How to choose between these grammar schools and nearby family areas?

[L186]

According to your experience and knowledge, how will/did you choose from the following grammar schools if your DS qualified for them? also considering if the surrounding areas are safe, convenient and nice to live for families. Moving nearby to the school is one of the idea in the near future; it’s also one of the important elements to result the final decision. I’m sure all the schools are fantastic in different criteria. The matter is down to which one fits the child and family the best.

Offering OOC places with enough scores:

• Dartford Grammar school,
• The Judd School,
• Sutton Grammar School,
• Wallington county grammar school,
• Colchester Royal Grammar school,
• Westcliff high school for boys,

Need to move into their designated areas:

• The Latymer school,
• King Edward VI grammar school Chelmsford,

Any thoughts, facts, experiences and opinions are welcome.

The bad thing for Sutton is they don’t really tell you your scores! Or reply your email.

While Kent is telling you everything about your scores and reply emails super fast! I feel Kent council is superb. 😆

I would take the offer you have and not overthink it if it’s a school you like and commutable for your job.
Judd has been great for our son. Many boys travel quite long distances to Judd each day (eg from Bromley or Orpington). I don’t know anything about Dartford Grammar, that looks brilliant too.

Gosh OP I’m finding you very hard to follow . For us a Grammar School place has been superb for our son ( the son that got a place anyway ! ) Not one you’ve considered .

If you have an offer then I would personally get on with researching the area and finding somewhere to live . Easter holidays are not far away - I’d suggest you make that your trip away . Go and find out about the area first hand . I personally think you are fairly unlikely to get anywhere much with waiting lists for other schools . People go to great lengths to get their offer - not that many turn it down ( though I do know a couple that still went private )

A quick Google indicate that Sutton will respond to emails about waiting list places from March 23rd

(AI so do check any info on the school sites)

ETA this is the central site which says you can ask from today but that individual schools may have various dates

www.sutton.gov.uk/w/national-offer-day-for-secondary-schools

If you move into catchment for KEGS, then you’d move to the in catchment waiting list - however, it doesn’t move that fast. So unless his score is 355+ then you’d not be top. With CRGS as there’s no catchment, where are you on WL?

ignoring area, I’d go:
QE
CRGS or KEGS (they’re equal in my opinion)
WHSB

I wouldn’t consider Kent schools.

Personally I wouldn’t want to move to Dartford. Have you visited that bit of Kent OP?

I agree with the previous poster who said lots of boys travel for Judd. Living in Sevenoaks seems common and then kids and parents both commute in opposite directions.

@justasmallbiz
What would put you off Kent schools?

Living in Sevenoaks is extremely expensive though. Especially close to the station, more expensive than Tonbridge or Sutton, for sure.
Also QE is not a good suggestion for a kid where the parent is worried about mild dyslexia/ADHD. It is incredibly competitive with some culling at Sixth Form.
Judd or Sutton would both be more gentle.
I think Tonbridge and surrounding villages are all fine price wise.
Wallington County is also a good school.
I just think moving out of Central London with an extremely international vibe and not being British to somewhere like Tonbridge could be a bit of a culture shock, to put it mildly. But plenty of people do it. The OP does not say their heritage, race, religion or anything like that. It is difficult to advise without any of that.

There's a reasonably mixed demographic in Sutton, although less than most central areas of London. All the Sutton grammars tend to have high numbers of East Asian ethnicities in particular, with relatively low numbers of White British families compared to the numbers in the surrounding areas.

Sutton is very much suburban. Personally I think that is a good thing, in striking distance of central London but not as busy/crowded. Most people have a car and drive far more. We walk to school and commute by train to work but use the car for clubs, weekend days out, going to the supermarket etc. Sutton Town centre has a bit of a bad rep but is improving. I personally like it, as it has a decent number of useful shops, not just lots of brunch places and overpriced gift shops like some areas I have lived in. There are some good parks/open spaces.

PP suggested house prices, which I agree with. Some areas e.g. near St Helier hospital have smaller, cheaper terraced housing. Other areas e.g. Carshalton Beeches have lots of bigger, spread out houses. Your money will stretch further in some places than others. Hackbridge might be a bit cheaper but on a good line to central, although possibly less desirable than other areas nearby.

Obviously they are boys schools. Sutton Grammar has a small playground and sports fields towards Cheam. They focus on football more. It is super well connected. Wallington has more space, and I think plays more rugby.

