Secondary school options in SW London... losing sleep!

[Tisane]

Hi all, have namechanged in an attempt to feel better about putting so much identifying info on the net - couldn't resist as tying myself in knots over this whole thing and you all seem so knowlegable.

DS is 9, year 5 of good (for the area), state primary. He is academically very capable. We are looking to start kumon as he is especially good at maths and school is not stretching him as yet (could be a new year issue as he has always been put in additional/accelerated maths before).

We live in Clapham, SW4. Near Clapham North/Wandsworth Road. The 'plan' was to move before DS hit secondary school age or to pay for ind/private school but for various reasons moving will be completely impossible and finding full school fees may well be too. Certainly the option of sending DS to a 'not very competitive' fee-paying school feels like something we cannot afford.

The Good Schools Guide catchment area tool is depressing; only state schools nearby which seem halfway decent are Graveny and Dunraven, both of which are quite far away. A far closer (and therefore more likely?) prospect is Lambeth Academy which doesn't fill me with joy.

We are dithering between throwing everything we can at tutoring DS with a view to trying for a grammar school or ind/private school (the only two I can think of nearby are Emmanuel and Dulwich College), and doing what we can for fees, or taking our chances and getting DS help while he's at state school.

He's a sensitive soul though and I am a bit worried about the social aspect.

Can anyone help me with options I may not have considered? May be eligable for bursaries but am not sure want to put DS through the pressure of trying for a scholarship (I went to SPGS and have very mixed feelings). Is hard to know without trying past papers etc if DS will take to 11+-style teaching/learning.

When we go to apply for secondary schools, what happens if he doesn't get into any? Do we put fee-paying schools on the same form? I was thinking about applying to a couple of grammars and then the better schools which are further away but presumably there's a chance he may not get into any?

Can anyone help? The change in circumstance has been swift and brutal and I am a bit at sea really.

As a measure of our desperation, DH suggested DS and I move into rented accommodation for six months to get into Dunraven/Graveney catchment area

...and I would do it! But presumably the schools are up on this sort of thing?

A lot of schools have a very dim view of temporary accommodation in the catchment area and will withdraw your place if they find out. Bursaries are means tested in lots of schools - i.e. if he's good enough to get in, but you can't afford a place, up to 100% bursaries are available in some schools. Scholarships are often negligible. 10% off full fees.

It's sooooo personal. I went to a state school. As a result, our parents could afford lots of extras for us - private tutors, holidays all over the world, music, drama etc. It was a well rounded education, and the teachers at our comp were good. Bluntly - it was the pupils that depressed the life out of me. Their loathing of learning, their sneering if anyone tried to excel. It's the peer pressure to zone out that puts me off our local, good state schools. But every other mum here would have a different experience that fosters a different opinion.

Depends on his character very much, and what his interests are. We're in the catchment for an OK school and sometimes in a fluctating catchment for a good school. But having looked round an academic indie yesterday, the difference is attitude to learning staggered me. We're going to do extra coaching ourselves - DH in maths, me in literacy and french, top up their music lessons and go all out for a couple of the best selective round our way. I want to pitch it so that if my DSs don't get in, they don't feel like failures - just explain it's highly competitive but worth a shot. But in your case, if the local schools are pretty weak, it may feel more is riding on his success.

Having said all that - it's crazy to assume a bright kid can't thrive in a state school. Lots do, all the time, and they go on to outstrip kids at private schools. Overall, I think so much depends on the parents, and also the education they get outside school from clubs and societies.

Sorry for the essay. Exactly the same questions are on my mind right now.

Look up the bursary conditions at your local indies. They might surprise you - they can be soooo generous. Also - I think there's another good indie near to you - St Dunstan's, Catford. Gets overlooked because of its location but I've heard glowing reports of it from parents of kids there, some of whom moved their sons from DC.

You definitely do not put the fee-paying schools on the application form - that's only for state schools. Every private school has its own application form.

If you want to look at private schools then, from Clapham, you are in striking distance of Croydon. The two boys' schools in Croydon (Trinity and Whitgift) are part of the Whitgift Foundation which is very generous with bursaries and scholarships. Around half of the boys receive some sort of financial assistance.

Doesn't Graveney also select a proportion of the children via a test? Or am I imagining that?

