Do you let your DC pick their secondary school?

[Dreamerinme]

We are starting to visit the local secondary school open evenings this month and I’ve had conversations with a few other primary school
parents - people just chatting about what they thought etc of each school.

One parent was very strongly of the opinion that the child alone should choose where they want to go as they are the ones who have to go there.

It got me thinking about the approach DH and I have thought - we will visit them all this year (DC is y5) and then again next year. We will shortlist the schools that, amongst other criteria, we feel meets our DC’s needs (awaiting assessment for dyspraxia), but this doesn’t meet the threshold for an EHCP etc. So, we need to ensure that a school is willing and able to provide appropriate support (which he is getting now in primary).

Then we intend to discuss all the options with DC and hopefully come to a mutual agreement. If we don’t then I guess DH and I have the final say as I’m not sure that a then-10yo has the ability to see the bigger picture.

What do other people do?

Yeah, we did. He had three sensible preferences, we were happy with them all. I guess if he had tried to pick something crazy we would have had to put a stop to it.

My elder 2 wanted to go to the secondary school that I preferred anyway, so that wasn't an issue, but we had a bit of conflict with the youngest who campaigned quite vigorously to go elsewhere. We did listen to him but ultimately overruled him as we didn't think he was making a logical decision. He was very focused on it being where a number of his friends from his sports team went, and where one of his coaches was also a teacher. However there were lots of logistical and academic reasons why I wanted him to go to the same school,as his siblings and the friends he wanted to be with weren't even in the same year. At 10, attending a very small primary school where year groups did mix a lot he really couldn't grasp that he'd be very unlikely to even see his friends at the secondary, and if they did meet it was highly unlikely that Year 9s would want to hang out with a Year 7. I don't think many children in year 6 can really weigh up all the pros and cons of different schools and as parents sometimes we really do know best.
When my DS got to applying for Sixth Form I asked him if he wanted to go to the open day at his previous preferred school and he looked at me as if I'd gone mad. By that age he could see a lot of the issues that were obvious to me all along and he appreciated that we had made him go to the better school and not allowed him to make a decision that he was really too young for.

Yes, good point. We did in fact explain the whole process to our son, including how difficult it was to predict the outcome of state school admissions, and why. He was an intelligent boy and seemed OK with it. In the event our top preference state school was the most oversubcribed state school in the country that year (from memory, there were more than 20 applicants for every place - this was a long time ago, birth rate was high in his year!) and we wouldn't have got a place for him unless we'd lived next door to it, which we didn't (we lived half a mile away), so that was that.

Yes we did talk to dc but ultimately I feel the choice was ours.

YY about explaining the process and the fact there is actually little choice.

A bit of both, I wouldn't force my DC to go to a school they really didn't like but also I wouldn't let them go to a school that was very inconvenient for travel or poorly rated just because that was their choice

No.
No way were mine mature enough to choose their secondary school.
We listened to their input, but we made the decision.
They got to choose their college and college course.

Yours sounds like a very sensible approach. Unfortunately there are many adults who don't seem to appreciate the difference between a preference and a choice, so there is little hope for their children's understanding.

When DD was in Y6 I was absolutely clear with her that we wouldn't know for certain her destination until after offer day (we would have been unlucky not to get a place for our first preference but she was in a very high birth rate year and there were no guarantees). She found it very frustrating that most of her class would announce confidently that they were definitely going to St X or Y Academy when we had instilled such caution in her. In the event, a number of those children didn't get a place in their first preference and I think it made the uncertainty of appeals etc even harder for them.

There was only one realistic option for my dc but we would have asked their opinion if there had been other choices. We took them to the open evenings and asked them if they liked it but like I say there wasn't another option.

No! Absolutely not.

This is a prime example of a decision parents need to make. Don’t delegate it to your ten year old. That’s passing the buck.

Of course make the decision with your child’s best interests at heart, including whether they’ll be happy at the school. So if you have a choice and don’t already know your child well enough, make sure you have this conversation and take it into account.

We knew we would get first choice (adopted), but took a clear approach of 'both schools in town are good, different school suit different pupils, we have chosen the one we think will suit you best'.

What surprised me was the number of parents who said 'my child will go to X as that is where I went'.

