I'm utterly clueless about the private school system.
I didn't grow up in London, and niether did DH, and neither of us, or any of our family have ever been in the private school system.
However, we are in a position financially to put both DD and DS into private school once they reach 11. Although the preference would be to put them in a decent state secondary, it doesn't look like that's going to be possible.
They will go to local state primary school because we believe in it, and we are in the catchment area for one of the best state primaries.
They are both still so young, but I feel like I need to start getting my head around where would work for them and us when the time comes. It all feels a bit overwhelming - the great unknown.
Ideally, we'd want them in a co-ed school. Also, and I know this may sound ridiculous to some of you (!) but I'd want them in the kind of school that didn't smack of old style public schooling. Somewhere that had the best possible mix of people given the obvious class and social restrictions of private schooling. I can't bear the thought of a bowler hat and a pin stripe blazer...which is terribly inverted of me, but there you have it.
I realise a lot of this is down to the fact that I don't want to feel like we are outsiders - not having come from generations of public schoolers.
Anyway. Ramble over.
How can I start getting to grips with what schools are available, whether it will matter that the DC's aren't coming from a "feeder" school, and whether they are going to suit who we are as a family.
TIA.