Choosing local comp over private or grammar

[Jujujuly]

Has anyone done this?

I’m getting way ahead of myself here because DC is only 5 (reception in local state primary in zone 3 London). Obviously I have no idea how they will develop in future but based on their current ability and DH’s and my background it wouldn’t be a surprise if they do well academically.

I have a well paid job atm but DH doesn’t. I’m planning to stick it out for another c4 years to max out pension and make serious dent in the mortgage and then really scale it back. By that time DC will be year 5/6. If I continued in this job we’d be able to fund private school or move house to a grammar/high performing state catchment.

I’m inclined to think that DC will probably do well in the local comp and would benefit more from having me around a lot more, but I’m not sure. Education seems like a total rat race in London and conversations have already started about secondaries. Has anyone been in a position to send their child to a high performing school but decided not to?

"Latest figures from London Councils show 29 out of the 32 London boroughs are expecting a drop in demand for places in reception classes between now and 2026-27, with 7,300 fewer children needing places — a drop of almost eight per cent. The demand for year seven places in secondary schools is also forecast to drop by 3,200 pupils — or 3.5 per cent — over the same time."

Wait a bit and see what schools are available nearer the time.

See where your DCs interests lie and which schools can best meet their needs.

My DC went to local grammar schools and had a choice of languages for example. The local comp only offered one language per year group.

We had the choice between private and state for DS1 this year. He's bright, but ultimately we've gone with the comp. It was ultimately a choice between me staying in my current job and having lots of flexibility to support both kids, enable activities and not really have any money worries, or having to move to a much more pressurised role that would have paid school fees, but things would have been a lot tighter financially especially once both kids were at secondary.

DS1 fortunately really liked the comp we also liked, which is on a massive upswing in performance and has a lot of features that really appealed to him; he liked our preferred private school and was wowed by the facilities and I'm sure would have been happy there too.

We really weighed it up and decided that being more present, more flexible and less stressed was preferable, given the options available to us.

This is a very good shout. The coming Y7 is the peak year for London secondary admissions; schools that are undersubscribed now are likely to really struggle and won't be able to offer as many GCSEs, etc, if they don't have the numbers to make it financially viable.

It's not just a London issue - the overall school population is going to decline by something like 10% between now and 2030 I think? But I think London is feeling it first.

We probably could have afforded private school, but it would be a massive stretch so we never seriously considered it. Grammar was a possible option but we rapidly concluded it wasn't the right fit for our DC. We didn't go for our closest comp as the options were religious or no 6th form (bright child with SEN, trying to minimise transition), but we did happily choose a slightly further away comp.

Only started in Y7 but we're very happy. Wide choice of subjects. Don't seem to be plagued by the teacher shortages of some schools. No complaints at all about behaviour. Lots of clubs and they offer a ton of enrichment activities.

I really like that my London kid is going to school with a wide range of other London kids. I like that there isn't a long commute to a far away grammar. And we still have money to do other things with. Including paying for tutors if we ever think that might be needed.

It's good to keep your options open, but schools can change a massive amount. Our other preferred school was the one nobody wanted for the longest time and had been inadequate for years. It's just been upgraded to Good in the latest Ofsted and some of its stats for achievement would make most schools cry with envy. Yes it's still a very mixed school, but it's not letting kids down.

I also think it's very easy to start to panic when other parents start talking about secondaries. Because the ones who start talking early are inevitably the ones who think all London comps are dreadful and will try and make you think the same. You have to just let it wash over you and make your own decisions when the time comes.

@JassyRadlett yes I think your right it's country wide

We chose a comp for DS 1. He’s really bright and could have passed the 11+ with some tutoring and we could afford private. But he didn’t fancy an exam, and we saw a lot of benefits to being educated with children from a wide range of backgrounds.

We looked around all the local comps and chose one of the less popular ones. It has loads of free clubs, good teachers and every year a clutch of children get all 8/9s in their GCSEs. It has been great for his confidence. Plenty of opportunities now he’s identified as talented in maths. He’s getting some calibration around wealth/ intellect/ family support, and realising that he’s fortunate.

Negatives - no choice of language. Extracurricular - lots going on, but aimed at giving children a try, rather than reaching a high standard.

I chose a comp for my eldest over a SS grammar which he'd passed the test for. not strictly like for like though since the grammar would have been an extra c 30 minutes each way commute. also important to note that the comp he got into is a highly regarded one which streams from year 7. other aspects of the grammar I didn't like were it being single sex and very conservative culture wise (bordering on being dominated by Indian kids). would I have turned down the same grammar if the travel times had been equal? probably. would I have turned it down if the comp option had been a 'struggling' one? probably not.

we could also have gone private, but the fees, though affordable, would have been real money to us, with, for two kids, implications for retirement ages and so on. also some aspects of the culture there that'd have been a turnoff for me.

