My son has had a very rocky road, academically, at his selective private school. I've been really unhappy with the school who've not stretched him/set high academic standards for him at all with the result that he has completely stagnated or gone downhill. Other boys who aren't ultra passionate self-starters have done the same. I didn't realise how bad things were until he was in his GCSE years and I was determined that he wouldn't stay on there - I just felt it was a colossal waste of money (and I'm not loaded by any stretch of the imagination). The major plus is that he's is very popular in school - loads of friends and they are absolutely lovely. That really is the only positive - he's not interested in clubs/sport at the school etc. Over the past few months, we've visited some good state schools and he has offers from a few for 6th form. He's gone along with this but today, he's made it clear that he 100% does not want to leave his friends. He has a hobby outside of school that takes up quite a lot of time and he says that with that, he would barely see his school friends unless he's actually at school with them. He has just about scraped a place at the private school 6th form (literally did one month of revision to cover all subjects) and I've told him that he has to massively step up at the school if he stays there which he's promised to do; I also intend to speak to the school. It still seems like a huge waste of money to me though. Would you insist your DS leave (given the years of poor performance from him and the school's indifference to this - although they do get good results for try-hards) or do you think friendships are so precious he should stay where he is.