Hills Road Sixth Form

Hi. I'm in year 11 in a high achieving state school outside of Cambridge. I've applied to Hills Road and at GCSE I should get about 8/9 subjects at grade 8/9, with maths at either a high 8 or 9. I've applied to Maths and Further Maths but I am not sure if I could get an A/A* in further maths and I wouldn't want to do it if I didn't get top results. I do like maths and I feel like if I only had to study 4 subjects instead of 10 I could do well in further maths, but just saying 'further maths' seems daunting. Firstly, what are my chances of getting into Hills Road and is it completely dependent on grades? Also, Hills Road has very high Oxbridge admissions: is this because everyone who goes there has good grades in the first place or is it because it is an incredible school? Since I do have high grades, would I be in with a better chance of going to Cambridge or Oxford (I'm still undecided on which I would prefer) for Economics/PPE than I would at my current high achieving school? Thanks.

Hi
I’m slightly confused…. You have mentioned that you feel as though you would do well in FM if you only had to do four subjects and not 10. I’m assuming your talking about Further Maths as in the A level, and for A levels you only really do 3 to 4 (maybe 5), so if you’re confident that while doing 3 other A levels, Further Maths would be doable then honestly go for it. Obviously please consider your future plans and career ambitions as well your grades (which don’t seem to be an issue here). For Econ I don’t think FM is needed but is still considered a good pair( might want to double check this). But bear in mind FM is a time consuming subject and if you don’t want to do Engineering or Physics isn’t rlly required(double check this too) Also I’m assuming you want to do subjects you know you can get an amazing grade in, so if you’re not 100% confident with maths or you don’t enjoy it I don’t recommend. You might want to check out some of the content for GCSE AQA Further Maths or FSMQ as they have a few more advanced topics compared to gcse and may help you determine whether or not you think FM is an appropriate subject for you.
Hope this helped.
Good luck with your exams!

Sorry I just realised what you meant with the whole ten subjects thing…
I just want to point out out that there is a huge reason why you are only made to do 3-4 A levels and it’s because they are insanely harder and arguably more content heavy or even just stressful really. It is a jump up. You might feel as if doing less subjects means you will have more time or resources to perfect the subject and get a better grade compared to GCSE, but honestly it’s more than likely that it will be more difficult to get say an A* for an A level than a 9 for a gcse, as the courses get harder and the fewer subjects only really compensates for the difference in difficulty to an extent. I, in no way, shape or form, am trying to stop you from picking FM or to scare you from A levels, you should do what works for you, but just wanted to share some info.
I hope I haven’t confused you even more… 😅

Thanks. To be honest I think what I will do is further maths for maybe a month and if it isn’t going well then I’ll drop it, but if I think after a month that I’ll do well in it then I think it will be useful for me if I wanted to do economics on its own. Do you know if I’ll have a better chance of getting into Oxbridge at Hills Road? Thank you.

I’ll be honest best thing to do it look at their previous Oxbridge progressions. As far as I am aware it does send a few to Oxbridge.
One thing to not overlook is that some good sixth forms are only really good because they are selective of the students they take. I have heard of a few good sixth forms where, their actual quality of education is worse than most other schools but they still get loads of Oxbridge offers and good results just because they have hand picked the brightest students.
I say you mist talk to other students and open evenings can help as well.
I don’t know much else about Hills Road sorry…
Good luck anyways!

Thanks. I’ll research the school a bit more just to see if it would be a good school for me.

Good luck! 🤞

Hi. I'm in year 11 in a high achieving state school outside of Cambridge. I've applied to Hills Road and at GCSE I should get about 8/9 subjects at grade 8/9, with maths at either a high 8 or 9. I've applied to Maths and Further Maths but I am not sure if I could get an A/A* in further maths and I wouldn't want to do it if I didn't get top results. I do like maths and I feel like if I only had to study 4 subjects instead of 10 I could do well in further maths, but just saying 'further maths' seems daunting. Firstly, what are my chances of getting into Hills Road and is it completely dependent on grades? Also, Hills Road has very high Oxbridge admissions: is this because everyone who goes there has good grades in the first place or is it because it is an incredible school? Since I do have high grades, would I be in with a better chance of going to Cambridge or Oxford (I'm still undecided on which I would prefer) for Economics/PPE than I would at my current high achieving school? Thanks.

Hi. I'm in year 11 in a high achieving state school outside of Cambridge. I've applied to Hills Road and at GCSE I should get about 8/9 subjects at grade 8/9, with maths at either a high 8 or 9. I've applied to Maths and Further Maths but I am not sure if I could get an A/A* in further maths and I wouldn't want to do it if I didn't get top results. I do like maths and I feel like if I only had to study 4 subjects instead of 10 I could do well in further maths, but just saying 'further maths' seems daunting. Firstly, what are my chances of getting into Hills Road and is it completely dependent on grades? Also, Hills Road has very high Oxbridge admissions: is this because everyone who goes there has good grades in the first place or is it because it is an incredible school? Since I do have high grades, would I be in with a better chance of going to Cambridge or Oxford (I'm still undecided on which I would prefer) for Economics/PPE than I would at my current high achieving school? Thanks.