Re the temporary rental thing - well, obviously it's not very nice but I know two families where the parents pretended that they had separated and the mum moved with the children into the catchment of a preferred school. Then about a year later there was a miraculous reconciliation! Do be aware that some schools are pretty hot on checking that you have genuinely moved.

It is a tough decision - have you actually looked at your local state school? It may be fine! Double check the last distance offered for local schools on your council website - you may be in catchment for other schools.

Good luck!

I'm in your area.

Graveney selects 63 of 250 yr6 places on academic ability/potential based on the Wandsworth Year 6 test. I suspect you're over the Lambeth border, so you'll need to check the Wandesworth council website about eligibility and application process.

Bursaries at independent schools are not the same as scholarships. I suggest you go to see some schools and find out what they have on offer: I was at one which said it can offer up to 5 fully funded places (or a greater number of part funded places) a year. These are for children who merit a place (not just a scholarship) and whose parents cannot afford the fees. See the school bursar for individual information about their ceilings and means testing.

From where you are, Dulwich and Alleyns would be easily reachable on the number 37 bus. Both schools encourage applicants from state schools and have 11+ entry. I'm sure there will be others that do so too - eg Emmanuel, which would also be easy to reach on 37(going the other way).

I know a mum with a boy in Y11 at Lambeth Academy. Its been good for them, she's been very involved. Have you been to look round? My dp did a project there and was impressed by the staff.

AFAIK you don't have to be a Wandsworth resident to do the Wandsworth Test.

Don't judge your local school just on the basis of the percentage who get 5 A - C GCSE grades. A local school's results were 26% getting 5 A - C GCSEs including Maths and English - but when the local rag ran an article on the top results they featured a boy from the school who had achieved 14 GCSEs at A* and A!!

You don't have to be a Wandsworth resident to take the Wandsworth test, your ds would take it on a different day (usually a Saturday) along with all the rest of the out-of-borough candidates. To be in with a chance of getting a place at Graveney on the test your ds would need to be getting at least 98%. The catchment area has got slightly bigger as siblings of out-of-catchment pupils who got in on the test no longer get a place, but it's still pretty small. If you could see my dc's playground on results day, and the misery caused when families whose homes are literally within stone-throwing distance of Graveney don't get in, partly because of all the families parachuting in from Balham and Claphm, you might think twice about renting in the catchment

Depending on your financial circumstances, Whitgift (v easy to get to from where you are), Trinity (slightly further but not impossible), Alleyn's and DC all offer bursaries as well as scholarships - Whitgift & Trinity can be especially generous - we know one boy who's got a 50% academic scholarship and another whose parents pay nothing as he has both a scholarship and a bursary. Emanuel (just one 'm') is another option but tbh I have not been impressed by what I've seen of it ...

Other state options are both Ernest Bevin and Chestnut Grove which are improving rapidly - if your ds is at all arty, Chestnut Grove's art is genuinely outstanding, and EB has brilliant sports facilities - and they are no longer considered to be the 'over-my-dead-body' placements they once were ....

What about Ashcroft Technology Academy - isn't that nearish to you?

DS1 is at Dunraven (and DS2 will be going next year) The catchment area is tiny, something like 0.5 mile. Last year they had 1600 applications for 190 places, that's more applications than they actually have pupils at the school. They are very strict on following up any suspicion of address rigging, I really wouldn't risk it

We considered Graveney as it seems like a very good school, but it doesn't have automatic sibling admission criteria, so although DS1 (brain box) might have got in, DS2 (artistic and creative, but definitely not academic) would never have got in.

If we could have afforded fees, or weren't trying to consider DS2 when we were looking for DS1, Alleyns and Whitgift, and maybe Dulwich College would have been top of our list.

We're totally out of catchment for Chestnut grove and Ashcroft. Have been round Lambeth Academy; lots of the parents I know through DS's primary school have older kids there and nobody has anything especially positive to say about it especially re: social issues - bullying etc. DS very sensitive as I said, it is a worry. Care far more about him being happy and motivated than about results per se - I went to a very results-oriented school and was miserable.

Don't think we'd qualify for large bursaries, would hate to tutor DS into a place then have to turn it down.

Moving into catchment is morally dodgy, totally understand that, and the concept makes me feel a bit sick (especially if it might not work!) - but I don't want DS to be completely miserable for his secondary school career just because we can't move permanently.

I've been in your position in your area and I sympathise. The sheer number of variables is mind boggling and the lack of certainty is very stressful.

