I am thinking of letting DS miss his umpteenth secondary school test tomorrow am I crazy?

[citylover]

DS1 is in year 6.

I live in an innner london borough where the secondary schools are very variable. All the four good local ones we have applied for are very oversubscribed and there is a very slim chance he will be allocated one of those, it's a complete lottery. For his first choice they are actually (from this year) operating a lottery system within their inner catchment area as opposed to a catchment area alone - we live 5 minutes away!!

In a panic and to try to cover all eventualities I put down two rather random grammar schools on the outskirts of London.

DS is very bright but to be honest I don't think he is suited to the grammar school environment, he would be better suited to a local comprehensive school.

And as I was forced to go to a fee paying school on a scholarship and hated it I am very aware that however good a school is you won't thrive if you hate it! However my situation was slightly different in that my other option was a really good state grammar school where 70% of my classmates went to. I was the only one from my school to go to my secondary school.

When he sat the test at the first grammar school he hated the school. The second one tomorrow is not quite as traditional as the first but it is still highly selective and his chances of getting in there also slim. I know one boy from his nursery who got in and if my DS was offered at that school then he could travel with him. It's about a 20 minute train ride plus a bus at this end.

He has sat so many tests for each different schools - he has sat 5 to date plus the banding tests at school. The selection tomorrow is 5 hours fgs they have asked them to bring a packed lunch.

I haven't had him tutored but he is now used to the format of the 11+.

I am feeling inclined to say that he doesn't need to sit the test and just hope for the best (which is all you can do anyway with the current system) because really we would like a local school.

However I am so worried that he will be offered a place at one of the really bad schools in the borough and they are bad by any measure believe me despite their spin. We are talking gangland and really low A-C scores at GCSE. But by not going tomorrow our odds of this won't really increase much.

It is alleged our LEA operates social engineering whereby they offer places at the less successful schools to people in the more affluent successful parts of the boroughand vice versa.

What a mess!!

At least as we rent we do have the option of moving but
am very very reluctant to do that as I know people around here - have lived here for 15 of my 20 years in London and I really love this area. I am also very close to my work. And DS2 is happy in primary school.

doesnt sound like you or he will want the school if he does get in

I don't think rationally that there's any particular reason for your son not to take the exam tomorrow, unless you're quite sure that even if he got in he wouldn't accept it (in which case I agree it doesn't make sense). It's hard for him taking so many tests, but on the other hand you sound as if you've kept it fairly low key for him - no tutoring or cramming and so on - and he'll be quite accustomed to the format by now, which may mean he does well. If he's bright and fairly relaxed, he may actually enjoy the challenge combined with meeting new people for a day - I know I did at that age, I still have fond memories of one school I sat the exam for where all the little girls seemed much more interesting than my class-mates at home! If he's grumbling about it, can you plan a treat for tomorrow afternoon once he's finished?

Citylover,

I'm sure you decided what was best for your son.

If your son does get into one of the poorer schools it does not mean he cannot do well, and could even benefit from not going to one of the better schools.

My daughters school performs badly on league tables and is one of the top struggling inner london schools. My daughter works very hard on her school work and does well, the excellent pastorial work ensures she has remained engaged in her education despite being on the autism spectrum.

As a result she is easily within the top 10% of her year and on the gifted and tallented programme. Sadly the autism has stopped her from getting the most out of this privelage, though she stills benefit a great deal from it. In a more able school she may not have had so many opportunities.

Often with bad schools those students who want to get the most out of their education will do extremely well.

Another thing is to understand why the school has such a poor reputation. Often they are community schools with little or no selection, resulting in them getting the majority of students no one else wants. The year she joined around 40% had a reading age of 6 or below! Most of these had gone through a single local primary school.

Yes there have been gang issues, a boy stabbed and at times heavy police pressence because of issues with another school. None of which have effected my daughters education and she is fully expected to go onto university, probably to do a BSc in psychology.