... Why, ask MN of course!
We're from abroad (Switzerland, to be precise) where the education system is rather different. DS is in Y5 now and we are struggling to get our minds around how secondary schools work here (England), what route to pursue for DS (and later potentially DD who is Y1), and where to start. DC are at a bog-standard state primary, so no guidance from there.
What we struggle to understand is the early specialisation, or rather, how children must drop subjects already from Y9 when their three-year GCSE courses start. With both DC being summer born, they'd be 12 when making those choices - and moreover, I gather they often don't get much choice as schools restrict who is 'allowed' to do which (and how many) GCSEs.
What we experienced as children was that everybody (short of SEN) studied two MFL, with able children adding a third language (either Latin or third MFL). In addition to that, maths, and language&literature in first language were of course a given, but also history, geography, biology, physics, chemistry, art, music, PE, RE, and a number of more practical subjects such as crafts/woodworking, cookery and housekeeping. Able students could choose to add extras to that.
Now of course each of these subjects was not studied in the same depth, and most of them (except main language, MFLs, and maths) certainly not to GCSE level. The focus was much more on a broad general education. We do understand that the workload for each individual GCSE would be much too high to make it reasonable for a child to study 'everything' up to GCSE level, so there is a necessity to drop some subjects and specialise.
The "broad general education" matters a lot to us though. So within the constraints of the system, we are looking for a school that will allow as much as possible of this.
We always thought it would be a choice between a very popular, high achieving, very big (280 intake) comprehensive, or one of two grammar schools in the neighbouring LA - Slough.
going for a super-selective in Kingston; or going private - which we couldn't afford, so would depend on a bursary.
But having looked at them in more detail, they seem to achieve their great results on the back of restricting their students' GCSE choices. It was this that got us looking for other options e.g. super-selectives in Kingston, and Indies in W/SW London (we would need a bursary). But we don't know where to start!
None of the schools we looked at online are close enough to visit on a whim, so what I am really looking for is some guidance on how to go about this. How do we choose which schools to visit and take into consideration? Obviously DS would have to pass the entrance exams, but which exams should we prepare him for - he can't take them all.
We live outside of London. Many of the SW and W London schools seem just about accessible, distance and public transport wise. But none of them is within easy distance, so those schools would really need to offer something 'more' for us to choose them (or rather, for us to make the effort and prepare DS for the entrance exam).
DS is quite academically able. Always got 'greater depth' at everything so far. Despite being summer born, he's always been within top 3 of his quite highly achieving class. In maths - his favourite subject - he's about two years ahead (though patchy as we've never done any 'systematic' work with him, just reading Murderous Maths books and such). He is well read and has a very good vocabulary. He has some areas of interest (e.g. Greek mythology) in which he has an astounding amount of knowledge. Obviously he is bilingual. His behaviour at school is excellent - he tries very hard to please the teachers. I think every single parents' evening, we've been told something amounting to 'DS is a pleasure to teach, I wish I had a class full of DSs'.
At home he is not 'studious', he would watch TV/play on the console all day every day if I let him, though he does get passionate about something every now and then and will go off on a reading binge. His approach to homework is 'do the minimum you can get away with' (unless it happens to coincide with one of his passions).
He is not especially sporty (in that sports isn't a high priority to him), but very fit and enjoys football which he plays twice a week, swimming, cycling. He is fairly good at chess, possibly in 1.5 years he could be at scholarship level for e.g. Hampton Boys.
Any suggestions on how we go about this? How do we short-list schools we want to pursue further, e.g. go visit? Does anyone know a school that is particularly strong on this 'broad general education' thing, or a school that DS might fit particularly well into, given above description?