They are very opaque about score, but should tell you Waiting List positions. There is usually some movement, as some may go go private, plus some will be hoping for Tiffin waiting list offers. It will depend how highly your son scored in this test though obviously, and the 2 schools do things slightly differently. People say if you also qualified for Wilsons, you have a higher chance for SG & WCGS, but not sure if that applies to out of catchment.

Are you on the waiting lists for Sutton/ Wallington and did he pass the exam for Wilson’s? I’m asking as while the waiting lists move a bit, it is extremely unlikely that you’ll get a place unless he passed for all three. Normally the cut off for Wallington is slightly lower than Sutton. They deliberately don’t tell you the scores as they want all the boys to start on an even footing. One thing I would say, which is becoming noticeable as my DS gets older, is that a lot of boys commute to these schools and it does limit meeting up outside school ( we live in walking distance but none of DS’s friends do).
Likewise it’s hard to recommend areas without knowing your budget.

Yes, he passed all three including football test but we don’t expect a super high score (at least compared to Kent test). Although he’s natural in NVR and Maths, loves reading with quite good inference ability, writing especially spelling does not favour him. He’s very average in writing at least back then. We can see this from his Latymer second round ranking, the English creative writing did dragged him down quite a bit.

Good thing is, he’s a bit better now as he started to practice a bit of writing casually from time to time, which we love to see.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to visit the Sutton schools; unlike other schools, they didn’t offer post exam open day. So apart from Round 1, 2, music & sports test days, we couldn’t see anything more about these schools.
We didn’t name Wilson’s or Sutton on our CAF, Wallington was also at a lower position as we don’t know his score but we knew how well prepared some other boys were, and how competitive it could be.
After knowing he passed the first round, we did think of hiring a writing tutor for couple of weeks before the second round (I know! native!) But it’s too late as the one we asked said she’s super busy enough with her normal long term students from years ago. We accepted that he will just have to try it without extra help.
We thought Wallington might be a better fit, given the bigger sports field and more OOC places.
We would expect most people will move nearby to save their kids’ journey. It seems not really according to your DS’s experience. Does the school offer many extracurricular activities after school? This is kind of important for my DS as he’s already thinking of joining many secondary clubs raging from chess, debating, music… to multi sports.

Most people will already live fairly nearby, they won’t move nearby. But it’s common for many secondary schools (selective or not!) for pupils to take a train or bus rather than walking.

But if you don’t think he got a super high score at eg Sutton, why do you think you will be high enough up the waiting list to get a place?

ETA remember most kids on the WL will live nearby and now be preparing to go to a non selective local school, so it will be a “no brainer” for them to accept a WL place that comes up

Judd is at least as good as Wallington, in my opinion. Sutton has less facilities - more of a small family feel and on a niceish street, but less facilities.
Wilson’s is better for Music and football, the campus site is very big. It also has the strongest exam results and hardest to get in. However, the exact location feels very busy and not the nicest. If you did not put Wilson’s down originally, you obviously had doubts about it for your DS. Always match the child to the actual school.

I would stick with Judd now. I would go visit the immediate area this weekend. It is walking distance from Tonbridge station, also family feel to the school. Quite good sports and some music clubs. Your main issue now is to focus on whether you can live in and around there. Some very nice villages around there too. And as someone said it is 20 minutes on train from Orpington if you wanted more of a main line into London, although Orpington itself is not the nicest, more suburban. There are nice villages around like Green Street Green I think it is called. Sevenoaks is very popular and some villages may be cheaper. Further down Weald of Kent area is beautiful.

Generally, in normal allocation if you passed Wilson’s you will have gotten at least Wallington, and sometimes Sutton too (less out of area places). Waiting list is less reliably because there are other people like you OP changing their minds/plagued by indecision so required scores can go up and won’t always go down. If you were to give up your Judd place you won’t necessarily get it back later either, as the waiting list can in theory move up and score go up on reallocation!

I strongly suggest for your DS sake you make a firm plan now and really put your effort into building local friendships and move house etc - this is extremely important for teens. Yes, Tonbridge is very white area but not unfriendly. Most kids local and grew up there with strong community feel. It seems your family are lacking family ties and friends all over the place and this is sad for your DS, especially if he is a single child. Give him certainty and get him excited about new school and great achievement he has made!

