Moving Welad to Tonbridge Girls Grammar school in Year 8

[happymum07]

We are thinking of moving our child from Weald to Tonbridge grammar school for girls in Year 8 after giving in year CAT exam. Has anyone done this before and did it help your child?

They have to because the government removed the IB top up funding. It's unaffordable now as IB is more expensive to run than A-level.

In your position, I think I would put her in for the TGS in year assessment. See what that brings. It may well be that she doesn’t score high enough for their waiting list. Or that she does but there are no places available. Or if she does get offered a place, you can then make an informed decision.

Indeed, applying for a 6th Form
place at TGS or Judd is also a good idea. She would apply in Year 11 but check the admission requirements as this can be very tight.

I knew the extra funding had been removed; I wondered/hoped some schools might be able to continue to run it somehow. It’s such a good option for the all rounder and it was a nice additional choice when one school in the area offered it.

@WW3, the funding is £2400 per student, the cost to the DfE is tiny compared to the big picture, ie £1billion spent setting up T levels. Apparently there was a programming error predicting the number of pupils in education and a saving had to be made to balance the books - it’s nothing to do with the opportunity or quality of the global IB course - instead the DfE have turned it into a qualification for the wealthy only.

It was always a bit iffy financially in the UK, the IB. It was roughly equivalent to running 5.5 A levels per student because of the requirement for 6 subjects plus ToK (philosophy), CAS (volunteering/activism) and extended essay. Plus you needed a heck of a lot of languages and Maths capacity to carry those on to 18 for everyone. Plus the IBO requires specific training for teachers and certification for the centre. It's hard to fill vacancies because few staff have the right experience/it's not attractive as so niche. It all costs.

Schools abroad get more mileage by doing the MYP too but UK schools in the state sector need to do GCSE.

I have taught both IB and A-level and they both have plusses and minuses. IB absolutely broke some students!

State schools have had falling funding in real terms now for 15 years so sadly doing anything out of the ordinary or even less popular (A level Music for instance) is no longer viable in most cases.

From my experience, grammars are often not too challenging in year 7 especially when you consider how hard the cohort's been worked in years 4-6. The students come from all over so getting them all pointing in the same direction so to speak is key.

Long story short: I wouldn't do anything hasty if your daughter's happy, OP.

TGS is extremely academic and the girls come under a lot of pressure. We chose Weald over TGS for this reason.