11 Plus Exams Forum

What does everyone think of the new Harris Academy which is opening in Wimbledon? Is it worth taking a chance on it? Small school hungry to make an impact in an area with lots of good schools already? Will they actually have any pupils come Sept?

New Harris Academies seem to be popping up everywhere! According to news articles, the new Harris Academy in Sutton wants to take on the local grammar schools and considering that it has a link with the Royal Marsden hospital, sounds like a great option for any budding medics. But remains to be seen whether the Harris Academies in Wimbledon and Sutton will actually attract the top performers, especially since there are well established schools with great reputations locally.

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I’m excited about the new Harris Sutton Academy. The new facilities once built are going to be stunning, and the new head and the staff we met were impressive. There are many bright local kids that don’t go to the grammars in the Sutton Borough so I don’t believe attracting potential ‘top performers’ is an issue for the new school. I have twins of equal ability moving to secondary school in September - one is going to Sutton Grammar, and the other Harris Sutton. Will be interesting to see the pros and cons of each school, but I really believe both schools will turn out to be great choices.

I have heard mixed things about Harris Academies, the two I visited in South East London were excellent and one of the Headteachers talk was one of the most inspirational I heard in terms of getting the most out of pupils whatever there strengths. But I have heard they burn out the teachers, I suppose if they are driving the teachers the pupils are being driven

On the school openday for Harris Greenwich, some of the pupils we met were aiming for Oxford/Cambridge and also studying medicine. I felt, I not sure how true this is, they use motivation technques which I have seen in the corporate world.

We looked at Harris Sutton and Harris Purley, and were impressed. They seem to have a fairly cookie-cutter approach across all their academies, and are known to recruit new teachers (lower end of pay scales) and yes, burn out is something a fair few teacher friends have mentioned.

We had Harris Purley on our CAF, didn't put Sutton down as DD wanted extra-curricular stuff that only having one year of entry would be limited to start with.