kings college school vs Wilson ( or Tiffin)

[mumhelp07]

Dear Mums,

                  My DS has been offered a place at Wilson school (Top Grammar school) and Kings college school ( Wimbledon-  Top independent school). Travel time to both school is same; feedback from close family friends is both school academically are same. I am aware both schools are excellent. However, there is 50:50 divide. DS not bothered. 

So not sure. I am sure other mums have had same dilemma before.

Thanks

@PreplexJ I dont want to argue with you.
You are def in a minority crowd with reasons why a parent would choose Sutton Grammar over Wilson . Just because few of your friends or acquaintances did that, it does not validate the argument.
.Your Thread DOES NOT state anything concrete. Its just another Data talk. NO where does it state that kids chose Sutton grammar over Wilson .Why dont you make a poll in a new chat and ask people their opinions. That would prove the point. Unless they know their kid cannot handle the pressure at Wilson, then thats a valid argument to choose a less pressured school like Sutton Grammar.

To be clear again - There are a lot of people who do not get pass emails from Wilson but from Sutton Grammar and to cover their Ego, mention that their son passed all the schools and they chose Sutton because that was their ONLY choice.

And your logic of distance is pointless. People do tend to relocate from all over for a super selective school with no catchment . When my son wrote SET exam, there were 2 families who had flown down ( not sure from where) to write the exam. They were taking their flight back in the evening.

Lets put it in a different perspective. People aiming for TOP Grammar and TOP independents wont even consider Sutton Grammar or Wallington on their list.

The above poster mentioned in his point 8. "The difficulty in getting into W, SP, KCS, Wilson's, QE I believe is very similar. Their exit results (GCSE, A level, University acceptances) are generally in the order of Westminster > SP >=QE >= KCS >Wilson's.

Why would you sacrifice a Wilson place for a tier 2 grammar school ( SGS) if you had both in your plate. Again if those 2 were your only choices.

@Justarrivedlondon mentioned "As someone pointed out above, normally only 50% of top scorers chose Wilson's, The others go to private, Sutton Grammar, Tiffin "

The above poster is not comparing Wilson vs Sutton alone. he has given a wider choice

@Lexus1979 you ignore this link deliberately to justify your conclusion it is not data talk if you understand how statistics work https://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/11plus/viewtopic.php?t=61489

"And your logic of distance is pointless. People do tend to relocate from all over for a super selective school with no catchment ."

This is true but not majority of the people who sitting SET, again maybe restricted to certain demographic.

"Why would you sacrifice a Wilson place for a tier 2 grammar school ( SGS) if you had both in your plate. Again if those 2 were your only choices."

Because you just too obsessed with ranking, the league table is just descriptive statistics that shows the school attainment but not about the probability of which school your individual child will perform better. Even you have only two choice both schools still have individual kids achieved similar results depends which one fits most!

"Why dont you make a poll in a new chat and ask people their opinions"

Because the real election number (CAF choice) from the parents/kids who passed the tests
is provided by that thread, why would you need another poll? Paste the content here for the record:

Top students choice between Wilson vs SGS

Wilsons and SGS have also released the ranking of students who are admitted on 1st march for past few years, and here is a different way of looking at this data. Following data shows how many students in the ranked list for each school accepted the school's offer. For example, the first row shows that amongst top 100 students on rank list prepared by SGS, 41 students accepted SGS offer on national offer day and on rank list prepared by Wilsons, amongst top 100 students, 38 students accepted Wilsons offer.

Year 2019

Rank Range SGS Wilson
0-100 41 38
100-200 46 50
200-300 9 49
300-400 22 52
400-500 30 12
500-600 3 0

Year 2018

Rank Range SGS Wilson
0-100 34 44
100-200 51 53
200-300 17 53
300-400 20 47
400-500 28 0
500-600 0 0

Looking at choice of top 200 student ranked in both lists, it also seems that equal number of students choose SGS and Wilsons, which shows that both schools are equally popular amongst top scoring boys. This dispels the myth that Wilsons is most popular school amongst top scorers.

There is definitely something up with that data. It seems to be saying that 175 of the top 200 scorers choose Wilson's and SGS combined? Even though we know that many of those boys are sitting several exams and will end up at QEB, St Olaves, Tiffin, and independent schools with scholarships.

If that data exists, I suspect that it has already been filtered by the school to only include boys that listed them on the CAF form at all, and has not come directly from the exam scores. Sitting the exam is not the same as applying. So of those boys that listed the school on the CAF, the ones that accepted a place. That would account for all the boys sitting the Sutton exams but putting QEB, etc, first, or going through the state school process but ultimately choosing independent schools. It also means it can't be used as a comparison between the two schools.

