RMS vs St Helens

[kenyancowgirl]

My daughter is at RMS. I'm incredibly happy with the school, it is better in every way than I had hoped for. My daughter had never been singled out as being particularly good at anything at junior school. Within the first term the teachers knew her very well and had spotted all sorts of interesting and talented things about her, encouraged her and told us about them. I am totally in their debt.
I went to Oxbridge and have been very impressed by the academic standard of the lessons and teachers. As an aside - you have more chance of your daughter going from a school that doesn't send many to these universities - bear this in mind when you choose a school if that is what your daughter might be going for.
The girls are probably not as academic on average as at St Helens because it is a comprehensive intake but they seem to be selected for having something more to add to the other girls' all round education than those who are not selected and/or because the staff at RMS feel they can benefit from what RMS has to offer.
Negative points are - there are some people with a lot of disposable income at the school (as well as many who are probably not able to spend anything on themselves once the fees are paid). There can be a lot of peer pressure to spend on fashionable clothes etc.

If it is a private school, then it is as far from a comprehensive intake as you can get......!!! As an aside, most Universities, Oxbridge included, have been directed to increase their participation from state schools - again, if this is a private school, it is misleading to suggest that choosing the school would increase chances of access to Oxbridge. Also, as an aside, Oxbridge is absolutely not the be all and end all in universities and there are many, many institutions that are far better respected for various degrees. I do think your negative point is very balanced - and probably true of most private schools.

[hertslady]

"Comprehensive" means not selective in this context.
State comprehensive schools are the best probability for getting your child in to Oxbridge for a given level of academic achievement on the exam/interview date, but for a girl at an independent school, she has more chance at one that sends fewer people to Oxbridge in general and in a particular year.

[Droftaw]

We have a daughter at RMS. We love the place. Lovely campus, very good exam results (comparable to Watford Girls), great drama, great sport. Academically our daughter has shot up.

It takes all girls from its prep and the rest from outside at Y7. So you could argue that it is partially selective. I understand that no girls are kicked out after GCSEs

Re Astronomy: the school has its own Planetarium and Observatory. I great choice for GCSE for the cabable scientists and for whom three GCSE sciences is not enough.

The only negative - there is no longer a boys equivalent school.

I don’t know St Helens so I cannot comment or compare.

[Amber]

for a girl at an independent school, she has more chance at one that sends fewer people to Oxbridge in general and in a particular year.

Not wishing to support in any way the view that Oxbridge is some kind of glittering prize to which all parents aspire for their daughters, do you have any evidence to support this slightly surprising assertion?

[hertslady]

I have a few reasons for thinking this:
Firstly the colleges themselves have always been keen to make their students as diverse as they can, subject to not straying too far from the people who do best at the exam and interview. They can justify sometimes taking someone with more potential who isn't from one of the independent schools that are "the regulars", in the same way they can justify people with lower marks from state schools.
I don't think the point of the colleges taking more people from state school is officially social engineering, I think it is meant to be because people with the same potential at state school may score less at the entrance exams and they know this is also the case at independent schools that are less familiar with the exams.
Secondly it is possible that head teachers of schools such as NLCS and Habs think they have a limited number of people they can reasonably put forward for each college. I had friends at college from the big schools who had gone against the advice of their head teachers by applying.
Thirdly I would say that looking at how hard it is to get in to say NLCS and knowing the standard at Oxbridge - NLCS girls who want to go should all be good enough to get in, yet less than half do.
Fourthly - it's hard to judge, but if what I'm hearing is true at some of the boys schools this year, numbers are going down faster than the increase in state schools....it could be that the successful independent girls numbers are up overall - I am waiting to hear this year's numbers.
Finally (not Oxbridge related) I work for one of the biggest graduate employers and we are not the only similar firm that has this year changed recruitment to ignore universities and judge people on their school record relative to the average results from their school. I suspect that the universities will also start to do this when they realise that applicants from the comps are losing out relative to the grammars.

[Amber]

Firstly the colleges themselves have always been keen to make their students as diverse as they can, subject to not straying too far from the people who do best at the exam and interview. They can justify sometimes taking someone with more potential who isn't from one of the independent schools that are "the regulars", in the same way they can justify people with lower marks from state schools.

I think the whole issue around taking state school students with lower marks (which may in reality be one or 2 A level grades for someone from a really difficult background) is that it is intended to give students from poorer or socially disadvantaged backgrounds a greater shot at university. I really don't think someone coming from a school which costs between £5k and £10k a term can really expect to be shown the same concessions on that basis. I think the term 'diversity' means across the entire social spectrum, not the spectrum of south-east based private schools.

I think it is meant to be because people with the same potential at state school may score less at the entrance exams and they know this is also the case at independent schools that are less familiar with the exams.

You what? The entrance exams to which you are presumably referring are things like the UKCAT, STEP and TSA? No school prepares students for these and a lot of students don't prepare themselves much for them either. I am fairly amazed that you think special consideration would be given to someone coming from a private school because they might not have practised the specialist exams required by some universities for some subjects.

Thirdly I would say that looking at how hard it is to get in to say NLCS and knowing the standard at Oxbridge - NLCS girls who want to go should all be good enough to get in, yet less than half do.

Well yes, because presumably if it was a dead cert that every single candidate from a 'top' school pretty much automatically got a shoe-in to Oxbridge, even more questions would be asked about the equity of the process. And it is just vaguely possible that even some girls from this illustrious school may be less good than some children from other schools elsewhere, and hence lose out to them for the limited number of places.


I find all of the arguments you put forward unsustainable to be honest, and think if someone chose to send a child to an expensive but academically not very selective school in the hope that Oxbridge would offer some kind of special deal at the end of it, they would be showing very poor judgement. If, on the other hand, they loved the school, the ethos and what it had to offer their child, well of course that is another matter entirely.

[hertslady]

TBH my original post was really there to say that fortunately there are pros and cons of each of these schools, sometimes in the most surprising areas. This is a good thing.
It's really hard to predict what will be going on in the university and jobs market by the time our daughters finish school. Who'd have thought that the country would be ruled again by Old Etonians from a vantage point of the Millienium? All part of life's rich tapestry.

We seem to have hijacked the original question, which was around pros and cons of RMS vs St Helens. Anyone any more comments on these schools for the person who asked the question?

[Daogroupie]

Teresa May is from a grammar school and so is Jeremy Corbyn.

The first time that both leaders have not been from a private school so things really are looking up in the corridors of Westminster.

I don't consider NLCS to be hard to get into but they do have the policy of only allowing one dd to apply for each subject at each college at Oxbridge so the dds are not competing against each other.

One thing to take into account when considering RMS and St Helens is that St Helens is part of the North London consortium which is now no longer doing English and Maths exams and putting the main focus on the interview.

This will change the type of applicant who is successful there so will make an impact on the makeup of the year group from next year onwards. DG

[Amber]

I don't consider NLCS to be hard to get into but they do have the policy of only allowing one dd to apply for each subject at each college at Oxbridge so the dds are not competing against each other.

Ok so that is 69 colleges if you combine the two universities, and an almost infinite range of subjects - I can't see how this limits anyone's chances myself. Though I understand you are not arguing that, DG .

[ToadMum]

I don't consider NLCS to be hard to get into but they do have the policy of only allowing one dd to apply for each subject at each college at Oxbridge so the dds are not competing against each other.

Ok so that is 69 colleges if you combine the two universities, and an almost infinite range of subjects - I can't see how this limits anyone's chances myself. Though I understand you are not arguing that, DG .

Does the school not understand the pooling systems employed by the two universities, do you think?