A week on from the allocation day and reflecting on the surprises we've experienced - I'm wondering if this is a watershed moment for reasonableness?

Upton grammar rank score is up to 121. And then there are parents disappointed with being allocated a top surrey grammar school - simply because it was their 4th choice on CAF. Seriously?

I'm just wondering at what point is it fair to say that grammar schools are not worth the hassle? When rank score reaches 120+? or distance is 30-miles+?...

What are the alternatives for a good education, other than paying private?...

Upton Court saw the effects of the change to Herschel’s admissions I think, plus there’s an steady increase in the cohort size coming through.

I suspect Upton Court may also follow Langley and Herschel and introduce some form of catchment or priority area in the future. Some people are thinking of making their children travel unreasonable distances in my opinion. I really don’t think there’s any advantage to be gained by sending children to a GS a difficult commute away.

Amy benefits have to be outweighed by the effects of all the travel and less time to do all the other stuff, that is actually important.

I don’t quite understand your title or post to be homest....

For popularity to have “peaked” Sounds like you are saying it has hit a high point and will go down in popularity from here on. This doesn’t seem to be the case as every year more children sit the exams.

The higher score requirement for Upton is simply because it has replaced Langley Grammar as the get-the-highest-score-and-you’re-in-from-Tumbuktu school. So the very morivated parents who happen to live in Wembley/Hampshire/Reading but are determined nothing but a grammar will do, are hyper-tutoring their poor children for 2-3 years in order that their children will outperform all the others and “win” a place, together with a requirement to put up with an arduous journey or relocate the whole family afterwards.
Upton is a great school, but nothing’s *that* great!

thank you for the correction. I agree that the schools will remain popular. But given the hyper tutored children from Wembley/Hampshire/Reading (and beyond), parents and children will have to put in even more effort to "win" a place...by the way, at one of last year's open tour this is exactly how the deputy head of upton court described the process...that children need to "win" a place. However, resource and time is often limited...so my thought is...given the rising popularity of grammar schools, would parents now realise that the extra tutoring, sacrificed family time etc is not worth the reward?

I can’t say for other areas as I don’t know them, but for most Reading people who apply to the Slough schools, the Slough schools will be a back up choice to Reading or Kendrick.
If they get good enough scores they will choose those over Slough GS.

Unless someone really wants a mixed GS of course.

I think quite the opposite will happen. It seems the harder a school is to get into, the more desirable it becomes to some parents. If a determined parent finds out that other children are being tutored in year 4 they will simply start in year 3. If they find out other children are going through tuition material for an hour a day, they will simply make their DC go through tuition material for two hours a day.

Four or five years ago it seemed more common to start tutoring when a child started year 5, now it seems that many start in year 4 and there appears to be increasing numbers of parents starting in year 2 and 3. You only need to look at the large array of tuition material/tutors/tution centres on the market to see how much of a growth industry it has become. I don’t think parents are going to lose interest in Grammar/Selective schools any time soon.