Help for private school for kids

OP, try your best to contact those private schools, but it will be fine even if your DD doesn't get a place. Without the need to pay for private school, you can find the tutors to do some after school tutoring for the subjects your DD is weak, that's one to one attention. Work part time, hire cleaners, so you can have time to bring your DC to after school activities. And you mentioned you can only provide fees for one child, if you don't pay, the money saved can benefit both your DS and DD.

I always think private education is a plus, but not a necessary. As long as DC has the determination to do better, then whatever the school, with your support, they will sucess.

Honestly I think you should be thinking about state schools. The class sizes are generally not that different, only marginally larger.

Even the likes of Kew House that some people have suggested are unlikely to be able to help you at this point. They have run their exam process and have a bunch of kids of their waitlist so they aren't going to struggle to fill their year, even though they are generally not first choice for most parents.

Having just gone through the exam process for the likes of St C's, KH and SHS, I haven't seen that much at the mid-tier private schools to make me think my daughter will get so much better education there that I am willing to pay £18k per year - after tax- versus at a decent local comp.

Have you tried Kew House.
Have you tried St Augustines priory, I think they are less selective but you might be too late sapriory.com/admissions/admissions-process/
Have you contacted any prep schools. I know often only boys to 13.
You may well be pleasantly surprised by state secondary as there is likely to be more settling etc. Often there is more in the way of learning support.Appreciate not all schools set in year 7

rollon - the super selective West London schools don't have any problem whatsoever filling their places two or three times over (as you will see from other threads where parents are desperate because they are on waiting lists) and unfortunately the OP's children didn't actually pass the exams so aren't even on the waiting lists in the first place.

OP - don't always assume that private school = smaller class sizes. Notting Hill & Ealing has larger classes than my ds's Hounslow borough state school because they like to keep class sizes to 24 and NH&E have 30 in a class - and dare I ask what you are going to do if they don't get in at Y9? Most of the girls schools do not even have Y9 entrance anyway. You may have to face the fact that you have no choice but to make use of the Hounslow state schools you seem to have written off. You can then save the money you would have paid out on fees (especially as you can only afford one lot of fees anyway) and pay for extra input in the form of tutoring and experiences which will improve your children's learning anyway.

What private schools have you phoned?

The private schools around here are crap struggling to stay afloat so would welcome new applicants at any time throughout the year.

I presume you can afford the fees?

I have friends with boys at Isleworth & Syon (2 in Y10/1 in Y9) and they are all really pleased with it and a friend with a daughter at The Green School in Y13 who has just had offers from two excellent Medical Schools for medicine. I&S is pretty sporty (Mo Farah was there) and it seems to have a really good and encouraging ethos with lots of music and drama too.

Not sure how you can be worried about a school which, in the case of the Green School for Boys, hasn't yet opened. You are supposed to put 6 schools on the form though and you've only given Hounslow 3 choices so if you don't fit admission criteria for any of those you may find yourself offered another school that you didn't choose.

It's difficult to make private school suggestions, because it's the peak of their admissions rounds and the exams have been and gone (except perhaps for a few late sits) and it's quite unlikely that London schools will be short of candidates. And although some might make exceptional arrangements for those who have good reason for a late application (eg unexpected relocation) there's likely to be less chance willingness for others.

Are your DC currently at a prep? In which case you need to have the head hitting the phones to see if the schools made proper allowance for the special circumstances of the bereavement (ie that exam oerformance does not match what they know of their real level of performance). They will also have good links to at least some of the schools in your area and know which might be willing to take on an extra candidate now. Though if course, you'll have missed all the open days etc, so it'll be that much harder for you to know if the school is a good fit.

If not at a prep, you'll just have to make a list of all schools that can be reached without a hellish school run and hit the phones yourself.

Or, as previous posters have said, try a prep for two years. But think now about where they could go at year 9.

Hi, The fact you ds didn't pass Hampton and KGS doesn't mean he is not smart. Those exams are highly competitive and he would have been up against pupils who had a lot of tutoring in exam technique ( not all admittedly).
Do you think you have a reasonable chance with the state schools you have put down. I.e. Are you close to Lampton or Isleworth and Sion. Do you meet the faith criteria for Green Schools or have you just picked the best schools in Hounslow? Do kids from you road go to those schools?
St Catherine's in Twickenham might be worth contacting for your dd. As it is smaller but as the exams have past you might be too late. Prep schools for 2 years are also worth trying especially for your son. Not all take girls at 11. However they may well have a longer school day that would suit you.
If you are OK with them travelling into London and you are near the Piccadilly line Hill House maybe worth looking at

no school will take the place of parent.

OP has been incredibly quiet since starting the thread so I'm not sure we will ever know.

The thing about Hounslow is, of course, that if you are actually in Hounslow itself then you are a very great deal further from, say, Christ's (4.9 miles) than you are if you live in the borough but at the foot of Chiswick Bridge (1.6miles). If the OP went for LEH, KGS and Hampton then she might well be that side of the borough and whilst some feel that the schools in Hounslow are shockingly bad, others can see their kid's good results, even in schools where (gasp) there is a high proportion of FSM.

OP, can you tell us which state schools you have applied for?

Yes, the Y7 child is a sibling.

Admittedly that only covers kids who put Christ's as their first choice.

With the school increasingly popular with Queen's school parents in Kew (many of whom got their kids into Queen's on church attendance) I think getting there from Hounslow is a slim chance.

The catchment maps on the Richmond council website for Christ's showing category 4 allocations (open category) in 2013 and 2014 don't seem to indicate any kids getting in from Hounslow in that basis. There aren't maps for more recent years.

Well, ok - there were 34 non-sibling, non-church 'open' places allocated to Christ's last year - last distance offered just over 1.4 km. Is the Year 7 child a sibling?

That isn't quite correct about Christ's school only taking church kids from Hounslow, clavinova. I have two friends whose children are in on no faith places - in Y7 and Y9 at Christ's and another one who is in Y10 on an another faith basis.

You could try ringing some of the GDST schools for your daughter
www.gdst.net/find-a-school/hounslow - they may will willing to offer a late test. Even Wimbledon would only be a 30 minute tube ride away I think.
Prep schools tend to have more boys staying for years 7 and 8 in any case and so finding something suitable for your son shouldn't be too difficult - he can then reapply for a private senior school for year 9. Twickenham Prep has a school mini bus to Hounslow but I don't know how academic it is.

As for the state schools:
Christ's School in Richmond only take church going kids from Hounslow.
Likewise, 4 of the top performing schools in Hounslow are faith schools - 3 Catholic Schools and 1 C of E Foundation school.
Lampton's last offer distance was less than 1.3 miles last year, Heathland's was less than a mile and they appear to have 40-50 appeals for places each year. Three of the other Hounslow secondary schools have GCSE rates below 60%, another scrapes 60% (Chiswick) but has a grade 3 Ofsted from 2015. Then there's the fsm rate for the remaining schools - a mixed school with over 40% fsm wouldn't be my obvious alternative to LEH or Hampton either despite an 'outstanding' grading.

I looked up Lampton state comp in Hounslow that someone mentioned and it is top 5% of schools in the country for Progress 8. (Well above average.) Plus sent 7 kids to Oxbridge. Are you in the catchment for it?