You can maximise your chances by not to dismissing schools on the basis that they are too far. Kids travel a long way in London to secondary school - it's just the way it is - and it's not necessarily a bad thing. They learn to be responsible and to cope in unpredictable situations. You might not be able to imagine them doing it now, but when they're 11 they're desperate to travel with their friends. My son travels daily from Battersea to Graveney on a regular bus with many other local kids - it takes around half an hour.

What about the excellent Sutton boys' grammars? Lots of boys travel to Wilson's and Wallington from Clapham Junction - Wallington has a coach pick-up from the station and Wilson's is five minutes from Waddon station. Or travelling on the Overground from CJ to Kensington Olympia, I've seen crowds of boys heading to selective state secondaries the Oratory and Cardinal Vaughan. And at 7.30am you can see about 30 Whitgift boys on the platform at Wandsworth Common station without a parent in site.

Also, don't give up on a selective place at schools such as Graveney. Stats such as "3000 kids applying for 65 places" are wildly misleading because the same pool of children is applying to all the selective schools. Three thousand might sit the test, but many of those will get places at higher preference schools, at independent schools and so on. It's not an accurate guide.

You will absolutely not get into The Oratory unless you are Catholic. Don't know about Cardinal Vaughan.

The Sutton grammars are painfully difficult to get into - children are tutored for ages for the tests.

Whitgift is walking distance from South Croydon station but they run school buses from all over. Trinity actually have staff members meeting boys at Clapham Junction for the first term to help them get used to the route so a fair number of boys must come from that direction.

The Whitgift Foundation scale is here - the top end is pretty high!

Friend of mine has a son who started at Whitgift this term: she's really enthusiastic about it.

She takes him to Clapham Junction station in the mornings, and he does the rest of the journey himself - encountering plenty of other pupils en route.

All the selective state schools are fiercely competitive (probably getting more so as cssh-strapped parents seek to leave the private sector).

Wandeworth is considering allowing a new secondary free school on the Bolingbroke Hospital site; no idea what the target opening date is, but I expect it'll be immediately colonized by Belleville and Honeywell families.

DS1 has a scholarship/bursary at a very academic boys private school - which adds up to a completely free place. We thought we might qualify for lots of assistance but we weren't sure, so the admissions department at the school gave us the bursary forms the year before, told us to fill them out with our present details and then gave us a (completely non-binding of course!) estimate of how much help we might get. Getting the scholarships, helped of course - they seem to be more keen to give financial help to boys at the upper end of the scale. We didn't tutor for the exams but we did do some past papers to give him an idea of what would happen. And we were completely clear to him that going to the school was dependent on getting lots of financial help. He is the sort of child that can really cope with that kind of pressure though.

I'm in a similar situation - Lambeth Academy seems very iffy according to the grapevine although I haven't visited it (I have nearer state options) - and I have no idea why its GCSE results are so atrocious.
DD will almost definitely be having a pop at Graveney - does anyone know how I can get hold of examples of the Wandsworth entrance test?

Grr as well at lots of out of borough dcs in schools that their council taxes dont pay for - drives you mad doesnt it Basildonbond - thats the Greenwich judgement thing though...

Whitgift very good though OP - though very pressured - is your ds sporty?

I thought Kumon was for younger dcs as well tbh - isnt it about learning by rote and not the concepts?

Are you sure you're out of catchment for CG? My friend's ds has just started and they are absloutley Claphamites. And it's going well for him too, by all accounts. He's arty and sensitive.

The Graveney test (and I think the Dunraven one is the same,) is standard NVR and VR, with no surprises. So standard books from W H Smith will give you all you need.

You can add Tiffin to your list of selective schools, too.

If your ds is somewhere near (a projected) achieving level 5 in the NC things for yr 6, he will almost certainly get a place at one of the selective schools/streams. Really.

Others have pointed out that there are a lot of private options, too.

I think SW London is one of those rare areas in London where you would be entitled to ease of the stress a little.

Btw - you may find kumon is a bit pointless at this stage. They have a thing about starting right at the beginning, which is only a very good thing when sung by Julie Andrews.

CG went to 2.6 miles last year

If your ds is somewhere near (a projected) achieving level 5 in the NC things for yr 6, he will almost certainly get a place at one of the selective schools/streams. Really.

Absolutely in my DS's experience - good advice.

