Did you send your child to a grammer school?

[CharlotteACavatica]

My eldest starts secondary school NEXT september, i want to send him to a grammer school, his younger brother is unbelievably clever, ds1 is very bright, but (feel bad saying this) he isnt as clever as ds2! But i cant send ds2 and not ds1. Ds2 wont be going for about another 3 years yet, so i figured if i get some extra help for ds1 what are my chances of getting him into a grammer school? How did your child get on?? Did they do better on the entrance exam then you thought or worse? I am keen to gather as much info on grammer education as possible - i want my boys to be stretched to FULL potential!! Any info would be great TIA x

Another vote here for choosing the right school for the child ? we have one DC at a grammar, one not and so far that seems to be working out for both of them.

thirdname we looked round all the options on at least 2 occasions, both on open days and during a normal working week. DC1 decided instantly on their first choice, DC2 took ages to decide.

OP, in our experience the non-grammar DC needs to have a bit more self-motivation as there are more opportunities not to do the work IYSWIM. But against that, some DCs thrive in an environment where they are near the top of the class rather than in the middle or near the bottom ? at grammar school there will always be someone who is better than you at anything and some DCs find that demotivating.

fsmail makes a good point.

Also, the only grammar school area we lived in (although I had left home by then) didn't get good results over all.

The grammars took the top 25%. You would then expect everyone coming out of the grammer to get fantastic GCSE results...they didn't!

It was almost like within the grammar school they then formed bottom, middle and top sets, with the bottom set living up to its name and getting Cs at GCSE. That's not right - the top 25% should all do better than that.

Just make sure the comp. is good, that it gets some As at GCSE etc. and that the children are happy there.

As an aside, my BL went to a famous grammar (think similar to Tiffins) and got a C at GCSE English. In our comp. the top setters would never have been allowed to get away with that.