How on earth do you choose a school in Yr 6?

[Schoolbore]

How do you know which senior school will be best when they are only 10 years old?! My DC has changed so much in the last year, and I know from his older siblings how much they change between 10-13. He has got into several wonderful schools but they are all very different and we are struggling to choose!

Most people have to choose (or have no real choice) at age 10/Year 6 because most schools in the country are 11-18….

If you have a big choice for 13 + that is great. Things to bear in mind:

1. does your DS have a strong preference and what is your gut feeling
2. logistics for the whole family, getting there/watching them do sports etc
3. have they allocated a house master yet or not and do you like who you have been given
4. size of deposit payable now (some you don’t pay until you know the housemaster)
5. further exams and how hard they are vs ticking box exercise
6. not sure what you mean by they are all very different - did you apply to single sex or co ed or both and A levels vs IB etc., size of school, sporty vs all rounder?

When choosing schools we thought about where we felt comfortable. We also looked at the current pupils. We knew a couple of boys from the school we chose for DS and we liked the people they were turning into. What do you and your DC want from a school - music, art, sports?

One of the heads at a school open day said ‘go with your gut feel - we hope it’s our school but it might not be and that’s fine’. Another teacher during a tour said ‘you’ll see many different schools but you’ll know when you’ve found the one’.
We looked at quite a few. Then revisited ones we really liked.
When taking our daughter we had an agreement that we wouldn’t discuss what we thought until after the visit, then choose 3-5 words each to describe what we thought. We also let her have the first say on feedback so she wouldn’t be influenced by us.

Excellent question: I think you can gauge academic aptitude that age fairly accurately, but a child’s character/interest will not start to show until they are around 12-13 years old

Completely and utterly agree OP. We couldn’t do it. So I decided that the cost of keeping 2 places open was small fry in the grand scheme of happiness for the teenage years and didn’t commit until October of y8. I know that’s not ideal on many levels, not least for those on waiting lists. But we had to put our son’s future front and centre and not to commit him to boarding school (the other place we kept open was day) until we were absolutely sure that was what he wanted to do and we were sure he would benefit.