Leverage up for state catchment vs downsize for private

Move.
to a place where school is easy walking distance.
where there are activities your family value easily accessible.
where there will be a good peer group for your kids to make friends with.

you have 3 kids.
if you have to ferry kids to 3 different sets of activities and classes you will live in your car, not your nice house in a village.

you can also wait for the catchment school to improve as many private school parents will withdraw in the next few years due to VAT and send their children to state schools, so you might see neighbours kids start going to catchment school soon.

In your situation, I would stay put and definitely try the local secondary and take the view that if it is not great, then pay up for private for years 9-11 only. That would save a lot of money and would be a good backup, assuming there are places. It is essentially the best value for private schooling, the GCSE years. After that they can typically go to whichever Sixth Form they want, provided they achieve good grades. Most Sixth Forms are selective. Years 7&8 - Year 7 is transition, Year 8 is a bit of a no man’s land with less homework and lots of kids just do a ton of extracurricular. You can always tutor for that year in some subjects, if need be.

Just on the choir point, are there not local churches who do a good choir? Mine all sang in a church outside school entirely with the most wonderful choir master who even did tours. The choir was better than most run in private schools.

Also remember that most teachers in most schools are actually pretty good. The issue with secondary schools in this country most often is not about leadership or the teaching even, but about difficult unsupportive families, trouble makers etc and then the reputation goes downhill and those who are supportive avoid the school like the plague. So I would get an idea of who is going to this local secondary of yours now and in the next couple of years. If essentially a number of kids in the primary do end up going there, it is going to be absolutely fine.

This is such a good point. If you move, will you be able to/want to keep driving the children back to their "outstanding primary" until they've all left? If you won't, you'll be left with the lottery of trying to find school places that you deem acceptable near your new house.

I also wonder what your original intention was re secondary schools. Or has there been substantial changes that mean you are revisiting the original plan.

How close are your three in school
years ie will you actually have three at secondary school at the same time for many years? It doesn't reduce the overall cost but might mean you can spread it better.

Have you visited the private school and is there just one private option locally? I think you really need to visit all options to be clear in your choice. Perhaps namechange and start a thread with the specific school names. So much depends on actual specifics rather than a generic choice between outstanding state/good state/private.

It's all very well suggesting supplementing with extracurriculars, but if you are in a village will your dcs be able to travel independently to them, or would you have to ferry them around (and will that work with work schedules)? It may be better to live in a town rather than a village with teens in any case. We are city based and I can't imagine being stuck being a taxi service for older dcs.

Like a pp, I have a bit of a thing for education and I think if it were me, I'd move into the catchment of the outstanding school. It doesn't sound like private is a realistic option unfortunately, and the Good school might turn out to be fine but it's a gamble. I think Year 4 is the right time to be thinking about this - you will want to have completed on a property by the autumn of Year 6, and you will probably have to wait for the right property to come up.

Just bear in mind schools do change . We have a localist high school always outstanding - those in the know know the parents are expected to pay for tutors . It is in an affluent area - mostly exacerbated by the schools reputation- anyway last Ofsted review requires improvement - no one has inspected it for a long time .

Originally our lovely rural location was within catchment of an outstanding school, but the catchment has shrunk in the past 7 years from 5miles to 1mile.

That was due to the bulge years in births, they are shrinking now and school rolls are falling.

What was your intention about secondary education when you moved to the house? If you moved again, how would that impact the younger two in terms of primary places? What do you know about usual leaver destinations from the current primary?

@theendlessjuggle you need to dig into the reasons for the improvement of your local school - if its down to a new HT / SLT then dont underestimate the importance of that, it's massive.

a school that required improvement and has made those improvements can actually be a really strong option and might well continue on an upwards path.

Sorry by go to the good school I mean your local school. That school will really want to attract families like yours.

A school can only do so much tbh. It takes a while to shift preconceived ideas and the fact most of the kids on your road go private should go someway into explaining why it's so hard for your local school. They can run all the clubs but if people don't turn up, there's not much you can do.
As for the better school, unless your child is into music I don't know how that's helpful tbh. And to put it rather unkindly, don't piss on an honest headteacher. They're worth their weight in gold and it's not something you'll find in the private sector. At least with that school you'll know exactly what you're signing up for, before you turn your life upside down. I think it's far better for a child like yours to go to the good school as the teachers often pour lots of attention into them. They want to attract families like yours. Theres plenty of outside clubs etc you can involve your child in and put money into things your child specifically enjoys. A lot of the time in private schools, parents eventually find they're forking out in the thousands to subsidise sports, arts and music that their child doesn't even use. Class sizes aren't much smaller than state and you'll quickly find private schools are filled with kids with tutors. If you have the money, I would use it to enrich your child's life in a bespoke way.

