Former Hills Road student here, currently studying physics at Warwick university
My impression of Hills Road was terrible- I consider this my greatest mistake academically, and should have remained in the Perse school.
I was doing Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry.
Maths was horrible. You had good teachers mixed in with truly horrible individuals, one who once told me, in front of the entire class, that I would fail in my dream career. I've forgotten the names of 2021's lecturers in Maths which I had, but they were devastating. You had a teacher squealing at her jokes for half of the lesson instead of actually teaching. The quality of teaching you will get depends on which teachers you get. You may get away with good teachers, or you will find yourself with terrible teachers, with all the resulting consequences.
Physics was horrible. The material covered was boring and nearly resulted in a loss of motivation which was reflected in my A-level grades. The teachers were mostly fine, but the quality of teaching was truly awful.
Chemistry was on an entirely different level. Lessons were dull and boring and poorly-explained, and there were repeated instances of me getting predicted low grades the head of department getting involved and sorting it out, and so on and so forth. I came to Hills Road passionate about Chemistry, and now I do not want to -ever- say a single word about the subject or read a single text on it ever again, and that was entirely because of these teachers.
My EPQ experience was horrendous. I made a huge dissertation. My tutor rated it an A. Academics who saw my text became interested in having me as an intern, saying it is 'incredible', whilst world-leading experts in the field then heard about my project and wanted to find out more about it.
My tutor deserves a special mention. The thing is, she is extremely young and I think not ready for this sort of thing, because what happened between us is not professional or appropriate. I was repeatedly told that 'I was not the best', hinted heavily that 'only geniuses go there, and you are not that' and so on like that.
The grades I got saw me resit the exams. I tried to do it at Hills Road, who said that I shouldn't even bother, because very experienced teachers were very lenient about my grades.
I resat the exams and got into Warwick university physics somehow (I think barely and only because the course was new)
And literally a few weeks ago, I was awarded a first-class grade for my year. The professor I spoke to described it as a 'very high first', and three of my module results exceeded 80%, and one exceeded 90%
So yes, in all, Hills Road is not a recommended sixth form college in my eyes