Hello, this is NorthernLurker's DH here. She was going to post on my behalf but has gamely given me control of the PC.
I was in this position some twenty years ago, transferring at 11 from a well-run primary school which was nonetheless in a rough part of Edinburgh that had been a mining village of old.
My parents were in what sounds like a similar position to yourself - comfortable but certainly not wealthy. My parents were both graduates, dad had had a business which was facing increasing competition and we had one car for most of my time at school, went on holidays in our caravan and didn't often go out for dinner.
For a couple of years he was studying part time and doing occasional freelance work and this meant living fairly frugally off the proceeds of the business. I was one of three and we did have 4/5 bedrooms but it was far out from the centre and in a private street surrounded by council flats and houses.
Like yourself, my parents wanted to move me for purely educational reasons. The local secondary had been good when they moved to the area but had plummeted to become one of the worst in the city. Moving to a better school meant moving to a better catchment and even 20 years ago, house prices in Edinburgh were grossly inflated around good schools and this was simply out of the question.
I still remember my first week. You've asked - will your son be embarassed to ask friends back home? I found that my part of town wasn't even in my new classmates' geography! They just didn't know where it was. A few had vaguely heard it was "dodgy" but most looked blank.
However, the good news is that the friends I made didn't care and I was not embarrased to invite them back. A few did get lost when coming on the bus though
I want to address these two points you've raised together
I am at the last minute getting unnerved by the amount of money I see circulating round these schools
Will he feel different to most others ?
It's right to be a bit unnerved and you should prepare your son for the fact that some of his future classmates will have a staggering amount of money and noclue_ about the value of things.
I did feel different and the wealth on show was staggering. I was swayed by it a bit but hopefully what I go on to say below will be an encouragement.
I made a good friend whose dad was an actuary and (even then) was making £50K pa. They were pretty grounded people who always made me feel welcome but also lived in one of the most fabulously desirable parts of west Edinburgh (caledonian lurkers will be able to guess within three which part I mean)
Said friend once asked me towards the end of our schooling "why don't you move to [his area], there's a house down near the main road for only £279,000!" (bearing in mind that this was nearly 20 years ago). At the time, my parents' house was worth around a quarter of that and it didn't even sell for that when they finally moved out in 2008.
Another illustration about the lack of clue still makes me smile to recall it now.
At the end of third year (year 10 to the sassenachs), the school insisted on splitting up classes and sending us in groups of about 20 to various locations in the wilds of Scotland and northern England to yomp up+down mountains for ten days.
On one trip, after walking two or three miles through what could be described only as wilderness in Kintail, heading for the astounding but remote falls of Glomach, one of the girls said "when we get there, will there be a shop?"
The good news is that i) it is hard not to feel slightly superior when faced with dimness like that and ii) there were several other children in a similar situation to me and one by one, we were drawn to each other.
Those that became my friends were mostly the children of ministers, teachers, musicians and other noble but impoverished professions.
We were a bit of a misfit bunch but we established ourselves and developed talents in music, drama, debating and writing / journalism. We joined the choir (regarded with suspicion), we published illicit magazines and during class times, we worked hard to prove that we had earned our place there, not got it automatically because we'd been in the prep school since aged five.
That's not to say we formed our own landlocked republic. We all had "posher" friends who lived in gorgeous houses but as school progressed into sixth form, we did find that some of the richer kids started coming to us for an alternative point of view on life.
Some of the deeply uncool things we'd been involved with eventually became popular and our experience and knowledge were suddenly in demand. I'll never forget the satisfaction of our first choir rehearsal in my final year when all the lads that were in the first XV rugby team turned up to join the choir because they realised they needed something different to put on their UCCA form (showing my age) - and because they realised that the most beautiful women in the school were in the choir!
Some of the richer kids did come to an understanding of the world we lived in and I certainly came to have a confidence in dealing with the upper class world - as well as seeing first-hand that staggering amounts of money really, truly can't make you happy.
I took both those lessons with me and the confidence that came from learning to deal with that tension is still with me today.
Importantly, all the things I mentioned like debating, choir, drama (and the yomping) are all opportunities which the school opened up to us. I would never have got to do half those things at a state school and I can categorically say that I wouldn't be the person I am today without those experiences. Sport wasn't my thing at all but the range of sports played at my school was also huge and if you're son's into that then that could be important leveller. Bags of cash don't help you when you're in the ruck!
So, to summarise a long rambling, I felt different but also had some great experiences.
Two important "riders", however.
Firstly, me and most of my friends benefitted from the Conservatives' Assisted Place scheme where you paid what you could afford and the Government topped up the rest - provided you passed the entrance exam, of course.
Secondly, the fees per year were less than what you'd pay there a term now. Do they count private school fees in the inflation figures ? Somehow, I think not
You know your son best and what his response is likely to be. I think I did have my head turned a bit at points and you should have your rebuttals ready. Midway through school I came home and demanded that we move to XXX [the luscious area where school was] cos I was sick of getting two buses home. Mum said she would love to live there too but there was no way on earth she was agreeing to my demands and that was that! So be prepared for a bit of that.
I hope that's been some encouragement. For me, the experience was overall positive and opened many doors for me, though it clearly didn't teach me to do concise postings!