If you move into catchment for KEGS, then you’d move to the in catchment waiting list

I wouldn't be so sure about that without checking with the school.

https://www.kegs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/admissions-policy-2026.pdf

(e) Where selected pupils drop out between the time of publication of offers of places and the start
of the following academic year places, then:
(i) any pupil who drops out who was awarded a place based on categories 4(a)(i) and 4(a)(ii)
above (i.e. who lives within the priority area) will be replaced by the next pupil in rank order
who lives in the priority area as defined in 4(b)-(c).
(ii) any pupil who drops out who was awarded a place based on categories 4(a)(iii) and 4(a)(iv)
above will be replaced by the next pupil in the rank order.

(b) The offer of a place made under 4(a)(i) and 4(a)(ii) is conditional upon the pupil being
continuously resident within the priority area (at their permanent home address and that of their
primary carer) between 31
st October in Year 6⁵ and the date of commencing the start of Year 7 at
KEGS.

Sigh.

OP, just take the offer you have.

Then work out the travel/move logistics

If you don’t accept the place in time YOU WILL LOSE IT.

Waiting lists are something you stay on when you DON’t have a grammar place.

Your CAF was put in order of preference, so the school place you have was highest up.

Just take the place and mither later!!

(mither is a slang word meaning prevaricate)

OP If your child is in year 6, already taken the tests and offered places - I’m sorry you are probably too late for anywhere you haven’t already got a place for.

So it’s a case of- do you take the Judd place or not?

I can tell you about Judd if that helps.

Firstly, many boys don’t live in Tonbridge - some up as far as London, many south of Tonbridge. Commuting in won’t make him stand out.

But, Judd do a lot after school- which if you’ve got a long commute on top of that will make for a long day, you need to factor in at least and hour of homework a night as well.

if you don’t want to move to Tonbridge but do want to live nearer to the school, Sevenoaks would be a good option- and a lot of Judd boys commute from Sevenoaks on the train (Sevenoaks is inner area for Judd). But if you and your DH still need to get to London for work, it’s about 25 mins on the train to London Bridge.

To clarify, I meant do not move unless you have a firm offer. I was not advising the OP to make her child commute

I'm a bit confused. If you're considering Latymer for September 2026, you would already need to be in catchment. I don't know the exact cut off date but you need to move by January and after that all the out of catchment people are removed from the waiting list.

1. In the Summer term, just over a year before your child is due to start secondary school, you need to decide on any state grammars, or private schools with an entry exam that you want your child to apply for.
2. You then need to look at the individual dates for

i) securing a place in those schools entry exams ii) taking those schools exams

1. In or before the September/October a year prior to your son starting secondary, you need to

i) decide what schools you are interested in, find out info about them and go to open days (ANY schools private/state, ability selective or not). ii) apply for the entrance exams for any state or private schools you are interested in that have them iii) take the entrance exams and get the results

1. No later than the 31st October, you will

i) follow the individual application process for any private schools you are interested in. ii) submit your state form with up to 5 state schools in order of preference. These can be ANY schools, but if none of them are schools that you are naturally in the catchment area for, there is a chance you won’t get into any of them. If you have passed entrance exams for any state grammars, put them probably with high preference, but include non-selective schools too because your son could still fail to get a place in the grammar if more children pass the exam than there are places.

1. You will get offers from private schools according to their own schedules. On the first March you will get your allocated state school, which could be a grammar school if your child has passed the test and met the other criteria. It could be one of the state schools on your form, or it could be another state school if you were out of catchment for all the schools you put down.
2. You will then accept one offer and reject the others. After this you may appeal to any schools you didn’t get an offer from that you feel you should have qualified for if needed.

That’s rather academic since op ds is already year 6.

Op assuming you are needing to move in order for your ds to have a feasible journey to school you will need to make your decision as to whether to that place up very soon, allowing time for an area and property search and logistics of moving in time for September and attending any induction events. Once you have moved it will be far more difficult to take up any further offers via wl should they arise if they are geographically spread out so you will need to set yourself a deadline. You may find that while you are remain wl for those you placed higher preference, some LA will assume you will take a place there if one comes up, so do check the policy rather than risk losing the place you already have at a very good school.

Have you looked at the location of the Sutton grammar schools? Wilsons is Sutton but right on the border with Croydon.

I'm confused. If he's year 6 already he surely has a school place allocated? If you move, even if he does a late entrance exam for local schools, he will likely not get a place if they are popular schools.

OP has received an offer for a top grammar school after their DS passed the 11+.

They are now trying to decide whether to move to the area around that school or whether to hang on and see if he gets a WL place at another school and move there instead.

No, it doesn’t make much sense, which is why most people are advising them to accept the current offer and move if need be to somewhere that offers a reasonable commute to that school.