Hi All, I really would appreciate any help or advice and apologise for the long-winded story. I moved abroad from Islington 6 years ago, and now I'm in the process of deciding when to move back with my 9 year old boy and where he might go to school from 11. I've done a lot of research online and asked friends for ideas but feel very confused about schooling in London in general. I've started slowly doing some work towards 11+ for grammar and entrance exams for independent schools and I have noticed that he is clearly bright but is not really an academic sort of child and doesn't really want to study, would much rather do Anything Else! So although I'm sure I could tutor him to get a very high score in everything except creative writing, I don't really think he would thrive in a school which is highly competitive and academic. I do think that with the right school he will do really well and get into a good university, if that's what he wants. But I want to stay in Islington if I can, and so I'm looking for a day school which still gets good results, reasonably strict, preferably within an easy commute. Basically something in the middle! Our local secondaries as far as I can gather are not up to much, apart from St Mary Magdalene and Highbury grove, which we are unlikely to get into due to distance from the school; friends whose children go to them, tell me the other state secondaries in Islington are not good.
The grammars in north London, QE, Dame Alice Owens, Latymer sound like they are too academic for us. The independent schools in my area, city of London boys, Highgate, UCS also sound like they are very academic, and the non selective, Northbridge house sounds like it's not good academically past prep school. Does anyone have any insight or views which might help me decide what to do? Or any obvious schools I should look into? Or should I just look further afield? Is a commute across London what I should start thinking about and how do kids generally find it?
Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.