello Meera, if you do a search on my user name you will see that I have done lots of posts on St Albans High School for Girls to give it its proper name! I have also done posts on Habs versus the school. My dd sat both last year and got offers from both. We also know lots of girls at the High School. Read the posts but in summary I would say that the High school is a very solid focused school and girls do very well there. Their music and sport is very good, netball is especially strong. One thing against it is that it is very locally based. They do get girls from Barnet and Potters Bar, we see the coaches every day, but most people come from St Albans and a close radius around. 50% of the intake comes from the prep school in Wheathampstead where they have been together since age of four. I feel this to be a disadvantage as it can be hard to break into the friendships. Habs is considered to be more academic. Barnetdad argued with me last year that St Albans was second tier, but seems to have changed his mind as I bumped into him at the open day on Saturday and if you read his latest post you will see he was very impressed. I would sit both and let events decide. Both schools are very welcoming to to parents during the exams and spend a lot of time with the parents during the interview process. The HIgh school offer a room with tea and coffee where you can wait for the interviews to finish and you get lots of access to senior management staf. The Head is very impressive and lovely to talk to. She makes an effort to go round the room and talk to everyone. I think there are great points about both and much will decide on the personality of your daughter. Try and spend as much time as possible at both schools, as another poster said, your daughter wil know herself and recognise herself at one or other of the schools. DG

[lotsakids]

Hi Meeraa
My daughter has just started at St Albans High School, and so far, we couldn't be happier with it. The girls were settled in quite gently, with no homework for the first two weeks, lots of opportunities to mix with all the other girls and have been supported by their house tutors well.
I believe there are only about 35 girls (out of 96 in the year) who came from the junior school, so they certainly don't swamp those that came from elsewhere. The other girls seem to come from a wide range of schools, both state and private and lots didn't know anyone when they arrived. My daughter came on her own from a very average primary school and is loving the challenge of all the new subjects, new friends and the teaching being at a faster pace.
The day of the exam was slightly chaotic, but no surprise given the number of girls attending. The girls were split into groups of 15-20 and stayed in those groups for the day, looked after by some of the 6th formers. My daughter came out from the 'interview' day full of smiles and very chatty about the whole experience.
We turned down a place at Parmiters to take up the High School and have no regrets!
I can't comment on the other schools you mention, as St Albans was the only independent we looked at.
Good luck!

[meeraa]

Hi lotsakids

Thank you for your response. We saw the school last year, but we didn’t take our daughter with us. We wanted to be at least 50% sure if it is a right school for her before taking her. We are taking her to the open day next month.

It is good know that school starting them off gently. When we looked at, I did think it will the be the right school for my daughter.

Do you know how competitive is to pass the exams? We downloaded the consortium papers and my daughter seem to be doing it alright. I would say about 65-70% around both subject. It is hard to judge the marks for English as their marking could be tougher.

My daughter is very laid back (even a bit lazy), but we have couple of months left to prepare. However, I now worried that I left it a bit too late for all the preparation?

Thank you
Meera