Best place to live in Kent for Grammar school

[vik2017]

Hi,
This is my first question on this board....
and I wanted to know which is the best place to live in Kent and falls into Grammar catchment area and also if my son dont get to the Grammar at least will go to a very good comprehensive school.
Any suggestion will be appreciated even suggest to move to another place considering we both work in London.

Many thanks in advance...
Viki

Good post Wombat.

I'd say to move to an area you like the look of and look at all the possible schools in it, OP.

Just RFT

OP - what’s with the random list of grammars in Kent?
Eeny-meeny-miney-mo, shall I give Ashford or Faversham a go?!
Surely no one makes major life choices like this.

As I have said, I have a year 6 child in Kent. It’s awful. Don’t willingly put yourselves through this divisive system. Seeing loads of 10 year old turn up to school in floods of tears because they felt like failures made me so angry. How dare we? How dare we put them through all this angst instead of just sending them to the nearest high school as they do in Sussex?

Kitchen, have you seen some of the results in East Sussex ? There is a reason high achieving DC take "your" grammar school places.
Check out rye college

Stillwishihadabs - there's also a reason 11 plus failures take places in Sussex comprehensives... some schools are good, some bad, some bad and stuffed full of people who can't pass an entrance exam, some only appear good because they are stuffed full of people who have passed an entrance exam, but actually, there may well be better run schools elsewhere...

Oh, and of course, Kent children who dont take the 11 pus at all, but just go to school in Sussex, to avoid the exam.

Hey - check out The Royal Harbour Academy in Ramsgate...

yolofish - I think your kid is Y4?

I think >4 was the childs age not year group.

Wow ok that's bad...

I think he’s Y4.....

If he is year 4 any tutor worth their salt will tell you if he is grammar/ SS material

If he’s only 4 years old, I’m not sure how the OP would know he’s 70% likely to pass

Dartford. I went to the girls’ grammar there. V good then and boys’ gramma is opposite.

Grammar not gramma!

Boys grammar in Dartford is quite different to the girls. Not least because half it’s intake is superselective. Unless OP lives very close to school, the out of area score required to get in his very high - around the 390-400 mark.

I’m also not sure that the alternatives if he didn’t pass would live up to OP’s expectations....

Hey - check out The Royal Harbour Academy in Ramsgate

Ramsgate is in the Thanet District Council area - according to Kent CC, Thanet is the 28th most deprived district in England (out of 326) and contains the 4th most deprived LSOA in England out of 32,844 LSOAs

Kent schools have obviously been underfunded - they appear to be one of the biggest 'winners' in the new national funding formula for schools.

Check out Woodlands Community College in Southampton...

The Kent coast is much more isolated than Southampton. If the grammar schools were disbanded, would good teachers and middle class families be persuaded to stay in this part of Kent? Are there good teachers at the modern schools who send their own dc to grammar schools? Would they stay in the area?

Hmm, yes, it has a better progress 8 score and overall results than The Royal Harbour Academy, doesn't it? I think I'd rather there than Ramsgate! And how about Canterbury - areas of deprivation, but considerably wealthier than Southampton. Spires Academy doesn't look too promising. Anyone would think you can get bad schools anywhere, and in selective areas, one wonders how the brighter kids in the bad non-selectives maintain aspirations, if it is considered so bloody important to have good examples around you to be able to achieve.

I thought The Royal Harbour was a 5 Star Resort and Spa !

What's the point of a grand name if it only achieves 5% at level 5 English/Maths.

No doubt the building probably looks like a Five Star Hotel !

Sitting between Dover and Thanet you’ll find the very naice 16th C town of Sandwich. The grammar school there (boarding too) is where all the local naice kids go after being tutored to get in of course. Approx 20% come from the local preps. The Kent coast isn’t all bad!

Duh. Missed out the name. It’s Sir Roger Manwoods.

@MumTryingHerBest: No, they are not a random list rather based on two criteria:

1. London commute
2. www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/gcse-results-2016-best-state-schools-top-100-grades-uk-secondary-where-are-a7211931.html

Canterbury has the 2nd highest rate of children in care in Kent and Dover/East Kent coast has a problem generally with asylum seeking, unaccompanied minors.

Move into the catchment area for Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys op (TWGS boys would be your 3rd choice grammar), within the catchment area for Judd Grammar School (both schools have pretty wide catchment areas) and your ds will also be eligible for Skinners' Grammar School. Send your ds to a state junior school, tutor for one year, then a private senior school if he doesn't get a grammar school place - you haven't convinced me that you would accept any comprehensive school.

DS1 taught himself NVR/VR in the summer holidays with a 2 month subscription to Bond online (£6 per month) because we are too dumb to teach him - some people might call this 'home educating'

He did go to a private prep school though (currently at a selective, private secondary school) which at the time didn't teach any NVR/VR - they do a bit now because the private senior schools have introduced computer pre-tests.

@KichenDancefloor: As I have mentioned this is not a random list and I dont think this is a case. It depends if you push you DC very hard but I have no intention of doing that. I will do whatever I can to get him to grammar but its DS to decide and if he does not want to then I have no issues and NO TEARS drama and all. Then will go to indi as good as we could found.

Op, In your position I would focus more on where you actually want to live (and where you can afford a house) then take the schools into account. Some of the schools mentioned here are in areas that are not seen as being as nice to live in as others, and house prices will reflect that. I’m not being horrible about Medway areas, I don’t know them at all other than to know a house in Somewhere like Rochester is going to cost an awful lot less than a house in Tunbridge Wells.