I'm usually on the Higher Ed board these days. Yesterday, Oxford offers were out - every year 24,000 apply and only 4,000 accepted. That means 20,000 very disappointed young people - year on year - all of which will have worked very hard to get the very top grades. Cambridge offers are in two weeks and it will be exactly the same.
I only mention this because applying somewhere like SPGS or many of the schools in this area, is basically the 11 year-old version of applying to Oxbridge! I think it's such a bubble in this area and it's easy to forget that these are some if the top schools in the entire U.K and unfortunately, year-on-year, the vast majority of very able DC will be disappointed at one or more schools. 1,400 for LU means 1,250 receiving a 'no.' If 900-1000 sit for SPGS or G&L, the reality is the vast majority (800 or so) cannot get offers. This is a brutal process and there nothing like it anywhere else in the U.K.
On SPGS... if they sat round 2, they were in the top half of the cohort that year - all of whom would have been one of the highest academic performers in their respective primaries (or they wouldn't have been applying at all). So they have done very well. You can tell them that they were in the top half and very, very well done.
If it's any consolation, this process does give them more of a certain type of resilience than most DC will have. When they come up against stiff competition later in life (and they will!) - eg. during the UCAS process - they are far less phased by it (unlike students who have never gone through competitive admissions processes / never experienced rejection and have been told they are 'top' etc, etc all through school).
Hang in there. They WILL get a place somewhere and even though this 11 plus process is hideously drawn out, they will have something to celebrate at the end. They can only go to one school snd that's all they need. All the schools are excellent. Always better to have tried and not quite succeeded, then to never have tried at all (god, I sound like my mother now)! But hopefully, you know what I mean.