Best time to move to private school

[Darlingspring]

Our plan is to send our children to private school for senior years (7-13.) However, I’m not sure whether it might be best to see about moving them a bit earlier. As things stand, just about everyone at the primary school they will attend goes to the same (state) secondary and I can imagine it might be difficult for DC to go through Y6 and be going somewhere else, and potentially then start at a new school with established friendship groups.

There are two school years between our children.

DD1 started in a private secondary school last September having gone to state primary. She was the only person from her primary school to go there and she didn't know anyone there. I was worried about established friendship groups from the private primary but she has been absolutely fine and made some great friends.

Almost all of her Y6 class went to the same secondary but that didn't seem to bother her. She was nervous beforehand but has settled in really well.

DD2 is still a few years away from that point but we have had a conversation about sending her in Y5. But we will see closer to the time.

You could do the ‘state til 8’ thing - ie move them after yr 4. DD is in yr 5 and it seems that this is the year that friendships are getting really embedded and then they bond through the whole yr 6 leavers thing too.

But I wouldn’t overthink it! I’m sure they’d be fine moving up after yr 6 too

@Flockameanie i was considering that. I think when I move one I’d want to move the other, so one start of y5, one start of y3 maybe?

We moved DD to start Yr 7 from state primary to private secondary. The original plan was to send her for Yr 6 to help the transition but she loved her state primary and had a really good friendship group that we made the decision to wait until Yr 7 when they would all naturally be going their separate ways anyway. It gave us another year to save up for fees too.
Yr 7 in the private school is 50/50 kids from the prep/state school kids so she definitely wasn't in a minority.

When do they have a big entry point? I’d go then.

@Darlingspring My DD stayed in state to y6. Then went boarding. No one else did. It didn’t matter to her. However when we wanted to send her to a prep in y4, she was very much wanting to stay with friends. Not that they turned out to be real friends and at y6 she really wanted to move on and make new friends. Which she did. Very successfully. DD did move to a prep in y4. So, I think it depends on friends and whether they want new friends for 2/3 years.

Also, good schools might not have vacancies. Our fantastic prep did. In London it would be more difficult at y5 for example. Plus the curriculum might be different. That’s why it’s “state to 8”. Or end of ks1 now.

Do what suits your children and the options local to you. We went private from 3 to 11 and grammar for secondary as those were the best options for us and that was what DD needed (and we could afford!). Most of the boys schools only had entrance at Y3 and no earlier so there was lot of movement in the co-ed pre-preps at that time. Most of the girls schools started earlier.