Hi. I'm in year 11 in a high achieving state school outside of Cambridge. I've applied to Hills Road and at GCSE I should get about 8/9 subjects at grade 8/9, with maths at either a high 8 or 9. I've applied to Maths and Further Maths but I am not sure if I could get an A/A* in further maths and I wouldn't want to do it if I didn't get top results. I do like maths and I feel like if I only had to study 4 subjects instead of 10 I could do well in further maths, but just saying 'further maths' seems daunting. Firstly, what are my chances of getting into Hills Road and is it completely dependent on grades? Also, Hills Road has very high Oxbridge admissions: is this because everyone who goes there has good grades in the first place or is it because it is an incredible school? Since I do have high grades, would I be in with a better chance of going to Cambridge or Oxford (I'm still undecided on which I would prefer) for Economics/PPE than I would at my current high achieving school? Thanks.

Hi, I am also applying to Hills currently, did anyone go to induction? I am not really sure how it works and I would only be able to attend one of the days. Can anyone help? Thanks! ☺️

y13 - (from what i remember) i think you only go to one of the induction days and you may be able to select availability for which you can attend. email the school to rearrange if you are unable to attend. the induction days are just more personalised open days where students who have applied do ‘mock’ lessons to get a feel for what its like. they should send out more info closer to the time. a couple of my friends didn’t attend and they were fine, as it is simply just an an opportunity to have a final look around before you start in september. (im thinking about the june/july dates - hope this is correct)

Hi, I go to Hills Road and you sound like the archetypal student and don't worry they pretty much let everyone in, provided that your grades are good enough. Some people who come here even have a lot of 5's, so do not worry at all. I would say that Hills is a good school in that you get a lot of freedom, but you have to be incredibly self-motivated, it is basically like a mini uni. I know quite a few people in the year above who could have done better and gotten all A*'s and Hills road may have somewhat failed them. you don't get a lot of attention because the school is massive and for the whole of first year, they focus almost entirely on the year 13's. Do not do philosophy at hill's road, majority of people get D's and I'm not saying that for fun, it is a fact. I'm not sure if you are going to do philosophy but pretty sure you dais something about PPE. No one has gotten an A* in the last two years, so don't do it and the department is soo understaffed!
Hills is a good school mostly because it gets tons of privately educated students and a lot of people are very bright, just because it's Cambridge. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer!

Hi
I’m slightly confused…. You have mentioned that you feel as though you would do well in FM if you only had to do four subjects and not 10. I’m assuming your talking about Further Maths as in the A level, and for A levels you only really do 3 to 4 (maybe 5), so if you’re confident that while doing 3 other A levels, Further Maths would be doable then honestly go for it. Obviously please consider your future plans and career ambitions as well your grades (which don’t seem to be an issue here). For Econ I don’t think FM is needed but is still considered a good pair( might want to double check this). But bear in mind FM is a time consuming subject and if you don’t want to do Engineering or Physics isn’t rlly required(double check this too) Also I’m assuming you want to do subjects you know you can get an amazing grade in, so if you’re not 100% confident with maths or you don’t enjoy it I don’t recommend. You might want to check out some of the content for GCSE AQA Further Maths or FSMQ as they have a few more advanced topics compared to gcse and may help you determine whether or not you think FM is an appropriate subject for you.
Hope this helped.
Good luck with your exams!

Hi, I go to Hills Road and you sound like the archetypal student and don't worry they pretty much let everyone in, provided that your grades are good enough. Some people who come here even have a lot of 5's, so do not worry at all. I would say that Hills is a good school in that you get a lot of freedom, but you have to be incredibly self-motivated, it is basically like a mini uni. I know quite a few people in the year above who could have done better and gotten all A*'s and Hills road may have somewhat failed them. you don't get a lot of attention because the school is massive and for the whole of first year, they focus almost entirely on the year 13's. Do not do philosophy at hill's road, majority of people get D's and I'm not saying that for fun, it is a fact. I'm not sure if you are going to do philosophy but pretty sure you dais something about PPE. No one has gotten an A* in the last two years, so don't do it and the department is soo understaffed!
Hills is a good school mostly because it gets tons of privately educated students and a lot of people are very bright, just because it's Cambridge. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer!

Freedom how? Is attendance optional?
https://www.hillsroad.ac.uk/study-with-us/a-level-subjects/philosophy
This says 61% get an A* to B

Hi, I also to Hills Road. I would say the freedom is one of the best things about it. Attendance is definitely not optional, but the attitude here isn’t about punishing you or forcing you to do things, it’s about working with you to help you learn and actually have a good time, if you get what I mean - the teachers are much more on the same level as you, if you get what I mean. A lot of the work is independent and you really have to push yourself, but if you do that then you’ll have a great time at Hills, there is a lot of support and opportunity. Y13 does get a lot of support but that isn’t to say that it isn’t good for Y12s too; Y13s do need that extra support for uni applications etc., but I found support for Y12 far better than my previous school. Does that help? (I don’t study philosophy so not too sure about that)

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately I'm still a bit confused as to how the freedom plays out, as a lot of what you said applies to sixth forms in general. SF students get to chooses their A levels so teachers can assume they're there to learn and care at least a little bit about the subject, so they can structure their curriculum around learning rather than managing behavior or trying to encourage participation. But that's true for sixth forms in general, and I'm not sure how HR stands out in terms of freedom compared to other sixth forms in the area.