catchment areas
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Dear Hugh
You do not have to look round schools [ in Bucks ] during the stated season of open evenings. In fact I would encourage parents to look round at different times.
The open evenings for year 6 are all very close to the practice tests and they are very late nights for a 10 year old, generally parents look at about 3 grammars and their local upper...4 late nights over a couple of weeks.
These evenings also tend to be heaving with parents and children, difficult to get a true insight to the school.
I would suggest that parents look at the schools on the open evenings while the child is in year 5, then at the end of year 5 or early year 6 ask for a day time tour of a couple of your preferred schools, the majority of schools are obliging, using 6th formers to do the tours.
ALL schools should be able to put on a 'show' in the evening, but can that 'show' stand up to scrutiny during the day. Is lesson change reasonably orderly or is it a free for all. Are the children paying attention to the teacher or throwing paper planes around the room [ and yes bad behaviour does rear its ugly head in grammar schools]
I totally agree with Jed that it is important to be in catchment of a good upper school [ or an over the border good comprehensive] because the difference in grammars is less dramatic.
Patricia
You do not have to look round schools [ in Bucks ] during the stated season of open evenings. In fact I would encourage parents to look round at different times.
The open evenings for year 6 are all very close to the practice tests and they are very late nights for a 10 year old, generally parents look at about 3 grammars and their local upper...4 late nights over a couple of weeks.
These evenings also tend to be heaving with parents and children, difficult to get a true insight to the school.
I would suggest that parents look at the schools on the open evenings while the child is in year 5, then at the end of year 5 or early year 6 ask for a day time tour of a couple of your preferred schools, the majority of schools are obliging, using 6th formers to do the tours.
ALL schools should be able to put on a 'show' in the evening, but can that 'show' stand up to scrutiny during the day. Is lesson change reasonably orderly or is it a free for all. Are the children paying attention to the teacher or throwing paper planes around the room [ and yes bad behaviour does rear its ugly head in grammar schools]
I totally agree with Jed that it is important to be in catchment of a good upper school [ or an over the border good comprehensive] because the difference in grammars is less dramatic.
Patricia
To Malkbk
Slough and Reading both have grammar schools.
I only have knowledge of the Slough consortium.
This consists of Slough Grammar, Herschel Grammar and Langley Grammer. All seem good schools.
Langley usually only takes scores of 115 plus (pass mark 111).
The 11plus in slough consists of Maths, VR & NVR...with the aggregate mark of all three taken as the achieved result.
I don't think there are any catchment rules for the Slough consortium just the score achieved.
There is also St Bernards (again I have heard good things about the school) It is a 'faith' school (catholic) so has slightly different entry criteria.
There are quite a few posts in the 'Berkshire' section but please ask if you have any queries.
Slough and Reading both have grammar schools.
I only have knowledge of the Slough consortium.
This consists of Slough Grammar, Herschel Grammar and Langley Grammer. All seem good schools.
Langley usually only takes scores of 115 plus (pass mark 111).
The 11plus in slough consists of Maths, VR & NVR...with the aggregate mark of all three taken as the achieved result.
I don't think there are any catchment rules for the Slough consortium just the score achieved.
There is also St Bernards (again I have heard good things about the school) It is a 'faith' school (catholic) so has slightly different entry criteria.
There are quite a few posts in the 'Berkshire' section but please ask if you have any queries.
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hugh
I certainly agree it is better to see a "real" day, rather than a special evening - in theory.patricia wrote:You do not have to look round schools [ in Bucks ] during the stated season of open evenings.
However, when our son was in year 5 and we were thinking of moving to Bucks, I rang Chesham High and Challoner's in about Nov to enquire about looking round and both told me I couldn't because we'd missed the open evening, they didn't do other viewings, and as our son was only in year 5, there was no need anyway!
I can't help with advice about uppers as we didn't look at any. We were fortunate in that our son was in a Herts prep school (not that they gave any 11+ tuition) so had he failed 11+, he could have stayed on a couple of years while we reconsidered what to do.
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Guest55
