Did your child choose their secondary school?

[pigsinmud]

Doing the tours of the 2 schools in local town with ds1. One school 1600 pupils and very good academic record. Other school 820 pupils with not so good results - also has a slightly dodgy reputation, based on the past, as new head seems great. Ds1 wants to go to huge school as that's where his friends seem to be going - some of them not even looked round smaller school. However I liked the feel of the smaller one - head was good and the teachers seemed so enthusiastic.

Ds1 is a good worker and in the top end of his class. I feel that he'd well anywhere. Do we let him choose? I chose my secondary school, but dh didn't. There is just so much snobbery about this smaller school, but the atmosphere felt great. However, I did look at their results and think "oh dear".

I think they have to have a fair amount of a say in it. It doesn't sound like there's a huge difference in either of them, tbh, so maybe it would be better for him to have the final say. Friends are very important afterall and it could be the difference between him enjoying school or crashing miserably.

Luckly with DD, we were all agreed anyway.

No We made the decision not ds1.

We made the decision, with input from our son.

He's only a child, with limited appreciation of future consequences of decisions.

dont do it!
My mum gave in and let me go to a similar school because all my friends did, it really was awful and I ended up changing to the school she originally wanted me to go to in year 9 but by then I was quite far behind,

We told him the decisions was ours but that we would weigh very carefully anything he wanted to say about either of the two schools that he gained entry for.
We did choose the one he liked best and he expressed his preference with some conviction.
We also had the advantage that he would have no peers to move with so there was no issue of his being swayed by his friends choices.
He still loves his school to this day. We chose well and it was brilliant for him to know the choice was helped along by him.

( made it much harder for him to whinge about school as well I guess )

Trust your DS.

My parents didn't trust me and they regretted it

I chose their schools. They trusted me to be the adult in the family (DH automatically agreed).

We told dd that we would make the decision but that one of the most important criteria in our decision would be her views. She ended up at a school which we all liked a lot but which I wouldn't have chosen because it's girls only and quite a long way away. But we liked it too - we wouldn't have chosen a school we didn't like because she liked it.

We showed DS1 around 5 schools.

He knew which school was our preference, and the 2nd choice. He knew the reasons for our choice, which weren't just about the school, but also about his siblings, and our jobs.

We asked his opinion and he agreed with our choice. How much this was because he knew our choice, or genuine preference, I couldn't say for certain, but he's quite happy there.

DS2 was shown around two schools, but knew he would be going to the same school as DS1, and we're currently going through the process with DS3.

Cat64 - that's my way of thinking! However, he's pretty set on his choice, which I'm sure he'd be fine at. I've just heard lots of comments from past and present pupils that they feel anonymous due to the number of children.

I know that ds2 (only in yr 4 at the moment) will certainly be happier at the smaller school, but I don't have a problem with them being at different schools.

Our catchment school is the smaller one - we live in a village just outside town, so there is the possibility that he won't get into the larger one.

I never thought there would be any debate as I was expecting to like the school with the better academic record more, but I didn't.

He had an input - but we said he had to trust us to make the ultimate decision. In the end, though, he didn't get in at 'our' first choice and got a place at 'his' first choice instead - and he's doing fine But I think, really, it's down to you - you're the adult, you can see the bigger picture (ie., there's more to the decision than where his friends are going).

No, we chose. A 10-year-old (or 9 year old as mine were when they started their secondary school visits) shouldn't be given that responsibility. I let my children choose what cereal they have or what clothes they wear at the weekend or how they spend their pocket money, not where they are going to school for the next 7 years!

Listen to his views by all means and use that in your decision-making. Most of the children I know who were allowed to choose, made that decision on factors including the school meals, where their friends might be going, what colour the uniform was, which experiment they did in science on their taster day - the list goes on!

I wouldn't necessarily be put off by the large size of the other school - our school has over 1700 pupils but has a real family and community feel to it. There is a superb pastoral system and excellent middle-management which means tutors and heads of year and indeed other staff really seem to know the children well. We also have two 'sides' to each year group, which immediately halves the number of pupils any one child might come across during most of their school day.

According to my mum, I chose my secondary school. However, she chose it. It had the best academic record in our area and was known as being the best. I had a miserable time there. I didn't fit in. Think about your child when you think about the school and don't just look at the results table is my advice!

Head at DD's primary school told the Y6 parents at a meeting last week on no account to let the child choose! Not that it makes an ounce of difference round here as the word choice is a joke.

We didn't have much choice in that there was only one school within a reasonable radius that had disabled access. Fortunately, this was one with good results (for our area), which we really liked and dd also wanted.

We decided which schools to visit and our older son clearly preferred one of the schools from the moment he went round it. Now in yr 9 and he is still adamant that it is his favourite, apart from I want to be home edded moments caused by getting detentions...