Divorce and where to live for good grammar/selective comprehensives in London/SE

[Sooverit1001]

looking for advice from wise Mumsnetters!

Unfortunately it looks like my marriage is at an end and I am looking at relocating (currently in Fulham) to somewhere cheaper for my 5 year old DS and self. DS is currently in a pre prep and doing very academically, with advanced reading age and very good maths ability - thd expectation has been for him to do 7+. He is about to finish Reception.

It is also highly likely that my husband will refuse to pay any school fees or offer minimal support going forward. Therefore I am hoping to move to outer London/se to send my son to a prep which has comparatively low fees (and maybe a scholarship/bursary programme) which is on a grammar/selective school area with good comprehensive schools. I have in mind Surbiton, Sutton, New Malden, Kingston and May consider Bucks/Leigh on Sea (though prefer not to go further east if poss as wider family are based in north west). Any advice and/or recommendations please? Many thanks!

DS is a shy and non sporty little boy, though loves learning generally.

I would second what @AngelsWithSilverWings has said. I hope my pm helped @Sooverit1001 .

We live in Leigh and our DC all went to/are at the grammars and doing really well. Mine all went through state primaries though and I did basic 11+ prep with them myself.

I wouldn’t have said any of the private schools round here have low fees-will you be paying fees alone?

Bucks is a 100% selective education system. My children are at / were at (now at Uni) SWBGS in Marlow. Generally it only allocated to 3 miles so not all of catchment. GMS is the non grammar- it is excellent and has many high achieving students. Marlow state primaries are good. If you are considering grammars remember you child is statistically more likely not to qualify then qualify so only move somewhere where you would happily attend both the grammar or upper.

Would Redbridge also be in the catchment for the regular Essex consortium schools (eg KEGS westcliff boys)?

To get a ‘local’ place at Westcliff or Southend (ie getting the basic mark of 303), you’d need to live within the ss0-9 postcodes.

Its correct that Bucks doesn’t have comps. It cannot due to the high percentage going to grammars

Sorry to be pedantic but this isn’t accurate. Bucks doesn’t have comprehensive schools as it’s education system is based on the principle of 100% selection. Unlike possibly every where else this is county wide and is opt out as opposed to opt in. The principle of comprehensive schools is that they are the opposite of a selective system having come into being when the majority of grammars were abolished. Bucks has grammars and uppers (which would have been secondary Moderns in old money). As I said in my previous post GMS is superb - you can’t compare results between that and SWBGS as they have v different cohorts.

I think @TizerorFizz was meaning that in an area where 25-30% of pupils are educated in grammar schools then by definition the rest of the schools aren't comprehensives because they don't educate all the children.

I understand what @TizerorFizz was implying but was trying to emphasise that the Bucks education model is the antithesis of comprehensive education - it’s not that they can’t be comps due to selection it’s that they aren’t intended to be. People often move to Bucks failing to understand the education model and this can lead to upset if their children aren’t selected at 11+. It never ceases to surprise me that despite most parents spending years stressing about the 11+ how many still have major misunderstandings about the system.

Ha, yes! I moved to Bucks before I had children and certainly knew nothing about it at all. When the Conservatives start banging on about more grammar schools, I always say to myself 'but no one is crying out for more Secondary Moderns', it's generally only people who assume their DCs will get into a grammar school who are in favour of them.

DD2 went to Secondary Modern and has done well, but there's no doubt she had to be a lot more self-disciplined, focused and determined to do so than her siblings at grammar.

Yes. I did mean the non grammars could not be comprehensive. They mostly have the highest of the high achievers missing. However some will have plenty of high achievers with plus 100 in sats. Many upper schools here do well. My DF went to a grammar in 1911. I have lived here all my life.

If you want to stay in South London, look at Graveney - partially selective comprehensive in Tooting - or Dunraven in Streatham. Charter in Dulwich used to have an odd entry system -was it lottery? Kingsdale? Also in Dulwich.

@KittyMcKitty
Of course the secondary moderns in Bucks were not intended to be comps. Bucks has never been comprehensive. Some grammars here are ancient and it was the tripartite system after WW2. So we had grammars, eg Royal Latin, Dr Challoners, and Technical High schools, eg Chesham and Sir Henry Floyd, and secondary moderns, eg Brudenell in Amersham (now the Amersham School) etc. Until some new secondary moderns were built, in some cases as late as the 1950/1960s, DCs actually went all through in primary schools! In my home town our neighbours DC never went to a secondary modern: there wasn’t one.