Also note that poster's child ended up at Wilson's (and their posts indicated they were heavily invested in getting them there).

"Even though we know that many of those boys are sitting several exams and will end up at QEB, St Olaves, Tiffin, and independent schools with scholarships."

Independent schools boys still need to fill a CAF form with their state school preference.

"If that data exists, I suspect that it has already been filtered by the school to only include boys that listed them on the CAF form at all, and has not come directly from the exam scores."

You can just get the source of the data and see yourself

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/how_to_allocate_secondary_school_4

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/how_to_allocate_secondary_school_5

Yes, most of the boys that end up at independent schools still go through the state school process - that was part of my point - but they don't accept the offers, so 175/200 taken straight from the rankings of those who sat the tests is too high and those numbers aren't saying what that poster thinks they are saying.

Thanks for the source, it is what I thought and it is taken from their list of applicants. This is boys who listed the school on the CAF, not who sat the exam.

"it is what I thought and it is taken from their list of applicants. This is boys who listed the school on the CAF, not who sat the exam"

The boys need to sit the exam in order to get a place.

The high ranking in the list above is a good measurement of the proportion of students who passed the exam and also put the school as first preference in the CAF form. For example of SGS has a students offered a place on 1st of March at ranking position of 4 on the SET test, it is unlikely he put Wilson in the first preference in the CAF form and get rejected and end up on SGS

That boy didn't rank 4th in the SET. From all the boys that put SGS on their CAF, that boy ranked had the 4th highest score. So 1-3 on SGS' list of applicants (who sat the test and listed the school) ranked another school higher and got those schools, rank 4 of those who listed the school must have put SGS first, 5-9 got an offer from a higher preference, and so on. But it doesn't mean that's where they ranked in the test. So the data can't be used to compare the schools' intake because of the variables surrounding who put the schools on the CAF and who didn't.

Saying that, I'm not disagreeing with your overall point you were using the data to make. I don't believe all the top scorers put Wilson's at all (in fact, I personally know a top scorer who chose SGS). It's just that data isn't saying what you think it is.

In fact, I agree with the gist of many of your posts, Preplex: mainly not understanding why parents choose schools based on rankings when pupil selection plays such a big part in the results, and parents being a bit 'extra' about the whole thing in general. There are far more appropriate reasons to choose schools and plenty do put SGS first. But I know these two schools very well and that data has been read wrong.

“From all the boys that put SGS on their CAF, that boy ranked had the 4th highest score.“

OK assuming your reading is correct, the schools won't know the preference of the students and there are up to six place in the CAF form. What is the likelihood of a boy who passed SET test and didn't put SGS in at least as one of the choice?

In that sense, the number is a very good approximation of the situation compared to someone doing a random poll or pull a number like 95% from nowhere.

For 2022 entry, 223 of the 838 boys who were deemed eligible after the 2-stage exams did not put SGS on their CAF.

There is a trend of people in other areas of the country (who have 4 spaces on the CAF) focusing on league tables, aiming for super-selectives and then moving if they get them: for example, listing QEB, Wilson's, St Olave's, safe choice.

If we are talking about local applicants though, yes I would definitely agree that SGS is a strong contender as being top choice for some, particularly due to commuting logistics.

Comparing the grammars vs the privates is fair enough, but it's imo really silly to get bogged down in any comparison between WGS & SGS. Both have identical budgets and near-identical intake and ethos etc.

Aside from having much better sports facilities onsite, Wilson isn't really 'better' in any way - its slightly superior results are almost entirely down to intake, and we are talking slightly... But then I don't think SGS is better in any way at all.

If I was choosing between the two I think as little as say a difference of 5 minutes' per journey travel time would easily be enough to swing it either way.

"For 2022 entry, 223 of the 838 boys who were deemed eligible after the 2-stage exams did not put SGS on their CAF."

Do you have the source of this information and the equivalent Wilson number? Lets assume this is true, still 3/4 of the boys put it somewhere in the CAF form, combined with the FOI school ranking information one can still conformable to declare the 95% number is ridiculous.

In addition, FOI reveal the raw scores for SGS (see below) , based on all those number of high scores 230+ of first round SET, do you think 90-95% of these candidate put Wilson over Sutton but didn't get in Wilson in the end?

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/raw_and_standardised_scores_for#incoming-1715608

"There is a trend of people in other areas of the country (who have 4 spaces on the CAF) focusing on league tables, aiming for super-selectives and then moving if they get them: for example, listing QEB, Wilson's, St Olave's, safe choice."

