Moving from Home Ed to private secondary school - any admissions issues?

[Veinarde]

Has anyone here moved from home education (primary) into a private secondary school? I’d be really interested to hear about your experience, particularly whether there were any concerns or challenges during the admissions process.
Both of my children are working above expected levels, but we don’t have formal school reports. Has this been an issue for others?
Also, would children in this situation still be eligible to apply for scholarships?
I’d really appreciate any experiences or advice you can share.

I don't have any experience of that transition but most private schools give information about their admissions processes on their websites. If it is an assessment plus an interview then I would think any child performing well enough would get an offer. They may ask for some information on recent home school experience in lieu of a school report? Then your task is to make sure they are well prepared for the particular tasks/tests that make up the assessment process.

We made this move a couple of years ago, so hopefully this is reassuring rather than overwhelming. In our experience, the lack of formal school reports wasn’t a deal‑breaker at all. Most private secondaries are quite used to home‑educated children and expect things to look different.
What they were most interested in was evidence of ability and attitude rather than paperwork — entrance exams, interviews, samples of work, and sometimes a reference from a tutor or activity leader instead of a headteacher. We put together a short learning summary and a small portfolio, which was enough.
Scholarships were still absolutely possible. The schools we spoke to treated our child the same as any other applicant — academic, music, and sport scholarships were all open, and assessment was based on performance at the time, not previous school history.
The bigger adjustment came after admission rather than during it. Even children who are academically ahead can need a bit of time to get used to the pace, structure, and social side of secondary school, but that settled more quickly than we expected.
If you haven’t already, it’s worth speaking directly to the admissions teams — they were generally very open and reassuring once they understood our children had been learning well, just differently.

Thank you, appreciate your responses!