Candidates flying from overseas to sit super-selective grammar 11+

[PopcornPoppingInAPan]

A friend told me for one of the super super selectives in London that some candidates who live overseas had flown in to sit the 11+ exam. If successful the whole family was relocating here. (This is foreign nationals, rather than “ex-pat” British families living overseas.) The school has no priority area.

I wondered if anyone had heard this and whether it was credible or if it’s one of those internet rumours?

I was also wondering if it’s even possible to do this. Obviously families do relocate to the UK and assuming they and the kids have a right to reside then the kids will be entitled to a school place. But can you do it before you’ve moved here?

I guess if you can put down a relative’s address as your address for the purpose of sitting the exam and then submitting the CAF maybe that’s all you need. I wasn’t sure if LAs did any more checks on candidates who aren’t already on their books at state primary, IYSWIM.

I have heard of a family moving from Yorkshire when their DC got a place at the same super selective school so perhaps this is just an extension of that.

“Most of them, despite being able to afford private schools, choose not to pay and instead opt to use public state resources, believing they are getting a 'good' deal”.

Where is your evidence for ability to pay? What 25k per child per year plus VAT? Or whatever private schools charge these days. Rest assured I cannot afford to pay 100k plus VAT per year (4DC).
Besides my child would have gotten into a great comprehensive too - you cannot just suggest that you are going to mess with their education and school after the event. You don’t have the power, sorry. And yes grammar school parents will also fight for their children’s right. Remember we are all angry about the disruption caused to our children’s lives during Covid. We are not going to stand for more - we have the evidence as to effects on their mental health and we are not going to accept some ideologues play with our children’s future to satisfy their own tunnel vision and egos.

One or two assumptions about Bucks which I would like to comment on. Please don't assume that because we have and use grammar schools that we are actually in favour of them on a societal level. We are stuck with the education system we have, just like everyone else, so of course people use it. But many many parents would rather not have grammar schools at all, even if some or all of their own DCs attended one.

As for the 'political suicide' a PP mentioned with regard to abolishing grammar schools in the county, not necessarily, in fact. The towns of Aylesbury and High Wycombe are in Labour hands, and Amersham & Chesham is Liberal. Those constituencies account for 10 of the 13 grammar schools in Bucks.

I'm not saying their demise is imminent, but politically unthinkable? No, that isn't true whatever people who don't live here may think.

@thing47 - have these been Labour seats for a long time? Or just relatively recently? Do you think it should be a local decision or a national decision? Surely you would want it to look like a local decision conducted on especially if it is a relatively recent Labour seat? (If you vote that way?)

Its so sad that I used google and had to get chatgpt to rewrite my responses to make them readable 😆. My writing would not pass the 11+ exam even as an adult. Need to go back to school!

It's not sad, it's fine :) AI just doesn't understand real life 😂

AI couldn’t dream up the dramatic life some poster made up in this thread!

Surely it should be a national decision rather local. Why should children that live in one area not have similar educational experiences as children that live in another part of England.

Grammar schools have been abolished in many places for very good reasons.@thing47 is right many people are trapped with a system that they don't agree with

Aylesbury had its first EVER Labour MP in 2024. Bucks was always Tory stronghold, that is why they retained grammars originally. If I were the Labour MP there I would want it consulted on, the population needs to feel they get a say.

And High Wycombe is the first time since 1951! So these are not exactly established Labour seats now are they. They will be lost at the next election if drastic Labour style stuff is pulled without consultation, in what is basically a largely Tory area.

Besides my child would have gotten into a great comprehensive too - you cannot just suggest that you are going to mess with their education and school after the event we have the evidence as to effects on their mental health

Wow The school lost its grammar school selective status will cause some mental health issues, is it to those grammar obsessive parents? This is utterly absurd.

It is a very selective school, if it became comprehensive for next year’s intake it would change the dynamics and curriculum and some teachers would leave and it may well be quite disruptive. The disruption from such large changes is real. Schools have a culture and ethos and may child has had enough distruption in key early years of KS1 for me not want him to be the subject of political football games, at his expense.

You also said "Besides my child would have gotten into a great comprehensive too"

If, would, well, go figure out and make up you own case. It is a very self selective school too, It is clearly these kind of parents having issue about themself.

650 grammar schools closed in the 1970s, it turns out for the better.

None of us can say whether the political changes are short term or long term, can we? All we can judge on is what is happening right now. There is no hard evidence either way as to whether local residents support grammar schools or not. There hasn't been a consultation let alone a referendum on the issue for decades - one was mooted in 1998 but it never happened.

