To feel excluded from the community with no way back?

Are you throwing parties and inviting people over, and they are not reciprocating? Do your children invite all the local village kids to their birthdays?
Do your children attend local clubs/church/sports to meet children they don’t go to school with?

Do the village kids know your child? It sounds like his friendship groups will come from his school rather than the village. Does he take part in any local clubs or societies? I think it would be quite odd to invite someone to a party when you don’t know them.

What activities are there in village? Start there. If there’s a church dc going to Sunday school might help. Any kids activities like cubs? Anything on a library eg Saturday LEGO group.

I'm not sure if we'll be able to afford independent school, but the main reason we were keen to send our kids to the local primary was so that they could make friends locally. We live in a remote place and it was important to me that they had friends locally. Children have to be a lot older than mine are to "manage" friendships (ie set up dates/travel about etc). I'm quite surprised this didn't occur to you? It's honestly been the most important factor for me in picking schools!

Tricky. I think most people ask ther dcs pals and get to know parents that way. I think if your kids aren't in school with the local kids it's going to be hard to break into that click. I'd try the other stuff tha doesn't revolve around children ie choir, tidy towns etc

I've lived in the same house for over 30 years, but have never been part of a "community". I have no idea whether any of my neighbours ever have parties. And that's absolutely fine. Surely you already have friends, OP, even if they're not on the doorstep? What do you think you'll gain by palling up with all the locals?

If you want your child to be part of the village children’s lives you will need to send them to the local school. Otherwise you will need to facilitate travel to places (presumably further afield) to participate in the social lives of their school friends from independent school

Your community is around the independent school not the village school. That's what you've chosen and it will be what you make of it. You don't get to be part of the other group that you have rejected, even if you claim not to have - what else would you call assessing it, deciding your it's not right for your DC and choosing an indie? Your DC is happy with that choice, so are you, so own it and everything that comes with it.

The strangest thing to me is that you're surprised by any of this, after starting off saying: I went to an independent school and didn’t really know anyone where I lived. That's precisely what you've chosen to do again and it's happening just the same for your child. Honestly, what did you expect?? Does everyone at the indie school invite the village school kids to parties? Court not. A community isn't something theoretical. It's organic and happens because you have shared experiences. You don't get to skip the experience and get the benefits.

We had a similar experience OP. When my eldest started school we opted for the nearest independent school. At the time we had no real workable alternative as the village school had no wraparound care and we have no local family, so we needed a school with hours more compatible with my working hours. Inevitably it led to my DD being somewhat isolated from other children in the village. There was no nastiness but obviously children spend a lot of time at school and it is where friendships are made really. I didn't expect her to get invitations to parties hosted by DC she didn't know well - she was invited to those of her own school friends though. I never thought it was mean, just the natural consequences of the decision we'd made. I really don’t think there were parents sitting there thinking "Ha! We'll exclude Ageing's DD because her parents think she's too good for our school, that will teach them! "She just wasn't on their radar. They probably asked their kids who they wanted to invite and got given a list of school friends, just like I did when I asked my DD who she wanted to come to her birthday party etc.
Later on, circumstances changed and we moved our DD to the village school. Soon she was being invited to everything, because she was now part of that social group and she drifted apart from her old school friends. There was no "falling out" or anything but they were not longer spending 7+ hours a day together and most of her time was now spent with the local children. The inevitable outcome of that was that relationships changed.
As others have suggested, there are things you can do to integrate more into village life but in my experience going to school elsewhere does make a difference and you can't completely compensate for that. It’s nobody's "fault" really, it's just the way things are. If you are sure the independent is the right school for your child then I am afraid you have to accept the downsides. Every decision we make has pros and cons and one of the effects of not going to school with the neighbours' children is that they're less likely to become close friends. But they'll have friends elsewhere. Swings and roundabouts.

Cross post @EvangelicalAboutButteredToast!

This is it in a nutshell. You have self excluded yourself from the community that revolves around the local primary school. You haven't done anything wrong by send your child to a different school, but people tend to hang out with the parents of their kids' school friends at these type of events, or at least people they see everyday on the school run and you no longer fit into either of these categories.

I think it’s inevitable. Your dc isn’t part of that school friendship group and you aren’t part of that mum friendship group. It would have been odd if your dc was invited.
Why not do your own party and invite dc’s friends or take your dc to parties with their school friends.
Are there and social opportunities in village for your dc to mix eg cubs or brownies. Maybe volunteering with something like that would emesh you both more with village life.