If the child has no specific needs, yes I agree with going with which school dc prefer best. But if they have specific needs, then that's a total different story. The best school that they can support dc is the best school for them.

I’ve just done DS’s application. His “choice” was either our catchment school or sitting the very competitive academic test for one of 20 places at the church school. He didn’t want to sit the test.

We checked out the catchment school last year in case we felt we’d need to move.

There are two schools in our town, and they're pretty similar. DD doesn't have any SEN.

We all preferred the out of catchment school but DD didn't feel it was so much better it was worth a 40 minute walk and she wanted to stay with her friends. We saw no reason to overrule her. If she'd wanted us to put the out of catchment school top we would have done.

It would be a different matter if we could afford private, there are a couple of options and I'm not sure if we would have all agreed. An 11yo doesn't necessarily have the ability to make the best decision but equally they're old enough to sabotage it if they're really determined to hate a school.

I wasn’t going to let the responsibility of choosing where to go sit on my 10 year old’s shoulders - it’s way too much. I also made DH come round as well so it didn’t rest on me either. We did say her opinion was really important and we would listen to what she had to say and take it into account and would carry weight. We all sat down and went through pros and cons and agreed top choice - thankfully unanimous. (Both schools are good so we probably wouldn’t have overruled if she’d have desperately wanted the other one.)

DC each had the choice of a single sex or a coed school and both chose single sex. Both were good schools so it was up to them.

We approached it as a joint decision agreeing that both parents and child had a say.

We reminded the child that no one actually gets a choice. What we all get to do is express a preference so no one should be firmly set on any one school.

We explained that while DC has the best and most recent experience of being 10 and is probably best placed to judge the school that is most suitable for themselves as an 11 year old, they have no experience at all of being 14/15/16 and the human brain develops so much in those years that Mum & Dad are better placed to know what's likely to be best for those years.

Everyone's first choice gets included on the application form. Mum and Dad choose what order to put them on. We all know we may be assigned an entirely different school in the end.

We let DS choose. He’s clever, and will do ok anywhere, and tbh, I think the teaching is much the same at any of our options. He chose the geographically closest one, which is a valid reason.

No choice here. Will only get a place at the catchment school so that’s what we have visited and that’s where she will go. Others are miles away with logistic challenges to get there and back anyway so it makes the most sense.

There seemed to be a lot of choice when I was moving up to secondary school but where we live now there’s zero choice (unless we have £££ to go private)

We chose together.

We got a feel for most of the schools in the area, narrowed it down to those that might be acceptable, and took her to those only.

We explained there were no guarantees (and for some she’d have to pass a test and win a place), but we got her to rank the schools and worked from there. She’s going to her overall favourite now and is happy so far.

You can’t let them just choose as they are too young and inexperienced to know all the things they may need to consider. It’s also putting too much responsibility on them. But I do believe in letting them choose within guiderails. She knew the final decision would always be ours, but from the options we gave her, her opinion would have a massive sway.

My parents let me choose and it was a big mistake- the school I thought I wanted at 10 wasn't the school that was best for me (I mean I did well academically but in other ways it wasn't good).

DD is in year 6 and we're 'choosing', but she has SEN and I prefer single sex which narrows it down considerably to basically one choice which we are within furthest distance quite comfortably. I'm also a governor at the first choice school so I know it very well.

Fancy-schmancy academy locally does a really hard sell on the kids but is a lottery system, which means only a couple from each class tend to get it and there is then a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from kids who thought they were going there.

I think it is too big a responsibility for the child, by all means let them have their say, but ultimately it needs to be the parents’ responsibility.

Eldest we chatted over options but ultimately catchment school was second choice and first choice was the closest one (tho out of catchment)
Youngest is now year 6. We are taking her round all 3 options. But I have already applied for her place at eldest school. It would be a nightmare travel wise to be in 2 different schools, opposite directions. As bus to catchment is unreliable. No regular buses here and I have work to get to. This does mean her little friendship group may split but that may happen if they ended up at the same schools anyway.

I let DS decide the order in which we put all the suitable schools down. I'd ruled out some schools for different reasons but of the ones that were a potential he decided the order.

He also ruled out a grammar school for while I liked it, he felt the culture wasn't a good fit. And the other grammar school was ruled out due to the rude kids.