Hi,

My son has been offered a place at KEGS within catchment. DS scored 345.9. My son score will be in the lower range of the children who will be entering Kegs in 2019.
So i was having doubt whether he will be able to cope up there. Sometimes i feel my child is not as confident as he should be.
Most of the children over there will be super smart(at least they scored more) and i don't want my child to lose confidence.

So i was thinking if i should change priority and ask CSSE to give me place at CRGS(my second choice). But downside is that my child will need to travel.
I am in dilemma. Experienced people in this forum, please let me know your suggestion.

I don’t think you should necessarily worry about it.

I know the scores for several of DDs friends and peers, and I know how well they have progressed through the school to GCSEs. Some of the lower scorers have done better than the higher scorers tbh.

Some of the higher scores may have had quite a lot of tuition so their score may be artificially inflated. If your DS didn’t have much in the way of tuition in comparison then he is quite possibly on a par. However if he had a lot of tuition then it’s possible of course that he might struggle.

There’s also the possibility he might just be a late bloomer, as I know some of DDs friends have been. Or he may just not have done as well on the day as he might have been expected to.

I don't know either of the schools, but I wouldn't worry. Your son has been deemed capable - they wouldn't offer places if they didn't think so. Children develop at different places & he could end up at the top end for some (or all) subjects. Or not, but I'm sure he is capable of keeping up.
Cross posts with Tinkers!

There is no way I would give up that valued kegs place, especially to then travel.

Some people with 345 may have 335 if born in August.

Kegs is not all high achievers, there are lots of different types of learners, ad long as you get your homework done and study a bit for each test you can keep up.

My son in year 8 seems to get less than an hour of homework and lots of nights no homework but will then do a bit of revision.

So keep that valuable space as someone else will snap it up when your son has earned it !

I think if it were me I would consider:
Is my child a summer birthday, and scored that with a boost to the raw scores. If he is a September born then there will be plenty of children who performed lower in the test, but scored higher due to the boost.

Was he heavily tutored, or not? A child scoring 345 with little tutoring is very different to one who had intensive support to score that.

Does he thrive in a competitive environment where others are ahead, or would he be better as the high flyer?

Did he do any practice papers, was his standardised score around the same, higher, lower? This could give you insight as to if the score is a good indicator of where he might sit compared to the others.

I very much doubt that either school will be very different in ability as the accepted scores aren't that dissimilar, and certainly not that there would be a perceivable difference in academic ability. If anything depending on the answers to the questions above I would consider alternatives to grammar school, however you could always try KEGS and see how it goes with a view to moving elsewhere if he isn't enjoying it.

Nothing to do with CSSE- if you want to alter your preferences, this is done via your local authority (Essex CC presumably, if you are in the KEGS priority admissions area?).

Did your DS genuinely like CRGS so much better than KEGS when you and he visited the schools, that the possibility of a place there is worth the extra travel? Did you genuinely like CRGS so much better that it's worth the extra travel for you to attend parents evenings and other events and to get him home if he's taken ill, etc?

Yes, there will be boys at KEGS (or CRGS, or SHSB, or WHSB) who got higher scores and will seem smarter and quicker than your DS, but there will also be those who got 400 and will rapidly sink to the middle or below, just as there will probably be boys joining from the waiting list with lower scores who do better.

Personally, I would go with what he's got. Presumably there was a reason you put the one school above the other on your CAF in the first place.

_________________
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx

From all I read and have heard, KEGS is a very caring school and very supportive towards any child who is finding the going tough. They would not allow a student's achievement level to suffer from a lack of self confidence.

Your DS has just been offered a place based on a very high score; a score that was originally deemed "well above what is required". He should take every confidence from that - he's a high achiever among a cohort of high achievers. Always remember, there's only one GCSE - there's not a specially difficult one for KEGS boys !!! He'll be expected to pass at a high grade, but that's already clearly in his reach

PS The time saved travelling can be better spent getting is homework done and mugging up on anything he's finding tough.
PPS Go KEGS.

Don't panic! It's unlikely you will be able to swap your place anyway.......

But. Once they start working in the different subjects, things even out. Some are better at science, some enjoy history, others prefer languages. Things soon settle down and whilst there are a select few that excel at everything, there's definitely not a group of boys who had lower 11+ scores languishing at the bottom of the class.

Not all the boys in KEGS are really off the chart intelligent. All of them are capable but only a few excel in every subject. And there's no pressing pressure on them to be top in everything - some are into languages , some others are into geography and some into maths and science. If your child has been tutored to the hilt, then there's a cause for concern. If he's got 345 with out much strain, then I think he will settle down quite well in KEGS.

If you are worried that the standard will be too high for your son at KEGS then taking a place at CRGS is going to make no difference. In actual marks in the exam, the gap between the two at point of cut off is no more than one or two. We live half way between the two schools and chose CRGS because we felt it was the best match for our son but this was not about exam marks.

It might reassure you to know that the last boy in from the waiting list in his year ended up in the middle all way through so I wouldn't take 11 plus rankings too seriously: they are only a snapshot of a particular performance on a particular day.

We are absolutely convinced that we made the right choice for our son, and he could have gone to either school, but I am not sure that we would even have looked at CRGS had we been living in Chelmsford.