We live local to you, OP, and it was a big dilemma for us. We could have afforded private, just, but Forest and Bancroft are both over £20k per year so for two it would have been a big financial burden. We didn't fancy the grammar options for various reasons. So my son is at Bremer and seems to be doing ok, I think. Issues this year with low level bullying and classroom disturbance but it's ok. I do worry though that we are somehow letting him down. DH and I were both privately educated and we earn good money - I feel like we ought to be giving him the advantages we had. But DH is dead set against paying for education. I think it will work out in the end. Hopefully.

My four kids all choose the local comp (5 mins walk) than a grammar (30 min bus ride) or private school. There are some good private schools about 30 mins to an hour away. ( paying for private was not an issue)
The kids were all good academically and didn't like the grammar. They all got places for sixth form and they all declined.
I think they might have got slightly better grades if they went to the grammar or to private school,and I think they would have got better support for Uni applications etc but they all did well,and went to good unis. One of my kids did medicine and got almost no help from the school but at least it was clear that we would have to sort it out ourselves.

Going to a school that is only 5 minutes walk away is amazing. All their friends were close by and it meant they could do any extra curricular activities they wanted. I didn't have to ferry them around and they didn't waste time travelling around.

I made it clear that if they chose the Comp then they would have to take responsibility for making sure they did ok in exams. I was happy to support them if they needed but it was their decision.

I went to school in Burnley, where, at the time, there was a strange mix of comp / grammar.

At 11 you went to a comp. But after, what is now year 9 the top set kids had the option of going to the grammar or High school - grammar for boys, high school for girls.

Unless you had started at one of the RC schools because the RC grammar was in the next town and had gone completely comp.

So at 11 I went to the RC girls' school that had been a secondary modern. My next door neighbour and my cousin both started at another girls' comp.

At 14 my next door neighbour went to the high school, my cousin stayed in her comp and I stayed at my comp.

We left school at 16 with very similar results.

I would say send your child where they will be happy, you get one childhood it should be happy.

I also think that if you can afford private what can you do to augment a state education eg if you end up with a space obsessed teenager then how much would a trip to NASA mean to them, or a child who learns to ride and wants to continue that, or 100 other things.

Thanks for all the input and interesting to hear others’ experiences.

@Motherscare we’re not too far from you but Bremer wouldn’t be our comp option - more likely the schools in Leytonstone and Forest gate, which I actually know very little about. Has your DS benefitted socially from going to his local school? Are you actively doing things to “add value” to his school experience?

Our local area has 2 grammar schools, and another just about commutable distance (depending which side of the town you live on) but apart from a couple of notable exceptions, the comps are really good too. Partly due to a MAT that stepped in a few years ago and have worked wonders.

My daughter is at a private prep school. I'll make no bones about the fact I sent her there partly to give her the best possible chance of getting into one of the grammars. It very much depends on the child. For an academically bright kid who would cope with it, a grammar school is great. Higher standards and generally better behaviour, less of the low level disruption. I'd struggle to justify a comp for a kid like that. However for those kids who would just scrape in, sometimes it is better to be in the top set at a good comp than struggling in the bottom sets at a grammar school.

Yes it massively depends on so many factors in relation to the child and the schools and very difficult to say right now.

What I can say is that our DC are very fortunate to be set up to have a good chance of a good educational outcome in that DH and I were academic high achievers and (probably much more importantly) are very engaged and supportive parents and have all the resources to encourage them in their interests.

What is unpredictable I suppose is the child’s own attitude to learning and how much they might be impacted by a peer group. I certainly remember being very inspired and motivated by the bright kids in my grammar school class and think I might have found it more of a challenge in a different environment. Then again perhaps a top stream at a comp is equivalent to this?

There were no comprehensives or private schools where im from so I have quite a skewed impression of what both are actually like.

I do think peer groups are the second biggest indicator after family life. Who your kids choose to hang out with has a massive impact and by sending them to more academic schools, I guess you are minimising their chances of getting into a bad crowd and mixing with kids for whom education just isn't important. However, I've worked in various schools and some of the worst peer groups I've seen have been in wealthy schools, whether that's private or the leafy states. The amount of drugs and neglect running through them is quite sad. That's not to say this doesn't happen in other schools, of course poverty is a magnet to this stuff, but money does disguise how bad it is.
I think the biggest thing you can do is instill moral values in your child and keep them busy in their teen years. There is no guarantee unfortunately, but I completely understand your dilemma.

A lot depends on what you mean by "grammar", this is an umbrella term which covers a lot of different setups. The weakest and strongest grammars in the UK are every bit as far apart as the weakest and strongest comprehensives. And of course most comprehensives don't stream, and not all consistently set across all subjects.

e.g. In Northern Ireland, the top c 40% go to a grammar. The top set of a true comprehensive [i.e. one in which highest achievers haven't been creamed off by grammars] is nearly always stronger on average than average of the intake of a NI grammar. Especially if we're talking about a single top class [e.g. not two 'top classes' that are on a roughly equal level] then the comp top set will be much stronger.

