Scholarship or grammar?

The enforced early starts were good for me!

6am mums should start a support thread! with lots of

We’ve barely touched on your scholarship offer too, yes the indies all want the fees but they don’t give them out like sweets and have their pick of candidates, if they’ve seen something special in your DD you’d expect from the start that they’re going to support her in whatever the scholarship is for in ways grammar school doesn’t dedicate time to.

eg. a friends talented DD at grammar plays in a county orchestra, its nothing to do with school and she gets comparatively little chance to play in school so its more of an outside interest. She isn’t being helped by school toward a career in music although its what she wants to do, her A level choices reflect that. DS school actively puts talented DC into these things, and events I wouldn’t even know about or have access or time to take him to. DC go off to a variety of things in school time throughout the year and school help with that, there’s no battle with attendance records when they aren’t in class because they’re at training camps or competing/auditioning/whatever. Thats not limited to scholarship DC either, if one is particularly good at a particular thing the school gets behind that and supports them. Thats what I mean when I said its part of the life of the school rather than bolt-on.

@shoesSHOES totally! And women tend to over think even the most nonsensical stuff, we don’t exactly know how to go easy!

Also have a 6am riser and rise myself at 6. Quite honestly, if you don’t shine brightest in the early hours and have limited first thing morning patience, the faffing that goes on over ‘where did my homework get put?/uniform/school books/sports & drama & dance kits/why do I have this massive spot?/yes I really did NEED to borrow your Lancôme concealer & Chanel Foundation to cover it/can you please do my hair like Katnis Everdene?/I’m coughing a lot - do you think I might have the Coronavirus?’ type nonsense can be trying when you need to boot them out by 7.10!

You don’t mention OP if DD will need to travel back by bus? That, especially in winter time in the dark, can also bring its own worries!

Would she be boarding? DD wanted a scholarship, did all the groundwork herself as we weren't convinced. She ended up boarding in another county. The first month was horrendous, missing home, friends, not what she thought it would be etc. She had the option of coming home, but stuck at it.

At the end of Sixth Form she left she said it was the best thing she'd ever done in terms of achievement, independence, experience, lovely girls she'd met. I suspect it helped with her CV, an ordinary girl with a scholarship, and she got offers much earlier than some friends who'd applied to the same unis (a few of whom were predicted higher grades). She applied for uni herself (we never saw application). She had no qualms of going to uni, settled in immediately with no signs of home sickness - just as well as she's 6/7 hours away.

She kept in touch with many of her local friends - close ones, and those in the wider circles, and still is in touch with them even though she's at uni. She sees them when she's at home.

Either way, I think you have to let it be her decision.

An alternative point of view is you could leave the Grammar place for a child who doesn’t have the choice between an Independent or Grammar school.

A side comment on the early bus - DD faced that either way (having decided against the good local comp). This was one of the reasons that ultimately it was her choice - she had to really want it! And in the event, I'm inclined to think it was a good thing. A tardy, disorganised child got her act together, she got very sensible about bedtimes and the bus was pretty much a social club. Anecdote, obviously, but this was an unexpected positive rather than the negative we'd assumed.

they’re our DC, overthinking is in the job description 😂.

you’ve asked your head and your heart, what does your soul tell you? Its a really good idea to tour DD round again and give her your warts and all overview of them all. What each school’s daily routine is, clubs and societies, opportunities to pursue a talent and genuinely be supported by the school or interests that will have to be sidelined? sometimes the facilities are scruffy because they’re well loved by the DC, pristine can indicate austere ethos or style over content to attract a certain type of parent. Mine chose the 6am rise to an early bus, which means I’m up at 6 too so that was a bit of an own goal 😂.

I do think you have very definitely made the decision already reading through your posts and i do agree, enough angst, own it and go with it. I do appreciate you want it to be DDs call but possibly at this point you’re just going round in circles? Tired old buildings or smarter (paid for by parents) ones do though have bugger all to do with whether your child is going to be happy or not and really I wouldn’t read anything into them personally!

I rather suspect the issue with those unfortunate children was the parents rather than the schools - the parents would likely have pressurised them inappropriately anyway. (Doubtless with the best of intentions!)

No wonder the grammar school progress 8 scores are doing well
Wouldn't overtutored kids getting in tend to impair progress scores?

Anyway, it really does sound like you've got the 'problem' of 2 really good alternatives - so go with what is likely to make your DD and the family as a whole happier.

ShoesSHOES. This overly competitive parenting really gets me too! I wanted to get away from them and luckily we did and could afford to.

the problem is that too many parents, seem too intent on choosing the school they ‘want’ for their child, rather than the school that is ‘right’ for their child this with bells on.

Sometimes choosing a grammar school education isn’t ‘free’, the price to be paid might be they end up with qualifications that have no bearing on what they really wanted to do with their lives (like DH), or have MH problems when they’re older. a friend who works in social services has commented on the high proportion of former grammar school pupils who are service users. I’m not at all suggesting that’s true of all or even most DC in super selective schools, and I think grammar school is incredible for a certain type of child because that’s what they are for, but all the tutoring and pressure from parents skews it for DC who would be better suited elsewhere, where I live anyway.

I do agree with pp who said you find ordinary girls at the Grammars. They will almost certainly cater for the Oxbridge/Imperial bound DDs as well as the art school bound ones and all sorts in between. I did notice a tendency for the girls grammar to not advise some DDs to aim high enough. Eg non RG when they could have gone to a top RG. Emphasis appeared to be on course content and getting in rather than challenge and prospects afterwards. My cleaner’s DD certainly suffered from this. The advice she was given was poor.

