Advice please: state secondaries with firm behaviour and excellent dyslexia support

[SecondaryChoicesIncRelocation]

I’ve used AI to help me organise my thoughts but I promise this is a real post.

We’re planning a move from independent to state for both daughters for the start of the next academic year (September): one will enter Year 7, the other Year 10. We simply can’t afford the fees any more.

Like many others, we value education highly and want to make thoughtful choices in the state system.

Both DC are bright and dyslexic. We currently live in a grammar area but we’ve missed the boat for the 11+ I think (???), so we’re looking for strong non-selective comprehensives.

We’re also using this as an opportunity for a wider life reset: we’re happy to relocate (and buy in‑catchment if needed) to find the right school culture and community - ideally with realistic housing, good rail links, and a balanced pace of life.

What we’re after (in priority order):
• Calm, orderly classrooms with consistent behaviour expectations so lessons aren’t disrupted.

• High academic expectations/ambition across the cohort, with a positive attitude to learning.

• Excellent SEND provision for dyslexia (evidence‑based literacy support; proactive SENCo; appropriate access arrangements).

• For DC2 (starting Year 10): a school experienced with the start of KS4, willing to map option blocks/exam boards and support settling in and catch‑up if needed.

Location: we’re flexible and can move to the right area. Ideally commutable to London (first choice), or to another major city (second choice), even going as far afield as Edinburgh or Glasgow.

Practicalities we’re aware of:
• Oversubscription and realistic catchments, including distances and any faith/banding criteria.

• That we may need to buy within a realistic catchment.

• Differences in GCSE option blocks/exam boards at KS4 and the need to align for a September start.

What would really help from MNers:

1. Specific schools and/or areas where you’ve seen excellent behaviour culture + strong dyslexia support in a non‑selective setting.
2. Any “watch‑outs” for starting Year 10 in September (option blocks, exam boards, and timelines for access arrangements).
3. Pointers to local authorities with parent‑friendly processes for secondary admissions and SEND.

Thank you. Genuinely looking for constructive advice and lived experience. Please be gentle!

I don't think its as doom and gloom as some are making out... in our area, if you were to move into the (fixed) catchment area for the school, you would likely get a place for Y10, and be top of the list for Yr7. They prefer children at the catchment school where possible so the council saves money on transport.

DD is dyslexic and she is getting support for access arrangements. That couple with an English teacher who seems to just understand her means she's gone from predicted 4 to 6 in the first term of yr10.

However before I rave about the school too much... its not perfect. In DDs words... still too many idiots. I don't think a calm atmosphere is possible in a school that has to take everybody. It would be a culture shock after a Private school.

If you can afford winchester then that might work.
Direct fast train to London.
3 v good secondary schools, excellent 6th form college (school here stop y11).
The surrounding secondaries also very good.

No idea about dyslexia support.

The poster who said that you can apply for anywhere from anywhere is correct, at least as far as applying for schools in one LA in England from another LA in England is concerned. So for your current year 6, you submit a late CAF (Common Application Form) through your current LA, but can name schools anywhere, as well as, or completely instead of, schools in that LA. Come national offer day (March 2nd in 2026), your home LA will offer the highest ranked of your schools which had a place to offer you when they ranked your application against their oversubscription criteria - if any were not oversubscribed with on time applications - or will, if necessary, offer a place at the nearest school within your LA with a place available. She will then either automatically be on waiting lists for your higher preferences, or you can choose this (and apply to other schools).

So far, so good. Your younger DD will get a place somewhere in the normal admissions round for secondary transfer.

However...

Applications for a mid year place are different. You cannot apply now and expect an available place to be held until September; you will almost certainly be expected to arrange to have your current year 9 start by the February half term at the latest. This would actually be a good thing for her in that although GCSE work may not start until the beginning of year 10, options will be sorted out by the end of the summer term, possibly by Easter. It may not matter that she'd be going from early work on Edexcel Biology to AQA Biology, but actual options subjects may be restricted, because classes have reached capacity.

Also - and this is very relevant if you are looking at schools in Essex - mid-year applications do not have to be coordinated by a local authority, so you may have to apply separately to each school. This is definitely the case for the whole of Essex, where all secondary schools handle their own applications after the beginning of the autumn term for that year's year 7 intake. You need to check with each school you are looking at, or the Secondary School Admissions info for its maintaining LA.