My parents went from B'ton to Cornwall, knew absolutely nobody and they were mid 50's. They held BBQ's in their garden, went to the church fairs, donated a ton of bits and bobs and their time (tho non religious), helped out neighbours with problems, practical and things like paperwork (my dad was a dab hand at cutting through red tape etc), went to the local pub. The result?
They never fit in. They were there 20 years and in all that time they made one friend, a neighbour/farmer who was of a similar way of thinking and tbh, it was all rather unpleasant at the end.

Sorry to say, sometimes that's just how people are. You could try hosting the parties, volunteer, give people a chance to get to know you but even that may not be enough through no fault of your own.

Others have already covered that they just invited kids their kids play with. Are your children friends with theirs? I live in a small village and has not occurred me to invite random children mine don't socialise with.

Now, saying that, mine also go to independent school. They will have plenty of opportunities to socialise with people from every part of society later in life - while they are still young, I am happy to limit influence from some of those parts.
However, as they have joined local village sports teams, they still know the kids and have friends also in the village. Do you have any options like that?

How old are your children? Does your village have extra curricular clubs that happen in the village? Cubs or Brownies for example. The obvious way in is for your child to access something in this way and socialise with the local kids to make a connection. By proxy you will then meet the parents and get invited to things. If a club doesn’t exist could you start one up?

Unfortunately you've found that's not enough. I don't understand why you thought things would be different for your child than they were for you, when you're repeating your childhood in them.

My 'parent' friends, apart from friends I knew before having my son, are/were all from baby groups/nursery/school. I wouldn't have the time or energy to start making random friends from the neighbourhood, plus trying to make children be friends with each other doesn't often work once they're no longer babies or toddlers.

They don’t know you and you don’t know them. I live in a village and my child goes to independent school elsewhere. I’ve never felt ‘left out’ because they don’t know me 🤷🏼‍♀️ I have my mum friends from the school, I go to their parties and I go to local community events, but I would never expect an invite to a private party thrown by people I have only a tenuous connection with. Stop taking it personally.

It’s a party for the children who all know each other through their school. Does your daughter socialise with these children normally? Would you invite all these children you your daughter’s birthday party, or will it be her actual friends from school?

You haven’t been excluded, it’s a children’s party.

But you’ve actively opted out of the school that is available for all. The more kids that go there the more likely they are to have more year groups too. By opting out you’re damaging your village community.

you can’t have your cake and eat it… as they say.

Your family won't get invitations because no-one knows you.

It's likely this and could happen with kids at another state school.

You may also have some additional issue with perception as you've chosen private schooling.

Are they involved in any local groups - brownies/guides/scoutes.

It's also possible not to be included and still go to the village school - that was often mine and older siblings fate. Youngest sibling go in with in crowd but then DMum worked in village shop and school by then so was well known.

I've never lived smaller than town as an adult - last town was cliquey to outsiders and my kids were often left out or couldn't joing local groups as never got to top of waiting lists. We did what we could in area and moved to a city. In city they met kids from other shcool through swim lessons and local groups but till secondary still mostly did partes with kids they went to school with and saw ever day and occaionally their family members.

I think this is the issue. The parents aren't not inviting you because you 'rejected' the school, its really not that deep, but because you took your children and therefore yourself out of their daily orbit.
You're just not there in their daily lives so they don't think about you. It's up to you to find a way of rebuilding that.
This can be fairly easily changed but it will be you who needs to make the effort.

I agree with others OP.

the community is about so much more than the school.

for many years, we didn’t have children. I was still the church safeguarding officer, on the village community council, and on the local festival and show committee.

now I have children, they do NOT go to the correct village school. I am on the PTA for their school, but run a toddler group for both villages, plus the above and multiple fundraising things and book clubs.

Find the groups and get involved. It’s much more likely an oversight than a deliberate exclusion.

if you are on the planning committee for the village events you won’t be missed off!

I still don't understand the set-up 😂

If your neighbours are all in a running club/ book club, and they have a big "running club/ book club" party, you wouldn't expect to be invited when you are not part of the club, your address is irrelevant.

If a school-related party is organised, why would you expect children not part of the school to be there?

Or do you think they should invite a random neighbour, just because they seem to have the same age? That's weird.