As the title says really. Which one would you recommend to send a child? Any opinion to share on those schools...?
The journey is more or less the same. But I assume Emanuel is slightly worse as we have to travel from outer to inner (towards city). We travel inner to outer for Twyford so assume it won't be less stressful. However, there will be more DCs who travel far at Emanuel whereas most DCs at Twyford would be local. We live approx 45 mins away. I wonder if it will have an impact on the social side.
Academically, obviously Emanuel has better results due to the advantage of being a selective school, more attention, facilities and so on. But Twyford displays good records too, and it's somewhat more impressive to achieve for a non-selective school with large numbers of pupils in a class. DS is bright and a keen learner. I feel the academic outcome would be more or less the same for a child like him.
Twyford is more economical obviously. DS won a music scholarship at Emanuel so the fees are slightly more affordable but we are not wealthy at all and we would still need to make quite a lot of sacrifices. The increase rate each year is also scary.
DS has received a music scholarship at Twyford as well (hence we know he will be allocated at the school already). So both schools will offer him plenty opportunities musically. However, compulsory duties are much heavier at Emanuel (for obvious reasons). DS loves to be active in school's music that's why we applied for the scholarship, but less duties mean he has more freedom what and how much to participate/contribute which I think is important to consider. He may find another interest along the line and the heavy duties may cause a confliction.
Part of me feel it's silly to turn down such a good (and free!) school like Twyford. It's a lot larger than where he is now so it'll be a shock to begin with but I think it's stimulating and beneficial to have wider and larger selections of friends. They also offer good sports and music for a state school.
However, Emanuel appears to be so happy always (I like the fact that they are not hothouse), and while they cherish not so academic DCs, they also seem to challenge and stretch able DCs. Their sports and music opportunities are excellent. Also, the competition was so fierce this year due to the recent extreme popularity of the school. Will we regret if we let it go?? I don't know...
If it was a choice between Emanuel vs a low achieving state school or Westminster (or any academically high flying prestigious top school) vs Twyford, it would have been slightly easier to make a decision. But somewhat they appear to be quite similar standard-wise with different pros and cons.
Any thoughts, input, advice would be greatly appreciated.