Habs Vs St Helens (scholarship)

[verystressedmum]

Hello elevenplus forum,
I'm looking for some advice on the above schools. We have been very lucky to received offers from all the schools we applied (Habs, St Helens, St Albans and St Margaret's). Our DD also received a scholarship (20%) from STHS. We have narrowed down our preferences to Habs and STHS but are in a conundrum on what to choose due to the scholarship. Including the savings on the coach fees we could potentially save over £4k pa (a considerable amount for us).
If we chose STHS the commute would be 1.15hrs each way and with Habs this is 30 mins each way (with the coach leaving from literally outside our house). DD prefers Habs but is happy to go to STHS as well.
My question is, is the £4k saving worth the hassle? I see from the coach timetable there is no late coach at STHS - will she be missing out on the after school activities? DD is quite head strong and so we feel she will be able to handle the pressure from Habs.
Any help/advice is much appreciated.
Stressed Mum

[kenyancowgirl]

1hour 15 one way is 2 hours 30 a day on teh bus - very hard to do anything work wise on a bus - and the 2 hours 30 a day (for 7 years) could be longer if there were traffic problems. I'm sorry but I just couldn't do that to my child, regardless of how good a school is perceived to be.

Ask yourself this, if you had not had the offer of a scholarship from STHS - ie just an offer at both, would HABs have the edge? The fact that your DD prefers HABs implies to me that it is probably the better option. Could you speak to HABs and see if they would consider making you an offer? For parents evening etc can you imagine driving 2 hours 30 minutes for a possible 10 minute meeting with staff?

[verystressedmum]

Agreed! Completely! I think our decision had already been made the travel time was just too much - she would be so tired by the time she got home....
Having said that driving to Northwood only takes us 40 minutes but its still along way to go....the coach takes along time due the route it uses. I have spoken to the school who have said they MAY put on another route but its not guaranteed.
Thank you for your advice.

I wonder has anybody had any experience in approaching Habs for a scholarship?

[kenyancowgirl]

The other thing to remember is that bus/coach routes can change yearly - we have had three or four changes of route/time/bus company and my son is in Y11 - they may only be minor changes for us, but for some of the boys who were on the same route as us, they got bumped on to different buses/times/routes that are not so convenient...So whatever is in place "now" is not guaranteed to be the same for the next 7 years either.

[fatherof2]

Agreed! Completely! I think our decision had already been made the travel time was just too much - she would be so tired by the time she got home....
Having said that driving to Northwood only takes us 40 minutes but its still along way to go....the coach takes along time due the route it uses. I have spoken to the school who have said they MAY put on another route but its not guaranteed.
Thank you for your advice.

I wonder has anybody had any experience in approaching Habs for a scholarship?

I think it is worth having the conversation with Habs to see if they can match it. Our son was offered 40% for Habs but we declined for MTS so they will have such funds being released. I know this for your daughter but Habs is a very wealthy school who may not want to loose out because of 20%. Worth an ask in my opinion

[fatherof2]

Hello elevenplus forum,
I'm looking for some advice on the above schools. We have been very lucky to received offers from all the schools we applied (Habs, St Helens, St Albans and St Margaret's). Our DD also received a scholarship (20%) from STHS. We have narrowed down our preferences to Habs and STHS but are in a conundrum on what to choose due to the scholarship. Including the savings on the coach fees we could potentially save over £4k pa (a considerable amount for us).
If we chose STHS the commute would be 1.15hrs each way and with Habs this is 30 mins each way (with the coach leaving from literally outside our house). DD prefers Habs but is happy to go to STHS as well.
My question is, is the £4k saving worth the hassle? I see from the coach timetable there is no late coach at STHS - will she be missing out on the after school activities? DD is quite head strong and so we feel she will be able to handle the pressure from Habs.
Any help/advice is much appreciated.
Stressed Mum

It may help to move this to the independent schools section where you may get more responses

I've moved this to the Independent school section - moderator

[Middlesexmum]

The other thing to remember is that bus/coach routes can change yearly - we have had three or four changes of route/time/bus company and my son is in Y11 - they may only be minor changes for us, but for some of the boys who were on the same route as us, they got bumped on to different buses/times/routes that are not so convenient...So whatever is in place "now" is not guaranteed to be the same for the next 7 years either.

I would disagree with regard to St Helen's. They organise the routes according to demand. When my dd started at St Helen's 4 and a half years ago, we saw the stop my dd would be getting on at had been removed! We contacted the school and they reinstated it even though for a year my dd was the only girl at that stop.

Also, there is a late coach service at St Helen's but the routes are reduced somewhat. They leave at 5.30 or 5.35 I think.

[marktheshark]

Re journey times, one thing to keep in mind is that Habs starts at 845 and St. Helen's at 830. I have studied the Habs coach routes extensively as we have a similar choice between the schools (though no scholarship consideration). There is no coach stop that takes only 30 mins

[Itsnotoveryet]

Dear Verystressedmum

Unfortunately Habs will not match scholarships. We have scholarships at 3 other schools and they said that they can't do this and would still hope we would consider their school.
They clearly have plenty accepting the place with or without scholarships.

Hope this helps

[verystressedmum]

I emailed Habs and unfortunately they do not offer scholarships once the original offers have been made. We have decided to go for Habs and are very happy with the decision - just means cutting back elsewhere! what we do for our kids!!!!