Most of the country has 6 options around SE England. Yes I agree there is a increasing number exam tourist to SET for Wilson, as PP pointed out, Wilson intake profile is more and more like QE in recent years. But even so a good portions of them will put in one of the six preference when they exhausted the SS schools that in league rank higher than Sutton - there are only 3-4 choice once you take out catchment schools like Tiffin or Latymer.

"we are talking about local applicants though, yes I would definitely agree that SGS is a strong contender as being top choice for some, particularly due to commuting logistics."

We are in agreement on this point, while SET has more and more exam tourist, I believe the majority of the boys sit and passed are still local - within 10 miles of Sutton. So again my criticism is on the poster claim for 90%-95% applicants will pick higher league table Wilson to SGS which I believe is just a baseless perception. Although such believe probably applicable to the demographic group of parents the poster exposed to.

Sutton Council website: www.sutton.gov.uk/w/sutton-grammar-school. No equivalent figures on the Wilson's page.

I think we are in agreement on most things on the issue apart from what that data was saying... I wasn't posting in support of the other poster's assertion. I was just compelled to respond to the poor data analysis.

I don't usually join in these discussions because I find it's typically conjecture and confirmation bias, mostly from people who don't have direct experience of the schools.

Slightly Superior results ! Hahah i think you are satisfied with average results
A* - Its 58% bs 38% ( Wilson vs Sutton) . Thats not slightly better by any means
A*A - 88% vs 69% ( Wilson vs Sutton)

Sorry, But I am that parent who would choose Sutton over Wilson !

I visited the open day of both the schools and there was a world of Difference. ( Music and sports) Even the head master's speech at Wilson was brilliant

https://dlv.tnl-parent-power.gcpp.io/?filterId=the-top-state-secondary-schools

I dont exactly know the underlying information on which that data is produced.

This resonates the statement - I would choose to get a free Honda CRV as opposed to a Free range rover in a prize draw because the honda CRV is more economical to drive.

The idea of writing a super selective is - YOu remove catchment from the equation ( which means you remove the commute factor) People relocate next to the school if needed or make car sharing plans or coach provisions. . SGS has a 75 place catchment , so the argument is bit skewed when you talk about commute - it applies to the people banking on the catchment. I drove 17 miles for the exam. anyways people can choose to believe what they wish

I meant I would NOT choose sutton over Wilson. ( correction)

I think you're seeing something in my posts that isn't there. I was explaining why the data was being presented incorrectly in another post that suggested top scorers choose between the schools equally, while also commenting that SGS will sometimes be the first choice for some. I wasn't addressing your situation or choices - I was coming in late because of the data 😄.

We are in borough and chose Wilson's because my son is a music and chess enthusiast (needs no further explanation as you know the schools) and because I personally know several staff members there who are very happy with the Senior Leadership Team (which is what drives a school) and put a lot of effort into helping the boys become good people. It's an incredible school that isn't just about academics.

But my friend and her son (who is just as able and could have had a place at Wilson's and didn't need a catchment place) chose SGS because he wouldn't have used all those extracurriculars, he could walk to SGS, and the smaller year group appealed to him as a shy boy.

I completely understand that if you are going to move area for a school, you are going to choose the one that stands out most. And I do believe more people make the move for Wilson's. Lots are applying from in borough and neighbouring boroughs and staying put though, so they do consider the commute when ordering preferences.
And I agree, Mr Cole is an asset :)

While both grammar schools are free, these two schools all have the exact same funding allocation per pupil, about £5300 per student in 2022/23.

If a boy took exam can get in both schools, it doesn't mean he won a prize. It is more like he take part in a sample mock for GCSE 5 years ahead to suggest where he stands now.

I'm afraid that's the exact blinkered attitude that ensures the demographic/intake of these places is, year, by year, that bit narrower and less interesting.

Had half an eye on this thread and just to say Wilson's results for this year are out. Although he got a score well over the overall threshold, DS just missed it on one of the sections :-(

Yes, my son passed Wilson’s and SGS (and WCGS), but his first choice is SGS. He wasn’t as keen on the atmosphere at Wilson’s as he was at the SGS open day

In terms of extra money though I feel Wilson’s receives more from parents, alumni etc than Sutton Grammar.

Sutton Grammar PTA secure a lot of funding from its popular Sutton mock exam, year after year.

Oh Lordy I’d forgotten just how deranged some of this thread was, please don’t wake the poster named after a car….

I often wonder how many would salivate quite so much over Wilson's, if attending the school still meant sending them to its former site in sunny Camberwell every day?