halsea wrote:
Fab and fab

We are visiting the school soon. Any tips for the exam/interview as it seems different than the grammars.
What made it a better school than one of the grammars for you if I can ask?
We didn’t do any preparation for the exam (which was in Jan then). It seemed much more similar to Year 6 work anyway - not time pressured, just Maths, comprehension and creative writing. There’s also a verbal reasoning test but we were told that’s only used in borderline cases. Our dd wasn’t interviewed for her assisted place although I know some were last year.
In terms of it being ‘better’ I guess that’s subjective. The teaching isn’t any better - all schools have a range of good and not so good teachers! The range of subjects is broader - more modern foreign languages, Latin and Greek, Astronomy as an extra, for example.
There are more extra curriculars and they’re emphasised more. There seems to be a big push to join clubs and the lunch break is long to facilitate that. Also there are more trips and off-curriculum days during the course of the year. Yesterday my daughter spent the day with a film crew, filming a short story her group had written. Last week they had a robotics day, the week before that a mindfulness day where they did all sorts of relaxing and reflective activities! My ds at grammar school thinks she hardly does any real work!

You also avoid the constraints of the national curriculum and all the target setting and testing that goes on in state schools. It just seems broader and more balanced.
But none of those things are essentials and I doubt that they make any difference to exam results. I just think maybe the experience is nicer!