Devoted siblings, some secondaries only available to eldest - good reason to eliminate them?

[reawakeningambition]

Has anyone had the experience of having to tell a younger sibling they couldn't go to their older sibing's school - or was anyone that younger sibling?

As some of you lovely people will remember from my other thread, we have a "good" comp. at the end of the street but our head has suggested we consider an over-the-border selective or private selective for DS1.

What may be the deciding issue, however, is that his little brother would not be able to go to the selectives, because he is year-deferred (an August-born who started reception at 5.0) so can only avoid skipping a year if he stays in our LEA and goes to the comp.

I think this may be a clincher - if DS2 just wasn't academic, it would be one thing - but that isn't the issue. It's his year-deferral that has never been a big deal before but could suddenly become an enormous deal if he couldn't follow his beloved brother to the school of his choice.

in all honesty, once they get to secondary they will split up more any way, so denying your older son the opportunity because the younger one can't join him seems a bit extreme. Look at it this way, if your older son played a team sport/activity the younger one could not do, would you stop the older one (for example scouts where they divide by age)
My sister and I were very close, we went to the same school (back in the day when you just went to your local school, no choices) she barely spoke to me at school!
If your ds wants to try for the selective/private option, then let him do so based on his needs.

I think you have to focus on each child as its their turn and whether ds2 can go too should be irrelevant

If the year deferral wasn't an issue you still couldn't guarantee that if your first son got into a selective school your second son would get in as well. Presumably your second son didn't only go to school a year late to prevent him being the youngest in the year, so if he has other reasons for him being educated outside of his year group it may well be that the schools that best suit each of your children are different.

I personally would not make the choice for one child based on whether a sibling could also go there, especially if it meant settling for a less preferred school, which your other options may or may not be for you. Your older son's choices shouldn't be restricted by his brother's options, especially if it means he might miss out on going to the best school for him.

Even if they end up going to the same secondary they will probably hardly have anything to do with each other during the school day anyway.

Is the private selective not an option for both ? Criteria and circumstances might change over time anyway , how old are your dc ? Agree a lot of siblings go to different schools and in many ways a direct comparison with less competition can be better for each.

thank you, those replies are very helpful.

the younger one is probably going to be the "cleverer" - it's his social and communication skills (it was language skills back in the day but that's over now) that made him a candidate to year defer. Basically, we didn't know if he was just delayed+quirky or autistic.

If I could choose, i would send the older one to a comp. (his attitude to being surrounded by less able kids is "well, I'll help them" and he seems to manage it - he's a leader) whereas I would send the younger one to selective.

But that's not the way it's going to be. The younger one would have to miss year 6 if he went to selective which would be bound to outweigh any advantage of going there. And the older one wants to go comp.

So comp. PTA committee for me it is, I think.....

I guess it's like any choice in life.. it takes a while to accept it.