Moving 7 years old at year 3 to prestigious independent school!

[sindysindysindy]

Hi,
My daughter is 7 years old, she is currently in lovely girls (GDST) school that has a very nuturing environment with great postoral care. She loves her school, friends and teachers a lot. We spend time with her classmates outside the school as well. All most all parents became friends we meet and let the kids have play date at least once in a week. Luckly we all live local so my daughter also goes to swimming and violin lessons with her best friend. They spend so much time together. We have no problem with the school as I mentioned above but we wanted to try 7+ exams for other independent school that known as more selective and academic then my daughters current school. She did really well in all exams, she had 3 offers from other independent schools. We were so happy when we received the results and we decided on the most prestigious local independent school and paid the deposit as well. But my daughter doesn't want to change her school, she doesn't want to move! She keep saying she will miss her friends and school a lot. I tried to explain her that she can still see/meet her friends but she says its not going to be same. She is very bright and academic little girl, basically best in the classroom. I believe academically other school will suit her better but I do not want to make her sad. I checked the previous GSCE grades, my daughters school did %79, and other school %94 for 5 GSCE in grades A*-B. Do you think if she goes to more academic school she will get higher grades? Or she will do good anywhere? Actually we can also try 11+ but far less likely as greater competition. Ofcourse she may not get in. If she doesn't get any offer she can stay in her current school up to 18. Yesterday I told her that I need to give notice to her school and she cried a lot. We a pay a lot for private school so while paying it i want my daughter to take best results. But she is going to feel sad whats the point. Pros and cons both ways and feels like such a big decision.

WWYD?

I would absolutely not move a happy 7 year old from a girls school to one that is essentially still a “boys school that lets some girls in”. It is not true co-Ed by numbers and I doubt it will be by ethos. If her class is 80% boys then the girls are likely to be a small tightly bonded group. Difficult to join.
I say this as a girl who studied maths and physics in the 80-90s so I know about being a hip in a boy dominated environment.

@acca2017 In my case its a boy in a local coed private school

I agree, especially to a school which has only recently become coed and has such an imbalance of sexes with so many more boys than girls. I am willing to be that many of those girls will be overwhelmed by the boys, who research shows are more demanding of teacher time and attention than girls. I wonder why they chose to go co ed? Educational and social reasons or financial reasons.

I think you are doing your daughter a huge dis-service. Do you know which bright children achieve best? Happy children who are in a supportive environment, who feel valued and listened to, who have the confidence to express ideas, in other words, the exact environment where she already is. Let her have these few years in her present school, then re assess at 11, if she is as bright as you say she will be offered places for secondary education from academic schools if that is what you then feel is right for her.

@viques so true.. I think OP talking about Eltham College ( its recently become coed) and Bromley or Blackheath High School GDST?
@sindysindysindy ?

There’s not a huge amount of difference between 79% and 94%. Most of our grammars here get 99-100% and none are superselective and they are county wide grammars. So neither of these schools is stellar. I wouldn’t bother moving, especially for prep.

@sindysindysindy is clearly ambitious. However, when we moved DD to a prep from state she didn’t see former friends much. That said, she didn’t have many of them! We moved on and new friends were made. However DD was happy to go as the new school offered her so much more. If your DD has lots of friends and is doing well, why move? You have the evidence that she is. My DDs went to less than top tier academic schools and plenty of DD in them achieved highly. What you might want to look at is individual subject results and how many get lots of 7/8/9 grades. 5 and above doesn’t tell you much because grade 5 is generally not good enough for A level.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

We had a similar dilemma with DS, as to whether to move at 13 from a good, selective all through to super-selective senior. He’d been interested at 11 when he took the tests but when it came to it at 13 he strongly wanted to stay where he was. It was a difficult decision but we let him stay and it turned out to be the right choice as he’s doing very well and is happy. I think the marginal difference of a school with slightly better results is more than outweighed by the risk of moving to a school which not be a good fit and the downside of doing something your child isn’t happy about. Which is not to say a 7yo should dictate, only that her views are a relevant factor.

I absolutely wouldn’t move a girl to a school that was all boys till recently and is still 85%+ boys. And I wouldn’t move a 7 yr old from a school where she has good friends, she is doing well academically and you are happy with the teaching.

I understand the desire to avoid the horrible London private secondary bunfight, but sounds like she is very bright and won’t struggle to find a good place at 11. Plus at 11 you may end up wanting to send her somewhere else anyway, children and schools can change a lot in that time.

I agree

And to add, my kids are in the local state school that gets better gcse results than the school you want to move to.
Perhaps an unfair additional comment though because I don't like private education and would never chose it for my children. I realise this is very easy for me to say with a nationally renowned state school on my doorstep.

GDST schools are hardly under-performing comps. I'd ne very very wary about Moving her to a recently co-ed school that's mostly boys. Generally girls do better in single sex schools and in co-ed are often ignorred in stem subjects to their détriment.
I'd leave her where she is.

The only time children should move at 7 is to a prep that goes to 23. Then they move on to boarding school. Therefore you choose by destination. Any day school with similar decent results won’t be much different. Differences might appear regarding sport, music and art. I would take that into consideration. Moving for a few % on GCSEs doesn’t make much sense. Year on year results fluctuate too.

So you're talking about moving from either Bromley or Blackheath to Eltham.

Eltham is really not that prestigious it just has a very ambitious head who is very focused on exam results. He has transformed it from a back up choice school into a first choice school because so many people look at league tables.

It will still be boy heavy for a few years to come, but in September most of the classes in the school will be coed to some extent. It only starts in Year 3 so your daughter would join with a load of newbies and there's no reason they wouldn't bond as well as she did with her current friends?

You mention that you think there's only a friendly atmosphere in all girls schools - so the question is why choose coed in the first place? If she's very bright and happy then she will do well anywhere.

Changing your mind now will mean forfeiting your deposit at EC and owing them 1 ( or possibly 2 - depending on the T&C) term's fees. So it's a tricky decision. Maybe go back to why you felt she needed more of a challenge and how you decided that EC would offer that for her?

@ChnandlerBong agree. If you want academic or prestigious school Dulwich or JAGS are great options. My daughter didn’t like Eltham
College atmosphere when we attended open day. I was always thinking that she will be happier in coed but then she wanted to go to JAGS or Blackheath or Bromley (girls only). I know JAGS is more academic but She doesn’t like travelling by bus or car ( she has car sick) so she told me that she will be happier in Blackheath High or Bromley High. I respect her.
Eltham College starts from year 3 so when you consider that their exam results are better because they select more doable kids.
Talk with your daughter, you know her best and what will make her happy.

I would have thought a decent GDST school would enable your DD reach her potential. Don’t forget the other school is more selective so should achieve a higher average at GCSE- the question is, whether your DD will be well taught and have enough stretch where she is happy. If so, why move her?

She’s happy and her opinion is important. Don’t move her.

I thought you should move her until reading your update that 85-90% of the new school are boys. After being at a single sex school, and by the sounds of it having lots of female friends, this could be incredibly hard for her. It would for my dd’s. They play with boys but their friends are girls.

I moved them last year during primary and it has been a difficult year and I still wonder if I did the right thing though they are mainly happy. As your dd is happy and in a good school, I’d leave her be. Mine were happy but not in a good school.