Schools admission criteria......

About 8% of grammar school pupils nationally are on pupil premium. So if your daughter's school has double that, it's 16% meaning 84% of places are not. Have you looked up the furthest distances for pupils admitted in the last few years in the same category as your daughter will be in? Why are you so adamant that she won't get a place?

What exactly do you mean by ‘hardworking families’?

It’s unusual - in our town other criteria ‘ looked after’ etc come first THEN sibling before distance. Though you still have to be in catchment.

In London when she was in y5 there and medway where we moved for y6

What on earth is a normal family, so disadvantaged children should just know their place and not try to better themselves. I work in a school in a deprived area we have just over 1000 students 200 are PP and about 20 in care. So about 40 in each year such a small portion and then if you factor in they actually need parents/carers who value education and want them to take the 11+ that will be an even smaller amount.
You are coming across and entitled and condescending.

My brother and I both got in with a bursary (I didn't end up going as didn't like idea of girls only), my brothers school fees after scholarships were maybe 4k per year. However, with the VAT, that would have then been more than doubled - as the bursary was for a fixed amount discount. Affording 4k was one thing (my mum upped her min wage hours to cover it) , affording 10k would have been far beyond their ability to pay

What area is that? Our school said the local council doesn't allow them to support.

It is true that anyone paying school fees prior to VAT being added was rich.

It is not true that adding 4-5k a year, especially for those with multiple children, is a negligible amount for all fee payers . The fees will rise 5-10% pa from this higher base too. With 7 years of this in prospect, I do think more (still well-off!) people will move from “yeah, we can make that work” to “no, too much of a stretch”

Indeed.

That’s hysterical. Only the rich would think £24k can be found by having a smaller car and no holiday. Not.got.a.clue!

Not ludicrous, just honest. Our fees were not £24k but were only affordable by making sacrifices others may not make (cars, holidays, size of house etc). And adding 20% on to it was just too much for us, we couldn't cut further to accommodate it.

Average school fees are £24k. That is more than many earn and only the rich could afford that for one child let alone 2 or 3. 20% of that is only £4800. If you can afford £24k £4880 is peanuts. So blaming not being able to afford private education on VAT is ludicrous.

Nope.

My kids were at private school until recently. We aren't Uber rich but the vat increase alongside cost of living pushed us over the edge and we had to withdraw them. As did several other parents. Sad and difficult decision.

No, that’s not true. I’m 40 and went to a nice private day school for a hell of a lot less money than they’re charging these days even accounting for inflation.

private school fees have vastly outstripped inflation and now with the VAT it’s the nail in the coffin for many hard working families.

To be fair the non grammar schools around us are pretty good as well

Feeling grateful to live in a city with no grammar schools!

Imagine that, everyone has to go to the "sink" school except those who can afford private of course

We could have afforded tutoring but my daughter was adamant she didn't want to and that if she passed she passed. Many schools in our area have free 11+ tutoring as well

Where we live schools can't choose based on mark. My daughters school has sibling criteria

Some parents need to pay for their child to have lots of tutoring in order for them to try and pass 11+. Because without the tutoring it probably wont happen. I bet some parents become quite obsessed.

It’s the kids like yours who pass it without the tutoring who are naturally gifted. Including the children who are disadvantaged and haven’t had any tutoring, and go on to pass their 11+. Too right they should be at the top.

Is passing enough? Cos it isn’t for Sutton

anyway no two grammars are the same. Even where I live it isn’t - Tiffin is unique and unless you live in a specific postcode no chance. Wallington Grammar is just first stage and you can pass and get a good enough mark for Wallington and Sutton and still fail to get into Wilson’s (which is incredibly competitive and frankly has the GCSEs results to prove why)

none of these have a sibling rule I don’t think

It always was.

My children did medway not Kent test kent is no all multiple choice and has creative writing medway is multiple choice and cw is only used to assess borderline passes since last year which my children were sad about as they love cw. Can I also ask if you think the kent system is good or bad as I couldn't tell from ur comment

Kent is very different from Sutton/Tiffin where schools don’t get involved at all and the former has no verbal or non verbal reasoning and the competition is much much higher in Sutton

Kent still tends to follow a little the old system of if you are bright you pass!

That's fair I'm in medway so it uses mostly y6 maths and reading comprehension but it also has verbal and non verbal reasoning which you don't learn in school. Plus our council provides free practice papers

I hope Labour are never voted in again after the damage they have caused to many parents having a choice of private school or not.

it’s now the
preserve of the uber rich