I have seen many DDs go through our local Grammars and they are varied in temperament and ability. They are not overly robust nor extremely shy or retiring. A couple of DDs in our village went private because the grammar was considered too big and I do have some sympathies with that but you not have to be overly robust to flourish. They preferred to be a big fish in a small pond. However the school they chose was the school of choice for those who didn’t get to the Grammars and we felt that wasn’t good enough for us as there was, at that time, a big gap between grammar and the private school results.

None of the over tutored ones I know had great GCSE exam results. However our Grammars are not super selective and they don’t appear to off roll either. We also had, in my village, parents who refused to accept DC didn’t get the pass mark at the 11 plus, despite years of tutoring. That led to further tutoring and applications at 12 and 13. As you can imagine all sorts of issues with this strategy and limited success in public exams. Parents simply cannot accept that their DC are above average but not up to grammar requirements. I’ve heard about bed wetting and all sorts of other behaviour traits emerging. My cleaner had a lot of jobs.

I didn’t coach either DDs with tutors. I worked through VR questions with DD1. DD2 didn’t take the 11 plus. At least they had “free from tutoring” childhoods which left time for all the other things they wanted to do. Which were many!

SJaneS48 interesting, thanks for answering my question. Gaming the system yes its incredibly difficult not to get drawn into that if the state alternatives don’t have enough places or are an unsuitable fit for the child. Everyone else does it so if you have a bright child you don’t see why they should miss out on a place at grammar when less able DC stand to go there. I saw a kind of frenzied panicking happen round here and it was very alarming.

I know plenty of lovely bright DC who’ve done very well at grammar, they seem to be highly self-motivated with an unwavering idea of what they want to do after school, the ones I’ve seen fall apart manage the work but don’t have a special interest or goal and don’t find it while they’re there, despite being very able and working their nuts off. We realised that DS would likely come out with a good set of exam results but it wasn’t the place to help him find his niche or give him any time or room to consider a less academic future if that’s what he wanted. He’s very good at science and was heading along that straight road just because of test results. In all honesty what really put me off wasn’t the school itself but spending time with other parents who were discussing CAT scores and Oxbridge entry stats and continuous testing expectations while their DC were still 10 years old. Call me a chicken but I didn’t have the stamina for 7 years of that.

I sympathise I really do but I think you're hugely overcomplicating this. Your DD has the offer of an outstanding education on the doorstep. For free. Take it. Use the spare money for great holidays. Most families would give their eye teeth for this dilemma. You can move her to a private school later if things go wrong. Not so vice versa. I am quite old now so tend to see things a bit more simply. Good luck.

If you're losing sleep just thinking about it, you will certainly lose sleep in later years if it becomes a financial struggle. Don't put yourself and your family through it!

Bizarrely at the grammar, there is no setting until year 9!

DDs didn't set at all, except for maths from yr 9 - it was fine. Because of the entrance test they were already 'set' to about the same extent as other schools.

@shoesSHOES, parents do the pre 11+ cramming around here purely because good Secondaries are heavily over subscribed & scarcer than the national average! While they may be better off professional couples by and large, they may not have either the funds to send multiple DC private or they may not wish too. Which then involves chancing getting into one of the few better Secondaries in Kent or going full steam on the grammar option. We went for a musical place at an out of area high performing secondary given DH’s views on the Grammar selection process - but I’m quite sure DD wouldn’t have achieved this without many years of expensive instrument and singing lessons! Places at better schools down here are often paid for, one way or the other, a lot of hypocrisy goes on and gaming the system which I will hold my hand up to also doing!

There seems to be a bit of a narrative developing here that to succeed in a Grammar you have to be a robust, strong and not very sensitive character. I’d agree the Super Selective’s are pushier than the Selective’s but knowing quite a few girls at Grammars, they really don’t fit this stereotype at all! Of the 5 I know at a Super Selective, all are exceptionally bright, nerdy in their own ways and rather self contained. Not the gang mentality, herds of friends types. Bar one (over coached & super arty, failing in Maths and Science) all are happy & coping with the pressure at their schools according to their DPs. DDs two Primary Best Friends have just started at a Selective, both like DD are nerdy, friendly, weren’t in the popular crew at Primary and are genuinely nice children. Both so far are very happy. So from my experience, you absolutely do not need to be ‘hard’ to get along in a Grammar, the girls I know are distinctly the opposite!

I know that very tutored DC can struggle at any academic school. We certainly know DC who have got to local Grammars and come out with results lower than many in the secondary moderns. They have also had tutoring all the way through to “keep up”. This seems to work until public exams.

Bright children thrive in Grammars and good independents. I have, though, come across very average teachers in independent schools that have been quietly moved on. I won’t repeat the worst offences but there were one or two shockers! Don’t expect roses all the way and not all Grammars are super pushy either or some DC I know would have been off rolled! They weren’t.

agree completely with coelietterra

precisely MiniEggAddiction, mine is academic but sensitive, we want him to do his best but I couldn’t give a stuff about his GCSE results if it damages his mental health.

Many of the grammar cohort seem to be tutored for over a year to get in, every weekend and holiday, and crammed even more just before the 11+. Some of DC friends were fed up before they’d even taken the test, but parents are competitive and determined (some were quite feverish) and DC want to please. There are also plenty of brighter DC locally who don’t even take the 11+, so the intake is further skewed. A local tutor advertises 100% pass rates he’s maintained for years but what you don’t see is the ongoing testing so he can weed out the DC who might not scrape through. Its fairly common apparently. Why do people do this to their DC? What is it all for?