nvr, I'd be wary of saying things like: grammars are only for the best, because if he doesn't get in, he may feel second best.

I'd say grammars are schools for children who are both bright and motivated. This means it may be easier to concentrate as there won't be disruption, he's less likely to get bored as lessons will be at his pace not the slowest learner in the class, and that he'll make plenty of friends who will encourage him to succeed. If he wants to try for the grammar, he'll need to work hard because local primaries don't teach what is needed to get in, as most people don't reach that level.

Explain the hard work will be by him and for him. He's doing himself a favour if he tries for this, and if he does try you'll be really proud, whether or not he gets in.

Also worth explaining all this work is not in vain, as if he does go to the comp, his prep will help him get into all the top sets.

CXan you tell DC and I have been having little chats recently?

My DS can be talked into a concept, so we honestly explained the system to him, what good results at school mean, what doors this opens for you etc. We then discussed his favourite subjects and looked at where he can get to study these. Then took him at all open doors days we could lay our hands on - it came as no surprise he was most impressed with 2 x local indies and one superselective state. That motivated him to go through a year of gruelling tutoring (English is not our first language so extra effort was required), and now we're sitting a string of exams.

Incentives. Well, we took him to Disneyworld on Christmas of Y5, to boost motivation, and that's it really. We have been praising him weekly for getting better and better results at school, where he started jumping grades up and up, plugged in other relatives to regularly encourage him and tell him how proud we are of his efforts, and made a couple of family trips (scheduled anyway, regardless of his studies), to look as part of incentive (but i must say he paid for it - a 9 hour lonh-haul flight turned out to be a great opportunity to do a few papers!!). No money, no gifts, no gadgets (but he's not into it much anyway).

Well, we'll see where it'd get us....