Hi all, I would really appreciate some advice from Kent parents please.
We're moving from London to the Tonbridge/Sevenoaks area in January (renting initially) and ideally I'd like my son (currently Year 2) to go to one of the local grammars for secondary. We've been looking at state and prep schools and I'm trying to decide which route would be best. Private school would be doable but a bit of a stretch, and I also like the idea of him doing lots of sport, which seems to be a key feature of most of the Prep Schools we've been investigating.
I'm thinking that the small class sizes will mean that the children are really well prepared for the 11+ and it looks as if the schools get really good results. One school states on their website that they had a 97% pass rate, but what I'm not clear about is how meaningful this really is - i.e. do all children sit the test or just those that are likely to pass?
But I'd really like to get an idea for how easy/difficult it is for children from state schools to get into the grammars (assuming that they are of appropriate ability)? Would I be better saving my money and send him to a state school and pay for a tutor? I've really liked the state schools I've looked at so far and I'm not sure if I can justify spending £15,000/year when he would probably be perfectly happy at one of those, especially when he can do lots of sport outside of school, but I also don't want to look back and wish I'd done more to help him. At the moment he's in a private primary with small class sizes, mainly because the state options weren't what we wanted, but I think he would cope ok with bigger class sizes, I just worry that he won't get the attention he (and we) have been used to.
Apologies in advance if this comes across as overly pushy/competitive. I'm aware that the culture in London is a bit different to Kent - which is partly why we're moving!