We have to apply for a secondary school place for our ds by Oct 31st but we don’t agree! My dh and I both feel strongly that the best school for our ds is the one for which we are in catchment, but there is another very good, but very different school which our ds wants to go to that is a similar distance away. The majority of his classmates will go to the catchment area school, but there will also be a number of children going to the other school.
We have discussed with him a number of reasons for wanting him to go to our preferred school, but he cannot be persuaded. There is however one reason which is a strong influence for me which we have not been able to discuss and that is that I am terminally ill and am unlikely to be around for the whole of his education. I feel that he would get better support through the difficult time ahead at our preferred school, but we cannot discuss this with him as he doesn’t know the full extent of my illness as at the moment.
He hasn’t been able to articulate his reasons for wanting to go to the other school or his reasons for not wanting to go to our preferred school so it is difficult to reassure him. We suspect his real reason is simply that one of his best friends (who will almost definitely go to the other school as his sisters already go there) has been influencing him, but he does have another best friend who will go to our preferred school.
I feel so strongly that our preference is the right choice for our ds that I want to overrule his wishes, but I am worried that he will resent this and may have difficulty settling in just because he did not get his choice. Does anyone have any experience of overruling their child’s choice of secondary school?