ds1 is at grammar school, not sure ds2 will pass the 11 plus.....

[tigermoth]

My older son passed the 11+ in a neighbouring borough and goes to a grammaar school. He really loves it there and is thriving.

My younger son is in year 5. If he passes the borough's 11+ in September, he will pretty much be guaranteed a place at ds1's grammar school, due to the sibling at school admissions policy.

But, I feel that ds2 has a different sort of brain to ds1 - imaginative but not massively academic.

ds2 very much wants to join his brother at grammar school. So I feel I have to give him the same chance as his brother. He is gettting some tutoring and I am going through some 11+ questions with him at home from time to time. But I am keeping it low key.

At the same time, I've found out about another, non selective secondary school that I think would suit ds2 really well. I have enthused ds2 about it, too Problem is, it is massively oversubscribed. It is also out of our borough. We will apply and hope!

All the nearby non selective schools do not get good results and are not improving either, though I am trying to keep an open mind.

As it stands, the most likely thing will be that ds2 will go to one of the non selective schools nearby. On paper at least, the school will be a much worse school than the one ds1 goes to.

I'd be interested to hear from people who have been in this situation or who are facing it - one child at grammar, one child at state non selective school.

bump!

We might have this same problem as my DD is naturally very bright, keen to learn and anything she finds hard is due to her lack of confidence rather than lack of ability.

Her older brother is also pretty bright but will probably have to try a bit harder.

I have already told DH that DD will go to the best school for her and will not be held back if DS1 doesn't make the grade for grammer school.

I know you aren't proposing to do this but I guess my point is you have to take each child as a separate being with different needs and abilities.

HTH.

Hiya Tigermoth!
I'm delighted to hear your ds is thriving at the GS
It's certainly a tricky situation this one and emphasizes all the negatives of selection at 11.

We try desperately - as I'm sure you do - not to compare the boys, but it is inevitable that others will compare them and that they will compare themselves with each other.

We try and focus on their different talents and strengths and encourage them to be individual.

We don't have selective schools, so don't have the problems you have. But it will be hard for ds2 (though very able himself) to follow in ds1's footsteps at the secondary school. But hopefully he will have different teachers so the comparisions won't be so direct and he won't be permanently in ds1's shadow.

due to over-subscribing there is a possiblity that dd2 will not go to the same (state) school that her brother and sister have gone to.

ditto means that that the dds may well not get into the secondary school that ds is going to (has a place already).

lots of emphasis on how diferent people are good at different things and suit different types of learning/types of schools. i don't think the state v grammar need to come into it really, just that different places suit different people

I suppose it was easier for us that the child who DID get into grammar was the younger child.

DD was considered a "dead cert" but it wasn't to be. She went to the local catchment comprehensive and thrived. She now has an offer from Cambridge.

DS was selected and he too loves his school. (Upset his sister a bit though that he was deemed "cleverer".)

Oh, t'moth. That sounnds very hard. I don't have any advice really- I guess bigging up all schools there is a realistic possibility of him attending is a good plan. But I would check which schools definitely are a realistic possibility before bigging them up, personally. Have you looked at the school you like out of borough's website to see what they say about admission policies? One of the schools I would love mine to go to openly states that no one who lives more that 2000 metres away has ever got in, for example, so I have stopped bigging that one up as we are slightly further away than that! What does the tutor think about his chances of passing? I would be extremely tempted not to put him in for it all if there is very little chance of him passing, tbh.

My DS got into a boys' grammar school, DD 2 years later didn't get into the girls' one (actually the same schools as Milliways' DC) though I think if DD had had the same exam as DS did, she'd have got in - she did verbal & non-verbal reasoning, he did non-verbal, English & Maths)

She always said she didn't care, she'd rather be with her friends & the non-selective but fairly high achieving school she went to got her very similar GCSE results to DS's.

She didn't stay there for 6th form - she went to a sixth form college in the next county which insisted all students did 5 A levels, so in the end she came out better on paper than DS, whose grammar school always said that 3 good A levels was better than 4 or 5 mediocre ones (though I think a few do do more than 3)

I do think that until she got her 5 A's, she always had a feeling that she had to prove she's as 'good' as DS though.

