Wallington County grammar school v/s Royal Grammar School(RGS) Guildford

[PB1210]

Hello , I wanted to check if anyone can guide me which is a better school in terms of academic and sports facilities like Football. Location/ cost no issue.

Wallington County grammar school v/s
Royal Grammar School(RGS) Guildford

Yes you clearly understand percentage well. Good luck with your 11+

So with your smaller classes -349 entrants- evidence shows that WCGS would get 95% .?

Already done and dusted. Long time ago. Good luck with el derado.

It is possible if WCGS cull the rest bottom rank 100+ students - but these bottom rank 100+ students also took the 11+ to get in, according to your standard they are supposed to be "smarter" then RGS 349 entrants on average.

Need to improve the gold percentage of your el derado.

That's why I said the entrants for grammar tended to be more academically inclined. It's not for everyone and that's no bad thing. No slight on RGS which can provide a good education. But the relentless marketing of these private schools thar continually blur the lines shouldn't be underestimated. If a child is happy there fine. But you don't need to spend a lot of money to get a good education. No way !

"That's why I said the entrants for grammar tended to be more academically inclined."

Still don't see this point if you compare WCGS vs RGS. All the evidence indicate otherwise.

Not so. But we can agree to disagree.

As more people sit the grammar exams the pass mark is higher. That's just a given. Not even to look at the challenge level of the paper.

No, the two exams are not comparable.

I actually sat the 11+ and private schools for similar schools: Nonsuch, Wally Girls'and then GHS, which is RGS' sister school (as well as Tiffin Girls'). The entrance exam was harder whereas the 11+ was easier to be trained for. Anecdotal on my side but I've had first hand experience of sitting exams for similsr schools. I got a score in the top 0.5% or something for the Sutton schools and something similar for Tiffin. Got in for GHS but was definitely not in the top 0.5% as my English dragged me down (tougher exam and all free response.) Went to GHS in the end.

Just because your child found the specific private school entrance exam easier doesn't mean that it applies for this particular private school. Wally Boys isn't even the top grammar in Sutton; it's a back up. You only need to look at the results.

And btw, disagree on applicants being more academically inclined.

If anything the steep fee for even applying helps parents weed out which schools are suitable.

Also indie schools sometimes set their own exams, and aren't standardised tests that they can sit for multiple schools so there is some self-selection regarding academic ability as there's no point putting a child through yet another exam if they will fail. If the child is not cut out for academics, they shouldn't be applying to RGS. It's known as one of the most academic schools in Surrey, certainly no average private school.

The number of people sitting exams is not a good estimate of intake difficulty.

More objectively one should look at the last ranking position that got in the school as percentile of total number of students that took the exam.

WGCS is part of the SET exam, and compared to Wilson and SGS, every year WGCS typically go down to very deep of the waiting list for the last applicant to get in the school. Generally SET pass scored is over 30% of the total applicants (around 2000+ boys), the guess is WCGS last ranking position via normal academic selection route got in is around 30% percentile.

Not idea about RGS last rank percentile vs total applicant, but I guess maybe similar to top 30%, could be lower, but with a slightly different exam cohort due to location difference.

Some top superselctive grammar might get last ranking position as high as 10%, such as QE boys or HBS. The "top" private selective school in UK probably won't get last ranking position as high as 10%, maybe highest is around top 15-20%.

With due respect WCGS is a good grammar school, but not a superselective top grammar in terms it intake difficulty.

If one really want to compare the WCGS vs RGS in terms of academic aspect in general , as a suggested earlier, best way is to look at the public exam results these school achieved. Clearly on average RGS is ahead of WCGS consistently in the past years.

One might argue public exam performance might not be entirely due to the academic quality provides by the school, another factor is how selective these schools are in the first place. Then your argument of WCGS take "more academic inclined" kids than RGS is contradict itself as RGS shows better public exam results in the end.

