Possible to go to Kent grammar if we live outside Kent?

[Bearcricket]

We are planning to go back to the UK from oversea and now trying to understand the procedure of entering grammar schools. It may be a very basic questions for most of you, but it’s be very helpful if anybody tells me if we need to live in Kent when we accept an offer?(of course, necessary to pass the test first though!) thank you.

@Panicmode1, the change in 2019 seemed to specifically target the East Sussex boys from what I know (we moved from E Sussex to Kent and friends I have there who had been coaching their boys since Year 4 for 2019 entry were gutted!). This is their Admissions doc which implies 3 mile radius in West Kent (it doesn’t include East Sussex) and named other villages/towns. Certainly where I am in a village outside Sevenoaks, we are further away from Tunbridge Wells then where I lived in E Sussex but the boys applying from here for 2019 entry got in whereas the East Sussex boys didn’t, even the one with a high score. Anyway, everyone is happy with what they got in the end!

Bear in mind that Bromley comprehensives are very good. My DD has just finished y13 at one is (most probably) going to one of top unis to study science. She got mainly 9s at GCSE. I'm sure one of her keys to her success was having a short journey to school, and another was standing out intellectually.

@SJaneS48 - if you look at the catchment map, the line does go just over the border (to places like Groombridge for example). I believe it was a change that KCC asked the West Kent grammars to make in exchange for additional capital funds for building projects - there is a HUGE shortfall in secondary places coming and this is one of the ways they are trying to plug the gaps.....

Yes it does make sense - I do understand why my E Sussex friends were upset though. And I always thought Groombridge was Kent not E Sussex so learnt something new!

You are both right, it straddles the county border.

:-) I’m sure we can both live with that eh @Panicmode1! And apologies to the OP for the off subject Skinners catchment area debate!

Works for me, but my boys can get out of bed and be at their desks in under a minute

:-) my DD too currently. The school uniform is a bit shit though and the behaviour of the teacher muttering ‘wtf?’ to herself frequently under her breath is highly dubious!

. And yes, sorry OP for the derail!

I would recommend finding a tutor that lives locally to whichever area you are considering, as the entrance exams for each area vary. Our daughter was successful in the Sutton SET and we found that combining a tutor with mock papers was the best approach (sometimes they just use text books and KS2 work which isn't always quite right). We would have our daughter sit a mock paper, then have the tutor focus on the questions she got wrong - then repeat repeat repeat. You could do it without a tutor if you're prepared to get stuck in!

We used a mock paper website to get the papers, there was passthepaper.co.uk and another that was something like exampapersnow.co.uk.

What I would say, is to make sure that you personally sit in the first 1 or 2 sessions with a tutor as there are plenty of useless tutors out there and your little one won;t be able to tell.