Ok I know I might be I am getting a little ahead of myself. DD is currently in P2 at our lovely local primary school. She is very happy there and we like our area and our house. We moved here 3 years ago from another part of the city and a big part of this was to do with the local schools (also more house for our money as further away from city centre).
The problem is with our catchment secondary school. I just assumed the the secondary school across the road from us (157 ft according to google maps) would be our catchment school but no. It appears our catchment school is 1.9 miles away (as the crow flies but actually longer due to akward bus route - bus there takes 35 mins non rush hour and about 55 mins in rush hour) and to be honest it is not a great school.
I have recently found all this out as I was talking to my neighbour who's DS is due to start there in August. I know most the neighbour children do go to the non catchment school and it looks like currently all children from DD's primary school do get in with a placing request. I think that's why I didn't initially check that it was actually the catchment school or not. Silly me, I know.
Now the issue I have is should we stay put and hope that in 5 years time things will still be the same and DD will get into the school across the road or do we move to another house within catchment or move elsewhere with equally good schools?
I know there are some big housing developments underway (1.3 miles away) that will fall under the catchment area for the school across the road. There is every chance in 5 years time the school will not have spaces for any placing request children (even if they live 157ft from the school and can look right into some of the classrooms from the living room window).
If we do decide to move areas when do you think is best?
I'm thinking P6 so DD should have a couple of years to make new friends before moving to secondary school.
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Scotland - School 157ft away is not catchment school.
FuckOffJeffrey · 11/05/2016 11:01
Have you actually asked the secondary school whether they can usually accept placing requests? You may find that you don't need to move.
I think it's King's Park Secondary in Glasgow that now has the anomaly, due to changes in its feeder primaries, that its own janitor's house is not "in catchment" 
. In practice though, placing requests are accepted.
We did a placing request to a school which gets good results (Shawlands Academy) and didn't have any problems getting in. Ds has to walk 20 minutes to school - as opposed to 15 minutes to what would've been his catchment secondary.
Might be Hillpark that has the janitor's house not even in catchment (I'm always getting Hillpark and King's Park mixed up 
).
Closer to the time, I'd advise going to check out the schools - we went and had a look at Shawlands when ds was in P6 to confirm that we were making the right decision putting in the placing request (I'd already done loads of research).
Due to ds' involvement with the local rugby club, he's got friends at lots of the South side schools (and a few North side ones) and I've got to know their parents too. It certainly gives you an alternative perspective. 
Our old house was actually in the catchment for Shawlands Academy (and Holyrood) and I would have been happy to send DD to any of those but the catchment primary school was the issue. The year before DD started school I had two friends both refused placing requests for thier DC one for Langside primary and the other for Shawlands primary. They were both really unhappy with the local school that they got placed in. We had to move from our flat to something bigger anyway as we only had one bedroom, so we decided to move out the area to make sure we were in catchment for a good primary school.
It's reassuring to hear that placing requests do seem to be OK for secondary and it's definetly something worth considering. We are also thinking moving to East Ren could be an option in a few years as they do have great schools but the house prices 
put me off.
Yup - there are a couple of the primary schools that ds noticed hadn't given "their" pupils a good foundation at secondary.
He had an excellent foundation at his primary - which turned out to be our catchment primary even though it's not the closest primary
Good luck.
BTW - I can thoroughly recommend Shawlands Academy. Ds is flourishing there (and will be getting good results in the Nat 5s he's currently sitting) and I love the way that they don't just encourage the academic side but they're also very supportive of sports, arts and music as well as extra-curricular/volunteering activities like DofE and the Saltire Award.
Glasgow isn't as bad as Edinburgh. Placing requests (with the exception of Jordanhill) are usually successful - even at secondaries that get good results. The ones that are difficult to get into are the East Ren and East Dunbartonshire schools - essentially similar to the "good" Edinburgh schools but due to the silly Glasgow boundary, are outside the city boundary in the "nice" suburbs.
Disclaimer: there are nice suburbs within Glasgow 
- but it's a much more mixed demographic.
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