In Kent, the top c 30% go to a grammar. So the top set of a true comp [i.e. one outside Kent] is, for the reasons outlined above, typically stronger than the average of the intake of a Kent grammar - e.g. if a school year has 6 sets in it then the top set gives you about the top 17%.

if you're talking about a super-selective grammar, that's different. Even the top set of a very large comprehensive school [e.g. with a 10 form intake, so the top set gives you the top 10%] will on average be weaker than the average of a SS grammar intake. But, of course, the very top end of such a set will still be very strong. e.g. comprehensives in total get far more Oxbridge places than grammars do [tho of course there are many many more of them].

Yes @puffyisgood I’m from NI and it’s a very different system.

If we stay where we are now in London I guess we’d be looking at the super selective grammars? I think if we moved house it would be more likely to be to close to one of the more sought after London comps than into a grammar area like Kent but I really don’t know. In a way have too many options at this stage. And does really depend on DC of course.

For context, most of us use the local comp because there are no grammars and private is out if the question. We don't use the term local comp because it is simply the school. So there is no choice and none of this anguish. And many many children do very well indeed, they even get into top universities, even Oxbridge, and have great careers and are very successful.

What I'm trying to say is, relax. I would put money on your children doing very well indeed. Good luck 🤞

yeah, England's not really like NI [or like most of England used to be 50 years ago], where if you don't get into a grammar you're nine times out of ten in the . any English comp where they set all the core subjects no later than say the start of year 8 will have pretty high standards in the top sets.

For an academically bright kid who would cope with it, a grammar school is great. Higher standards and generally better behaviour, less of the low level disruption. I'd struggle to justify a comp for a kid like that. However for those kids who would just scrape in, sometimes it is better to be in the top set at a good comp than struggling in the bottom sets at a grammar school.

It is clear from this that you are in a selective area - like Kent, for example - where the school called ‘comprehensive’ is, in fact, a secondary modern, because such a large proportion of more able children attend grammars.

In other areas of the country - as a pp said, where the small number of grammars are superselective - the ‘other schools’ are much more like true comprehensives, and some of the children in the top sets in them would also be in top set of a grammar.

Despite my dc’s comprehensive being ‘the other school in an area with grammars’, the children in its top set included very high attainers - Oxbridge, Russell Group bound. Interestingly, Dd, who moved for sixth form, found herself near the very top of her new peer group (formed from pupils who had previously been at grammars, private and comprehensive schools) and as I said, went on to a highly competitive university where many of the previously grammar students failed to gain a place.

Our 3 boys went to the local village primary and then on to a highly accademic and sporting, single sex, private school.

One of them sailed through and thrived, boarded through his own choice, was in the Firsts for rugby and got good results. He is an easy-going boy and thought of as being a "thoroughly nice bloke".

One has ADHD and was a PITA for the teachers to have to teach, just low level disruption. He got brilliant GCSE results, whilst medicated and a complete zombie, but was not allowed to continue to the 6th Form and the discrimination they showed was incredible. Basically they washed their hands of him, but for the 5 years he was there it was OK..

The third son never liked the school from the word go. Not sporty like his brothers, struggled academically and used to have severe panic attacks. The school found him to be too hard work to try and teach, so they "suggested he leave" after an horrific ordeal where he smashed his own face up after being yelled at for having the wrong coloured socks for basketball in Year 9. We researched many other schools and eventually he said himself he would rather go the local comp. At this point i just wanted him to be happy, so he went.

The local comp doesn't have the trips, the flashy sports centre, the theatre etc but what it does have is teachers that really really care about my son and his fragile MH. They are caring and supportive and kind in complete contrast to the masters at the private school, who were frankly, massive bullies.

So my advice is wait and see who your child is, whether they are sensitive, loud, arty, sporty, popular or not so, etc etc. You should know this by Year 4 or thereabouts. And then listen to your child when you discuss with them where they would like to go. x

Just in case you did decide to put the Essex grammars on your radar @Jujujuly , this information isn't quite correct. The Chelmsford grammars do have a catchment, with 5 percent only each year reserved for out of catchment, consequently the scoring for those places OOC is incredibly high. (Even IC for Chelmsford tbf.) Ditto the Southend grammars. Only the Colchester schools have no catchment and they are superselctives. Honestly the commute would be a nightmare though I'd have thought. Chelmsford actively ask OOC parents to think incredibly carefully about if it's worth it as they expect the children to take full part in the extra curricular life of the school.

On your original point, as with all education questions, it really depends on what your child will get out if each experience, and that won't be the same as someone else. Also every school/area is different. Grammar or private may not mean better for all children, but it doesn't mean it's not better for some. Look at the strengths of the schools individually and the interests and motivations of your child. Good luck with everything!

@ElvenDreamer For sure. I would never do it but I know people do. Can't imagine subjecting a child to that journey, I did it for 2 weeks and it was hellish. Seems daft, the local options are really not bad.

Thanks so much @ElvenDreamer that is really helpful info. Tbh I wasn’t even aware of the Essex grammars but I think if our DC was lucky enough to get a place then we could contemplate moving there as I agree with you re the commute.

We both work in the City so would be a straightforward commute for us to work from there. But probably wouldn’t move unless they had got a place so I appreciate that means it would be super competitive. All food for thought.