UCS vs Latymer Upper (11+)

[HampsterNW3]

Hi! My DS has got offers for both Latymer Upper and UCS and we are finding very difficult to take a final decision. Both the schools have amazing teachers and outstanding facilities…
Any useful experience or inside view you can share to help us to finalise our decision? Thanks!

Journey time! Think about an early morning training session for Rowing at LU, how easily can he get there? If his classmates live in Chiswick and Wimbledon how easy is that for meet ups?

Yup- journey time important. Have you been to offer holder events- so you or your DC have a gut feel about either?

Do you have a gut feel...

My son slightly prefer Latymer but I am worried about the distance and and the GSCE exams…

What about the GCSEs ? Don’t they do that at UCS?

Id go for UCS personally

@TheLastTimeEver , LU are stopping GCSEs for this cohort apart from core subjects (maths, English) and bringing in their own exams. It slightly ties you to the school for 6th form too.

@tennissquare This may not impact the applications for other schools at 6th form, there has been a whole thread on this recently.
OP it's worth checking the recent discussion on this and speaking to the school directly about GSCE, as there is quite a lot of hearsay and incorrect information about Latymers dropping GSCE on Mumsnet

What's the distance to school like, if the distance is no different I'd go for Latymer for co-ed although UCS has girls joining in 6th form so its not a massive difference. id also suggest posting on the Secondary education thread for 11+

Based on your username HampsterNW3 it sounds like Latymer is quite a commute.

I'd go for UCS - it's a great school and local to you.

We can move closely in case, we are renting at the moment. I would really like to hear some feedback about the schools…

@HampsterNW3 , if you move over to the secondary education section you can see endless threads comparing schools but because of the way gcse curriculums are structured and taught all the schools are pretty much the same academically (ie your dc will learn the same and achieve the same grades at most top level schools) so decisions are made on journey times, sports offered and gut feel. There are lots of LU threads in secondary.

What kind of feedback? I have DS at LU who's very happy. I don't know anything about UCS though so can't really compare them.

And yes- tons of info on the Secondary schools thread.

Hello! I’m desperately looking for a tutor to help my son for UCS 11+…. Could anyone please help? Feeling a desperate!! Thank you in advance x