I am in the same boat as you! DD at grammar, DS in yr 5 and taking 11+ in Sept. All i can say is that I am doing exactly the same as i did with DD which is looking at papers at home to give him best chance possible. What will be, will be....
However, DD loves her school and thinks the teachers makes the lessons interesting and I can't help thinking he would thrive there. He is a bright boy but not very good at concentrating and can be a bit immature - he is one of the youngest in the class so maybe he has a bit of growing up to do?
Our local Comps are not all that good and i can't help feeling he would end up not achieving very much at all. Not sure this helps you much, but at least you are not alone with this problem.

This happened to some relations who live in Essex. Although, as Essex only selects the top 5%, it was always going to be a possibility. Many of the comprehensives there are actually quite good, because they only lose the top 5%, so still have plenty of bright motivated children.

It also happened to other relations in Kent. Kent grammars are a lot less selective, which has a negative knock on effect for the local comprehensives. Child 2 went on to get good GCSE's (not as good as sibling) and is doing A'Levels now. He will do fine, and will go to university. It is a compelling argument against grammar schools. Great if you get in, not so good on the other side.

I know lots of people who have one at state grammar school and their other children at state comprehensives.

Like another poster said, our GS is very 'super' selective so the knock on effect on the local comps is not a problem. The siblings at the comps do just as well (some better!) at GCSE (possibly an element of 'something to prove').

Also your other child may yet surprise you and get a place at the GS. Just because he doesn't seem to be as 'academic' at the moment he still may pass the test.

THis may happen to us. Dd1 is at a moderately selective GS, but there's no equivalent boys' school for ds. All the available selective schools are super-selective, and I'm not sure that's him, really. I'm making him do a bit of preparation, but I'm not going to shoehorn him in there if he can't do it under his own steam.

We have an okay comp locally with a good arty bias and reasonable academic results for inner london. He's okay with that as a concept I think -- you just have to downplay the idea of the test as a way of 'getting into' a school, and spin it as a way of 'finding out whether the school is right for you'.

Same here - one at a selective school with no sibling policty and younger ds unlikely to get in (we think) as his mathematics is relatively weak.

All the recent playground talk about schools and "who got into where" has not helped and his confidence has gone right down. One of his mates in the year above, didn't get into a school he was expected to, and this has lead DS to saying that he won't pass either. So now when I mention the local comp alternative (as a means to avoid too much pressure being put upon him) he says "ok I'll go there and then I don't have to take the other tests".

Aggghhhh, the two local selectives are SO much better than the comp and I honesty think will suit him best. But its so tricky trying to motivate him to do the preparation work to at least give him a chance of getting in and at the same time avoid him feeling like a failure, and a lesser DC, if he doesn't get in.

As frogs said you really have to push the idea that you are selecting the school, not the other way round and that if he doesn't pass then it is not the right environment for him. Also push all the positives of the other school.
Although we are using the independent sector I have 2 sons at schools literally at opposing ends of the academic spectrum. It would have been detrimantal to the younger one to put him through common entrance. They seemed to have accepted their different paths without much questioning. Actually, I think it would have been much worse to have them both at the same school with the older one achieving so much higher grades etc. Much less comparisons when they are at different schools.

I've been reading all your words of wisdom with gratitude.

Will come back asap to this thread. Sorry I am so rushed for time right now!

Back at long last! I do like Frogs'idea of saying to ds2 that he and us need to find school that's right for him. Will weave that into a conversation asap.

Scummymummy,the non-selective school I am bigging up to ds2 has got specific admissions criteria, but luckil that's not distance based. We do have a fighting chance of meeting the other criteria(and we are working on improving our chances as much as possible in the coming months). But then again, so do probably a lot of the other boys and girls who are applying for the school. So I know I must enthuse ds2 about the local comps as much as possible, too.

I see that it's not at all uncommon for different siblings to be at both selective and non selective schools. It's good to hear that by A levels, any differences can be ironed out. I do think ds2 is a harder worker than ds1, which helps.

I suspect that with the recession, fewer and fewer parents will be able to afford the private school option if a child doesnt get into grammar school, so more and more families will face this.

Also, it's interesting to see that no one here is suggesting I should make a huge effort to push ds2 into joining his brother at grammar school. I was half expecting someone to come forward to say how they had made a superhuman effort to get all their children to the same grammar school, and how worthwhile it all was.