So much food for thought. Thank you. My eldest DD failed the 11+. She just hadn’t matured enough for it. She now attends an academic school whose results surpass the grammars and is thriving. She’s doing really well academically. Would she be able to sit the exam again to try and gain entry?

We didn’t sit my youngest for it as we didn’t think she’d pass. Her current school agreed.

Broadly speaking, with more WFH possible, you are competing with many a City worker if you want to be 90 mins from London

Winchester (see above) is in Hants so fully comp, so no issue with grammars.
If doing A levels most will then go on to Peter Symonds 6th Form college.

For grammar school places, yes, she should be able to sit an exam, but even coming top in the exam won't give her a place if there isnt one actually available at the time (at our local grammars, the mid-year exams are now held at set times, I think, rather than just when a place becomes available). Your best bet for this might be somewhere like the areas of Kent where the grammar schools are usually undersubscribed; although obviously your DD would still have to meet the required standard, there is more likely to be a school with a place for her to sit the exam for, so to speak.

Personally, I think you are coming at this the wrong way. Choose a place you would like to live and then work in from there. Once you have pinned down a location, you can start to look at schools in that vicinity and tweak accordingly (strong secondaries near me have catchments of less than a mile). Visit schools, don't just rely on Ofsted and hearsay; parents' views of schools are often years out of date. Lastly, consider tutoring for your DC to bolster them academically. In today's climate, state schools are very cash strapped, and any support offered will fall short of what you are used to.

As one specific suggestion, you could look at Epsom and Rosebery School. I am targeting this school for secondary for my DD and most reviews are excellent. If you manage to move by 1 March and get a house within close distance from the school (there are furthest distances as of March and September no school website), you have a good chance if you get your late application in before 1 March for Year 7 (as you will then be placed top on the waiting list and there are usually 10-15 places offered from the waiting list before September). Your Year 10 DD will then have a sibling priority for this school, plus there are other good schools in Epsom as well.

From knowing the admissions team there, those schools are all heavily over subscribed. CHS South could be a possibility but not guaranteed and there is the possibility that depending on where you live around there that you instead get an offer from one of the Wythenshawe schools.

Tbh if you have enough equity that you could buy someplace outright, I would consider remortgaging for school fees to at least get your elder child through GCSEs and cross my fingers that the economic situation improves for the second child. You’re going to spend probably at least a year’s fees on stamp duty alone. Though I appreciate that if you have no jobs, remortgaging is tricky.

I’m in Cambridgeshire and we have great comprehensives but they are all rammed and you’d have no chance as a late applicant for y7. You might find good dyslexia support and amazing academics mutually exclusive in many state areas.

Where (roughly) are you now? There is not much point in someone recommending Reading, if you are in or nearby Reading. If you’re not, you might want to look at some of the places on the Elizabeth line as there are good secondaries to the west of London.

Be aware that in Scotland, children start school aged 4.5-5.5 (unlike England where they start aged 4). The cut off for year groups is February 29th.
This means that if your daughter's birthday is in the first half of the English school year, she'll be going into Secondary 1 next year, but if she's born after March, she'll be going into Primary 7.
This may make applying for secondary schools a bit easier for you.
Similarly, depending on when your eldest daughter's birthday is, she'll either be going into S3 or S4.

Thanks so much, again, for the advice - and the tip about Scottish school years. Both my kids were born in the second half of the academic year.

If anyone has suggestions for specific schools then that would be great. We can move anywhere so finding the right schools with space is the priority, rather than where we live.

Tbh I would look at grammar schools which aren't oversubscribed and work that way round if it's not important to focus on location.

The issue is that even if schools have space you need to take the space up very quickly. How soon would you be able to move?

My advice is to pick an area, search for schools
and look at Ofsted reports. Your catchment is far too large to be able to answer this question. My kids go to an amazing state school and easily tick these boxes but applications are four times what the intake is so you have to be in catchment. We have independents and grammars in the next court over about ten miles away and our school performs to the same level so it is possible in the home counties.