Will Private Secondaries take children from good state school????

[tildaandarchiesmummy]

I am hoping to send my 3 children to our outstanding local church school. 100% of pupils get level 4's in all subjects and 50% get level fives on average over the 3 subjects. We are hoping that they would go to a state primary and then hopefully get into a private secondary without problem. I have heard that private schools prioritise children from other private schools is this true?

Laughing Gas
Have a friend who works in admissions at top London Indie school. Hence fairly concrete info. Also Head teacher at my DD's Indie was having coffee with a group of parents ( me included ) & said the school has never been so popular. General thinking is that Parents who were sending their Dc to boarding schools are now choosing good Indie day schools instead as it is a few thousand cheaper per term.

I think also Chickydoo people are applying for more schools than in previous years e.g. 5 or 6 rather than 2 or 3 which skews it. General sense of uncertainty.
What's the co-ed private that has a long-standing relationship with the state primary? I think that's pretty unusual as most just want the pupils with the most potential wherever they're from.

I understand where you are coming from and there is an element of truth in what you have heard. Some schools DO prioritise the children coming from their feeders schools, usually when they own / part own/have a stake in them. So you mentioned the GDST schools - the business already has a relationship with those families so it makes sense to continue if at all possible. My own DC are in the junior department of a very popular selective girls school. The juniors, on the whole don't even sit the 11+ they get a pass through to the senior department. But at 11, more classes are added and the 11+ test is used to determine who gets the remaining places and they come from a wide range of local schools - prep, state, and from a wide catchment across London and the home counties. Any school you are interested in will make its entrance criteria very clear so you can see if it has a business affiliation with a feeder or junior department or not.

I don't know if you know it, it is in NW london, it's called Highgate school. They have a long standing arrangement with Christ Church school Hampstead and St. Michaels School Highgate, however in recent years there has been less going. I mean i would love my son to go to a co-educational school but i woud prefer the girls to go to a single-sex school as i believe they would do better.

This is because Highgate has a church foundation so has a relationship with the two local church schools because it has to maintain a certain number of christian pupils. Something like that.

I think that this may be a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Highgate obviously has its own junior department, and most of those children go into the senior school at 11 though even then they have to meet a minimum standard first to get into the junior department from the infants and then to get into the senior school. Most parents who want Highgate as a senior school will try to get into the junior.

There are then a further 40 odd places at 11+, and applications for those is based on the entrance exams together with interviews - there are 2 interviews, one where the child is in a pair or trio, and one individual interview. Highgate are looking for a certain type of child and they are specifically looking at how the children interact and behave towards each other.

In reality whilst there will be admissions from state schools to these schools, property prices and tiny or selective (by religion) catchments can mean that a state primary school doesn't have such a significantly different socio-economic mix that the prep schools. If anything many London prep schools are full of immigrant and expat families who either could not or chose not to play the state school selection by postcode/faith game, and are certainly ethnically far more diverse than their state neighbours.

So it doesn't surprise me that a couple of CofE schools may have been successful in getting entry in years past. But the fact that the pupils were at those schools will not have had the slightest impact on their entry to Highgate. They had to pass the entrance exam and the interview.

In terms of admissions to private schools, I can't speak for the whole of London but locally the co-eds and boys schools were inundated with applications. The number of children born in London is on the rise (approx 100k per year in 2000 and 2001, the current year 6 birth years, rising to about 130k currently), so even despite the economic outlook there will be plenty of competition for the good private schools for some years. The position is likely to be quite different in some areas outside of London though.

In London almost all children at private Preps go on to private secondaries so it can be expected that a good number will go to the nearest such secondaries. There is likely to be a close relationship between the Prep and those secondaries, with the Prep wanting to place their pupils and the secondaries wanting applications from the stronger Prep pupils.

This can help get a child in who is up to scratch but who might have performed poorly on the day. But it can cut the other way. The Prep is likely to advise parents on the "right" school for their child and thus filter out those who they think will not fit or who might struggle. If you then persist in applying to a school the Prep does not recommend, you face the possibility of a lukewarm or poor report from the Prep Head, a surefire way of not getting a place whatever your exam results.

I cant see that there is an issue in coming from the state sector at 11+. Lots, and in some schools the majority, do. The marginal advantages of coming from a Prep are that you get a bursar's report confirming you pay your fees on time, your child will have done more French, Latin, maths and science, homework and exams and so the potential is more proven, and the Prep Head should know what seniors schools are looking for, so can both advise parents and write informed recommendations. (Steering the "sparky" child away from the small "nurturing" school and vv.)