So our experience was very, very different with 3 children. I would also argue that the 11 plus is 'easier to train for' to be very opaque at best. All the prep schools are surely geared towards training children for common entrance exams as presumably these are the feeder schools for fee paying schools. I don't imagine many parents would choose the local comprehensive after forking out for a primary education. Mind set just wouldn't tally there. Unless of course they've fallen on hard times financially. Wallington boys being a 'back up' and its not 'even the top grammar school in Sutton' really is trite nonsense. These schools oscillate periodically and all have their seperate strengths. If your school at that particular year or couple of years was down in the league tables - Wallington Boys was very high up 3 or 4 years although I see that it has dipped but no doubt will bob up again dependent on the cohort of that year. You got in the 0.5% in the 11 plus but you chose GHS in the end but you didnt mention if you were offered a place....So the league tables neurosis for me is a 'haven't got into my school yet' phase which is best left as the potentially neurotic pastime that it can become. My coming on this thread was simply because I saw scathing, conceited assumptions that because one is a fee paying school it is automatically better and that as a 'free' school Wallington Boys should be left for the poor kids who couldn't afford a private school. Wow...

“conceited assumptions that because one is a fee paying school it is automatically better and that as a 'free' school Wallington Boys should be left for the poor kids who couldn't afford a private school”

Nobody saying any fee paying school is automatically better. In this thread people are talking about these two schools specifically. It is your conceited assumption that grammar school kids are more academically inclined. There is no data or evidence to suggest that when comparing to these two schools.

"With due respect WCGS is a good grammar school, but not a superselective top grammar in terms it intake difficulty.

If one really want to compare the WCGS vs RGS in terms of academic aspect in general , as a suggested earlier, best way is to look at the public exam results these school achieved. Clearly on average RGS is ahead of WCGS consistently in the past years."

With further due respect, I'm sure the pupils at these schools achieving incredible academic results care less for our type of 'idle' comparisons. My experience- they find it amusing and irrelevant. "Helicoptering around when we're just getting on with it" - that's a smart kid...right there.

And hey...these results you've mentioned about 'clearly' 'ahead' than WCGS..searched but still haven't seen it. Going according to RGS website by the way...

-"and the freebee will feel like a disappointment in comparison."😆

'Nobody saying any fee paying schoolis automatically better. In this thread people are talking about these two schools specifically. It is your conceited assumptionthat grammar school kids are more academically inclined. There is no data or evidence to suggest that when comparing to these two schools.'

You can have the grammar school name but RGS is not a grammar school. As someone who has been to public school and trained kids in both grammar and private, always strikes me as funny why a school would linger on to these names if not as a marketing ploy that it is academic- and you will get your moneys worth with academic achievement . Thats clearly what it is. Otherwise that name 'grammar' would be dropped like a hot potatoe. That's no conceited assumption surely 🤔

"My experience- they find it amusing and irrelevant."

The relevance is you make a claim saying the kids in WCGS are more academic inclined compared to RGS.

"And hey...these results you've mentioned about 'clearly' 'ahead' than WCGS..searched but still haven't seen it. Going according to RGS website by the way.."

GCSE 2022 7-9%
RGS 93% WGCS 75%

GCSE 2019 A+%
RGS 90% WGCS 71%

GCSE 2018 A+%
RGS 94% WGCS 64%

GCSE 2017 A+%
RGS 92% WGCS 67%

There you go with your much smaller classes again.

It is just your limited understanding about the grammar school system in this country. RGS has been using the "grammar" name for more than 500 years (same as a lot of other private school with "grammar" name with long history).

A lot of these schools are converted to private schools voluntary when the government abolish a lot of grammar school status from 50 years ago. Nowadays, when people talk about grammar school in general - they more refer to academic selective state secondary school.

Why would you want the schools change a name it has using for hundreds of years?

Percentage here means every 100 entries the number of A+ grades achieves. It is a fair and reletive comparison. Classes and size of intake is less relevant esp both schools number of intake is big enough to be statistical significant.

'In this country'. There you go. It was just a matter of time. How dare the grammar schools be better academically than the fee paying schools....we all know the rest.

Obviously you don't know, not for these two schools we are talking about here.

"The relevance is you make a claim saying the kids in WCGS are more academic inclined compared to RGS."

I was talking about at the point of entry from my experiences with private schools.

Please spare me the history lesson in respect to names of schools in this country. You're 'clearly' making assumptions. If the name 'grammar had connotations not associated with academic excellence a fee paying school business would not keep it. Unless you are limited in your understanding of business.