Growing up is hard to do..... Molly makes the secondary school decision

Last week Molly, Louise and I headed over to another secondary school to have a look around. We did the local Pocklington one a while back and Molly really loved it. This time it was the York Catholic school.

I've talked about the secondary school thing before. Quick summary: Back in Birmingham we were terrified by the lack of choice we had. Either send her to the local comp (not going to happen - absolutely awful school, probably has the metal detectors in by now), try to get her into King Edwards Grammar (then 1 in 8000 applicants successful - now? maybe 1 in 12,000?) or go private. None of them were really an option. And we were worried. Really, really worried.

But when we looked at Pocklington we were told that she had automatic entry to either the local Pocklington comp or the York Catholic school. The relief was amazing. Both schools are academically about the same based on the % scores and we soon decided we could easily leave it up to Molly to decide.

So, back to now. We've seen the Pocklington comp and all three of us thought it was really good. The plus side is the local thing and the great feeling we had. The minus - big school. But we're all agreed it's lovely and Louise and I think (and everyone we speak to agrees) that Molly would do well there - although she's just the sort of kid who'd do well anywhere really.

So off we head to York for the catholic school open evening. And it was lovely, a mazey rat warren of a place, "charming" was how Louise put it, but both Louise and I knew that we still preferred the local Pocklington comp. Which meant we both started wondering how we could persuade Molly to favour our choice, despite promising that we'd let her decide. Luckily we didn't need to. After the tour we sat down to listen to the various speeches from deputy heads - and even before they started Molly leaned across to Louise and told her she wanted to go to the other one.

So it's decided. We sent the online application off last week. Molly's picked her secondary school. Another step towards not being my little baby anymore. I'm incredibly sad but also excited for her. She's growing up and there's nothing I can do about it.