Eltham College - junior to senior transition?

[Justbehappyandsmile]

Hi all,
I have a child at Eltham College Junior School, and we’re considering trying 11+ options. However, I feel a bit hesitant to ask the school directly, and other parents don’t really seem to share much information.

If my child applies to state grammar schools and is accepted, would they still automatically move on to the secondary school at Eltham College, or would we need to make a separate decision?

I’m not saying Eltham is a bad school at all, but honestly, for the fees, there are other schools we would strongly consider if my child were offered a place. My child also would like to try 11+!

Because it’s our current school, I feel a bit awkward asking these kinds of questions, especially if my child ends up staying. If anyone has experience or information about this, I’d really appreciate it.

This information is available online, there’s no ambiguity about it.

if you apply for any other schools, you lose the automatic place but you can sit the eltham entrance test, alongside all the non junior school kids, to be offered a place at the senior school.

if you don’t apply to other schools, you have an automatic place without taking the test.

my view is that ALL junior school kids who actually take the senior school test, will be offered a place at the senior school. Otherwise the senior school would have to admit that the junior school did a bad job. They tend to say the junior school kid outperform all the newcomers, and then the newcomers in the senior school catch up after a year or two. This doesn’t hold up if they don’t let junior school kids into the senior school because they didn’t perform well enough on the test.

my view is also that most junior schoool kids will have their pick of any other schools (grammar or private) as the junior school does such a good job, and is also selective at age 7. Clever kids, with good education are sought after.

Agree with the above.

You will have to sit Eltham entry exam again(and pay the exam fee) but I would think if you can get into grammar schools there's no problem for you to gain a place at Eltham. Bear in mind that EC do offer some scholarships in the beginning of year 6. For academic alone they're happy to offer normally 10-20% for a good number of pupils. For exceptional children who are very academic with an extra talent the scholarship goes as high as 50%. If it's the route you're after it's less competitive as an exisiting pupil than if you sit the exam with all the external candidates.