The assumption that parents support grammar schools because they live in an area that has grammar schools is a classic case of correlation not equalling causation.

“The assumption that parents support grammar schools because they live in an area that has grammar schools is a classic case of correlation not equalling causation.”

Not really in the case of Bucks, in particular, that is one of the wealthiest home counties with expensive house prices. People move out of London to Bucks and one of the reason may well be the belief they want the possibility of a grammar education. If you were to change the grammar system overnight, that may well have a negative impact on house prices in Buckinghamshire. West Kent is another example of that. It may apply less to the poorer parts of Kent.

It is a bit like someone coming along and saying single sex education is outdated. Let’s make every secondary school mixed starting from Year 8 in 2025, just bung a fee portaloos for the boys in the playground or make them all mixed gender anyway. No concern for anything else - the fact that girls’ schools have an ethos as well, for example and that parents chose those schools in the first place and teachers chose to teach there.

Evidence please? There is no evidence whatsoever that this is the case, it's a media/political trope. There may be a handful of families each year who move for the schools but it's far less common than people think it is - particularly people who do not live here. It's an expensive area because it's popular, and it's popular for any number of reasons - great transport links by road, rail and plane, quick commute into central London, countryside on your doorstep, etc. As regards your analogy, Bucks has mixed grammar schools as well as single-sex ones, something you'd be aware of if you actually knew the area rather than making assumptions about it.

Bucks grammar schools are catchment area schools and for some of them you have to be living in catchment for quite a while before you even sit the 11+. They're not the same as the super-selectives where you apply from anywhere in the country with a view to moving if you DC wins a place. Which I guess kind of brings us full circle back to @PopcornPoppingInAPan 's original OP.

No it is not a media/political trope. Absolutely everyone I personally know moves for secondary schools, one way or another. However, personally I would have moved to eg Chorleywood for the best comp with a backup option for grammar in case it did not work out. And yes, we also looked at Bucks years ago and decided against it. Pretty much everyone goes to West Kent for the grammars too.

The likes of Laura Trott in Sevenoaks where the managed to open grammar annexes are not suddenly going to bend over backwards for Labour ideology. One way for Labour to lose the Home Counties once and for all, would probably be a Lorded over from the top abolition of grammars with no local consultation. But some of you go ahead in your echo chambers.

everyone I personally know moves for secondary schools, one way or another.

Oh well it must be true 😂...come on this isn't evidence. Everyone I know does not move for secondary...

@privatenonamegiven - so your friends and acquaintances do not consider schooling when purchasing a house or flat in the first place? Not at all?… You must be a very different demographic to the one I move in. In my demographic, type of house etc seems to feature as importantly as access to education, if they have children that is. That applies to colleagues, friends and acquaintances.

The evidence is all over pretty much marketing of estate agents, all publicly available. If nobody cares, why would they possibly comment on it? Why have people invented school finder apps and made millions out of them selling them to eg Rightmove?
The evidence is in the economics. Plainly available if you bother to look.

Or the whole of the Mumsnet Education board, the concept of itself and the traffic on it, is evidence. Will that do or not scientific enough for you? Typically you can follow the money for evidence in the real world.

@Araminta1003 I can't speak for my acquaintances as to be honest it's not the kind of question I would ask them - It would feel a bit too nosy. I would guess you haven't asked all your acquaintances and you're just generalising and guessing.

Most of my friends biggest consideration was house prices and location in terms how close to where you work and family. Yes they might have thought of school but primary rather than secondary as a lot can change from you have child and they start secondary school. And no one in my friendship circle has been able to afford to move house just to access a better secondary school that is for sure.

I won’t claim it’s “everyone I know” but where I live it’s fairly common for people to move around 300-500m (!) from the area surrounding our local primary to get in catchment of the outstanding comp.

The comp catchment has shrunk dramatically in the last couple of years, and the overwhelming majority of families that attend the local primary are not happy with the alternatives (single sex and/or faith and/or an hour’s walk across the other side of town). So they either sell up or buy/rent a second home and then move back to their original home once their eldest gets in the comp.

Incidentally, the reason the catchment has shrunk so much is because the school sold off much of the surrounding land which has been used to build two large housing developments. Virtually everyone who has moved to those developments has moved precisely because of the school…

I'm sure that is your experience but it still isn't evidence of this being a thing nationally - I guess it depends very much where you live in UK. I am sure there are people out there who can afford the money and stress of moving just to get into an outstanding school, but I haven't come across anyone local to me who has done that for secondary school.