Secondary schools in NYC

Kids start a year later. After their 5th birthday. That’s kindergarten which is reception here. Uk goes to year 13. US goes to year 12. That’s why I mention the British school near the UN if you want to have the education to be transferable to the UK.

So age wise. Kindergarten in the US is year 1 in the UK and so forth. Year 6 in the UK is 5th grade in the US.

Educationally USA 6th grade is the same as UK year 6 but your child will be a year younger. That’s why you need to consider this from a social viewpoint.

@Dexter77 Don't discount hard AP maths courses. My niece loooves the US maths system. The UK system is spiral so they always go back to a topic and you're expected to learn all of maths at once. The US one is much more accessible to maths averse kids I feel as it's one specific area of maths at a time. Eg algebra, pass that and you're done etc.
It does obviously have it's pros and cons but I feel it's a way better system than the UK one, at the middle and high school level anyway!

UK students eyeing the US as their university destination will have chosen their A level subjects to coincide with the all-rounder academic (and extracurricular) expectations of elite American universities.

UK students thinking of US universities start their planning early. They will often choose mathematics, English or MFL, a science/ geography/ economics, and possibly some subject like history/ philosophy/ religious studies, aiming for a broad range, in hopes of showing strong all round potential, the ability to write, to reason, and to learn across a broad range of subjects.

Even from the pov of practicality, too go to a US university from abroad, you have to plan ahead. It's not done on a whim in your final year of A levels. There is a huge amount of cramming for the ACT also needed, and financial planning that should begin well ahead of making the application.

Students whose countries offer much broader curricula in secondary school, like Ireland (usually seven subjects studied for the Leaving Cert), also apply for and are admitted to American universities.

What about one of the Friends schools? Friends Seminary or Brooklyn Friends. Our child is thriving at a Friends school even though we are not religious in the slightest.

Reading your OP and follow up posts, it really doesn't seem like the NYC/Brooklyn environment is what you're looking for. My suggestion would be the deep south or midwest. Seriously.

Just to counter, I am an ex-New Yorker and I know loads of Families in Brooklyn with great kids who have gone on to great universities. Brooklyn is great. There are a lot of great areas and neighbourhoods throughout the city. Don't knock it.

St Hilda's admits kids from all faiths or zero faiths. It's more the ethos of the school. Just remember that year 5 in the UK is actually Year 4 in the US if you want them to be in their age group. I think it's hard enough moving schools and moving countries etc to then be the youngest by a year in your class as well as showing up with a British accent. We had the option and chose to put our kids with their age group, and my kids did coast for that first year, but they really had a great learning experience and it allowed them to settle better into a totally different curriculum.

There is the British School in the East Side if you want to keep them in the English system. It's near the UN

You would need to contact each school you're interested in to see what they offer.

You should try to visit in person imo. You will get a far better feel for NYC and for its schools by spending some time there.

Faith schools do admit children of other faiths. There is usually a priority order when it comes to admissions, though. In the case of RC schools, it is usually parish member families first, with others in various categories in order.

Interesting re pupils being grouped together by activity, I don’t quite understand how that would work in practice, because surely pupils of different ages will be working on different projects and topics?

Students are not "grouped by activity".
What happens is that they often make friends in whatever activities they join, be they sports, wheel-throwing, summer musical, glee club, band, service clubs, Japanese society, etc. Student activities are a great way to make friends and find your tribe.

We are, like many other parents, extremely worried about wokeness. We’re not homophobes, but totally reject gender ideology and would take our children out of any school teaching that trans women are women, or that you can change sex.
I don't think any school in NYC is going to be free of gender ideology, apart - perhaps - from RC schools (all are private) and possibly those run by other organised religions that tend to be on the conservative side - this category is few and far between.

We are also totally opposed to all the decolonisation and anti-truth lived experience nonsense, and don’t think children should be taught in that spirit.
Decolonisation is a historiographical argument and as such has its place in the curriculum. Your child will be encouraged to think critically, not just learn off dates or facts in studying history, government, civics, etc.

'Anti-truth' is in the eye of the beholder to a large extent, in western society. As a practicing Catholic, I get what you're saying, but it is hard to find a school that will tick all the boxes. Good enough is sometimes the best you can hope for, with care taken to maintain the parent-child relationship.

Just as a piece of parenting advice, and I don't mean to patronise at all - in the context of schools, your child is going to be exposed to a lot of different thought, different arguments, different philosophies, etc, throughout his or her teenage years, certainly in grades 6 to 12. Your child may even actively seek out viewpoints that contradict yours. Your parenting relationship will survive all of this if you are prepared to bite your tongue a lot, and to engage in constructive and friendly conversations. I have sent five kids through both a RC K-8 and a public high school in an area that falls over itself to be as woke as woke is, and we have all come through that experience agreeing to disagree in some cases or on some topics, but still a solid family unit.

Don't hold your breath waiting for lawsuits to play out. Deal with life as it is, not how it should be.

Switching from middle school to high school can be a very good thing. You get to grow and learn new things about yourself at an age when you're ready to do so.

My own experience is of students going all the way from kindergarten to 8th grade together, then on to high school, and imo that is the best option. My kids and their peers in the RC elementary-middle school developed rock solid friendships that saw them through high school and beyond. In the K-8 school they were given leadership opportunities in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade that they would never have experienced in a separate middle school or a school that went from 6-7th to 12th grade. These opportunities were priceless foundations in leadership and confidence. They entered a much bigger high school feeling confident and valued by their wider church-school community.

Yes, everyone can be on a different level.

Classes as such, based on age cohorts, do not exist, and this isn't a matter of small schools combining classes. It is very different from the British system.

AP classes are actual class groups, not just harder papers, in which the students are prepared to tackle the exams, with the class GPA counting for the school GPA. AP classes are not all about the exams therefore.

Your child would be nuts and incredibly ill-advised to stick to the straight graduation requirements and graduate from high school with only the local or state requirements.

The requirements are a minimum of credits/ hours. Students hoping to go to university choose honours courses and AP courses, and students hoping to go to selective universities do honours maths courses and (AP) calculus, for more than the state or city or district minimum required credits.

As an example, a student who has finished the state requirement of three years of mathematics but who wants to go to Harvard to ultimately study MFL should do an AP calculus class, and the full four years of maths, English, MFL, sciences, and humanities, with as many AP courses as possible, as well as electives, because so many very selective universities want you to do a core course of studies for your first two years, including sciences, mathematics, philosophy, history, English, and more. You need to be well able to keep up. Your GPA in university matters too.