The Wandsworth test is a closely guarded paper - there are no example papers or past papers to work from that we were able to find. It is VR and NVR - 60 questions each, and each divided into 6 10-question sections. Each section is timed -so they're given one section and a short time to complete it, then that's taken away and they are given the next section and so on and so on. So they not only have to know the answers, they also have to be able to work speedily. Bond 10-minute practice papers are excellent preparation from that point of view.

Dunraven is a different system - a whole morning of maths, English, NVR and VR. But unlike Graveney they don't offer selective places to those that perform the best - they split their offers into ability bands of equal proportions.

Hmm, thanks for kumon thoughts - it's so much cheaper than a tutor I thought it might be a good option. NC maths very much not my strong suit.

CrystalChandelier did your DC take the Graveney test then? Can I ask what your backup plan was?

Distance is the last thing I am bothered about really - I went to school in Hammersmith and girls came from all over to join us. Money is a bigger issue. If we rented in the catchment area for Graveney or Dunraven it would cost a lot, but less than a year's fees at a private school.

Tiffin was on my 'list'- had not heard of Whitgift or St Dunstan's, thankyou for that. Keen to have a 'spread' if we do apply for private schools so Ds doesn't end up being tutored to within an inch of his life then at Lambeth Academy anyway.

We called Chestnut Grove and they said in so many words we had no chance - it might be a boundaries thing?

Thanks CrystalChandelier I thought I was being stupid by not being able to find examples of Wandsworth test - so it's reassuring to know it's not just me. I'll give the various tests a go, if only to know whether Graveney is a realistic possibility (or even Tiffin Girls, though that would be a horrible commute).

Tisane, yes DS took the Graveney test and got a place, but he wasn't unusual in his state primary school (Belleville) - six children got ability places at Graveney this year.

You are given the option to name name six schools on the preference form, so our back-up plans (or the others we listed as lower preferences) were two of the Sutton grammars (he passed the tests and no, he wasn't tutored and again he was by no means alone among Belleville boys in that - they are tricky but not impossible and you can download practice papers on the schools' websites), Harris Crystal Palace, Ashcroft Academy (they were far away but are good schools and have a few places for kids who are good at technology regardless of where they live so worth a shot). and Dunraven.

Can you get to open evenings this Autumn? If so would recommend going along and listening to heads' talks, even though it's a year early. It will give you a head start in gathering information at least.

We have been in vaguely similar situation in neighbouring postcode. I would strongly suggest that you get to some open days this year - if you have no obvious local option, you may want to look at quite a few and the dates may clash or be impossible next year. If you have any concerns over ethos/behaviour/teaching, I would make sure you go for one of the open day tours on a working day (another reason for doing some at least this year so you are not taking too much time off work next year).

Don't waste time looking for any sense in the system - there isn't any. Just drill down to the details of admissions policies and note any that have either no distance criteria (not only the grammars) or have a category - aptitude/ability/whatever/jump through hoop - outside the distance criteria (eg Graveney). If you go to each LEA's website you can download the secondary transfer booklets so this is not as daunting as it seems. And note details of each and every school for which you might qualify on distance - there are plenty of children doing very well and happily in schools that the GSG has never heard of. The go round them, back the Head or head of admissions into a corner, and ask for precise details of distances (both for National Offer Day and for, say, by the time September term starts), pass marks etc etc. They are usually helpful and sympathetic as long as you choose your moment, and make it clear you just want the facts.

I agree about not being too put off by a reasonable journey but would think hard about anything that takes more than an hour door to door. I think short bus and train journeys do give children a chance to be independent, make friends, and get the hang of London.

For the independent schools, I would get in touch and ask about financial support - you mention scholarships but bursaries may also be an option. Each school has different arrangements but they will be used to dealing with these questions. All are completely outside the CAF system and the application deadlines and therefore the open days often run on through November.

If you find a school that you will qualify for on distance where you would be happy-ish for your son to go, definitely include it on the form even if you prefer, and put higher, five selective/more distant options. Then you maximise the chance of getting an offer on National Offer Day and you can always accept it and pursue waiting list places for higher-placed schools.
Good luck.

Thanks crystalchandeliers and twoterrors, we will go to open days. The GSG catchment search seems to list all the schools, I'll check the LA website too.

Somewhere like Croydon would be easy as it would be a short bus ride to clapham junction then a very short train journey. A vast distance (N London for example), would be out on practical terms.

twoterrors, can I ask what the outcome of your situation was? All straws gratefully grasped at!