how difficult is it to get into private secondary if at state primary?

[peanutbuttersarnies]

I know this is a big generalisation. But hopibg people can give me a rough idea. State primary is good but not brilliant.
We only have 2 private secondarys close by. I think children do often do state primary then attend these seconadary schools. So it can be done. But i am not sure how difficult the entrance exam is likely to be. Do children normally need extra tutoring for exams?
We are in scotland. The schools are good, but not top 10 in the uk or anything.

We are trying to decide if we should do state primary private secondary. Or if we need to move to somewherewith a better secondary. The local secondary isnt that good. But i have started to worry that there is no guarantee of a place in a private secondary school.

The question really is how selective are the schools? They will give you an indication of what they are looking for.

We are in Scotland as well and DS started at a private school this year (P7). His state primary school was "ok"- very very good his first few years but has been in a rapid decline recently. Our intention had been to have him apply to several private schools for S1 entry but I had a complete wobble as he hasn't sat those sorts of test before. Instead we had him apply for P7 to our top two school choices, viewing it as a sort of test run if he weren't accepted. Fortunately he was accepted to both schools and in hindsight, moving him for P7 was a very good decision.

He didn't have any formal tutoring. I did have him run through a sample 11+ exam over the course of a few nights. I know the 11+ wasn't really an appropriate example, but it was the closest I could find and I think by doing so he actually found the entrance exams much easier! Running through a sample VR test was greatly beneficial and it's worth doing that if the schools you are looking at carry out a VR test.

Thanks. I will get in touch with schools and see if i can get the answers to these questions

Ds was in state primary until the end of Year 5, then moved to prep school. In the end of Year 5 I got him to complete sample 11+ papers for a couple of private secondaries and he did them quite easily. So it is definitely possible, peanutbuttersarnies. Try the sample papers published on the schools' websites. Also, his primary should be able to advise you how well he is placed for 11+ exams.

PrettyBelle op is in Scotland and they don't do 11+ there.

My DD was at state primary, our local school, not wonderful though but we had few options. Local secondary was dire though so we looked at going private. We applied for s1 entry. DD didn't get any tutoring, I just found out what type of entance exams they had (maths, english, reasoning etc) and did a few practice papers of the type that she was unfamiliar with. It must have helped as she was offered 2 places (out of 3)

You are correct there is no guarantee of a place but your primary school should be able to give an idea if it is achievable. It might also be possible to find out what sort of competition there is for places. Our was like this:
school 1: 120 sat for 40 places
school 2: 150 sat for 70 places
school 3: 40 sat for 25 places
Having said that, many people applied for multiple places like us.

Where I am the house prices near the best state schools are unaffordable for us so moving into a school catchment area wasn't an option.

Thanks. We are similar re house prices. A similar housein good catchment area is 200-300k more. So it makes me wonder if i would be better spending money to get private education for them.

I agree that it all depends on how selective the school is and how bright the child.

Its just hard to predict how bright my kids will be. Seem pretty bright to me, but thats what every mum thinks!!

Do check what numbers they admit in P6/P7 vs S1 as many of them don't take many more after P7. Also we found in one Edinburgh school in particular that if you hadn't been there all the way through from Primary then you were seen almost as a second class citizen especially for top sports teams/ head boy/girl etc.