Choosing a nursery and school

[RoEP2018]

Morning All. I wondered if any of the teachers here (or anyone else in the know) could give me some advice.
I live on a new build estate, which is next to another newish estate and then a fair few social housing streets. So quite a mixed catchment.
I’ve recently been looking at the school nurseries near me, as hoping my daughter will start the term after her birthday next March when she turns 3. She’s currently with a childminder.
The only primary school which is directly in my catchment is rated Ofsted Good but the performance is well below average. I’m trying to be careful how I word this as I am absolutely not a snob in anyway and welcome her being with children from different backgrounds but it has worried me as to whether this could hold her back if she does turn out to be particularly academic. Does that make sense?
Is this move house worthy or do I not need to worry too much? The other primary which is just out of our catchment is better but getting a place would depend on them not being over subscribed. I can however get into their nursery but that doesn’t guarantee her a place in the school obviously and that might then be daft or detrimental moving her away from friends she’s made. What to do... 🤯

[Guymere]

I assume by performance, you mean attainment. That possibly means the school doesn’t have enough bright dc to get the expected level of attainment. They might make good progress to achieve what they do though.

It depends on whether you think you fit in. Where do other dc go to school near you? Is everyone happy with the school nearby? Do the dc go to the other school? It’s a big decision to move house. Dc don’t make lifelong friends at nursery but if you choose that one, and love the school, you might have to move to get it. So try the nursery and then move if you need to.

[HandfulofDust]

I would say there's nothing wrong with a genuinely mixed background intake. I would say it's a disadvantage when the intake is skewed towards lower acheiving students though. Even if the school is really geared towards helping the high acheivers the child will miss out on interactions with similar ability peers and the teacher's time is naturally going to have to be shared between kids with vastly different abilities.

In my anecdotal experience teachers within a school will tend to become somewhat specialised to the cohort they generally teach. So a school with a of students with ESL or with kids who don't generally read at home will become great at dealing with these students but might have less experience with students who need more extension work. This is by no means always the case and is very much anecdotal though.

[Guymere]

I think that’s true. The other element to consider is why the dc don’t do particularly well there. In some mixed area schools, dc do very well!

I’ve read countless ofsted reports that will say a school has not set sufficiently challenging work for its more able children. This is simply because they don’t recognise these able children. There are not so many of them. The schools don’t assess the children accurately and therefore teach to the class average. The brighter dc are poorly served in such schools. I would certainly not be happy with this situation but it’s difficult for a parent to detect.