I would look at the sporting and other activities easily accessible in the town versus current location.

Ferrying 3 pre-teens/teens to their various matches and classes etc. is there more choice in town, more people to perhaps lift share with.

It sounds like you can't afford private and some schools will be at risk of closing/merging due to falling birth rates.

We moved when DS was in year 5 to be closer to a secondary school. We had already fallen into an educational DMZ at primary and ended up not being allocated a school at all and I didn't want that happening again at secondary.

I weighed up the cost to send DS (only child) to private school and decided the money was better invested in a (hopefully) appreciating asset like a house. I also didn't like the old house so it wasn't a hardship to move.

I think we made the correct decision as friends who still live in our old road ended up not being allocated secondary school places for their children and had to appeal for a place, or sent their children to private schools locally.

We are in the position you describe, albeit later on in the process. 3 children. Originally our lovely rural location was within catchment of an outstanding school, but the catchment has shrunk in the past 7 years from 5miles to 1mile.

We weighed up the pros and cons. Cannot afford private for 3 kids and although there are good schools we would get into, it would involve shifting our whole life into the opposite travelling direction if our eldest got in there.

We have opted to move for the outstanding school place. In our eyes it felt like paying the subsidy for the closer home was set against the alternative of private school education. The outstanding secondary really IS just like the private school I went to went growing up. Arts and drama afforded equal weighting to maths and English. All the opportunities.

For us the move was worth it for that.

Are there no extracurricular choirs your DC could attend?

@Suet99 Without wanting to answer on behalf of the OP - I'm sure it's very area dependent - this can be surprisingly hard!

DD currently sings in a children's choir, but it took us ages to track it down and we have to travel considerable a distance to get there. We're looking to move (for schools!) next year and have identified a lovely choir in the place we're moving to, but they're perilously close to folding due to falling numbers at the lower end of the age range - choral singing is one of those activities that seems to be becoming increasingly niche (and elite - plenty of thriving prep school choirs around us).

Where we are you're fine if you want a show/pop choir type set-up as part of a commercial stage school, but anything with more of a classical repertoire, or that involves learning to read music, is increasingly rare.

It actually sounds like OP's local school is doing well to run a choir, and to appreciate the wider value of music as an activity. Part of the reason we're planning to move is that our catchment academy secondary offers next to no music/drama/art/sport and is very open about the fact that it focuses narrowly on academics.

Head admitted their choir sounded terrible but it was good for the children’s mental health…

Heaven forfend! 🤣
Are there no extracurricular choirs your DC could attend?

Good points.
I had one or more children in the same Secondary school for 15 years and the extracurricular activities have changed a lot over that time as new clubs have formed, others closed or morphed into other things according to the interests of pupils and teachers at the time. The core sports have stayed much the same I would say but most other things have fluctuated in popularity over the years. Strangely our jazz band also folded recently but I think that was to do with a teacher retiring. There are still lots of other music activities but jazz obviously isn't the new music teacher's forte. I'm sure he has introduced musical styles that weren't there before though.
I absolutely agree that you can't look at a school's extracurriculars now and assume they will be the same in even a year or two. A new teacher or a different cohort of pupils can change things significantly and rapidly.

I am sorry OP from what you write you will never be happy with State BUT you probably can't really afford it.
We went Private because our State Secondary is awful and also because where we are Private schools are quite different to Surrey.
Moving is a drastic step and I think that even if your DC got into the excellent State school you describe I doubt it will even give you the experience you want, plus theres a chance your DC won't like the school OR even get in if catchments change
Then there is the Private option, with 3 DC and Surrey Private school prices I think its going to be tough and probably not worth the stress.
In your shoes I think I would stay put (assuming you like where you live) and pay for extra curriculars if necessary and also accept that most State schools won't give the kind of school life you think you want for your kids.

An alternative view on the choirs is that local school is really inclusive to everyone, regardless of ability, and that the other school will exclude people who are not very musically able. (And, I know this isn't a universally held opinion, but I think if your child is really musical it would be better to pursue opportunities out of school).

I've also found that musical options can wax and wane depending on children available. My DC's school used to have an extremely thriving jazz band, but after the year when a large number of the players left, it became much less successful, and then folded entirely the year later.

Personally I would look to move within catchment for the better state school - but then education is my 'thing' and I'd be willing to accept a fair bit of upheaval and potentially an inferior house for the sake of an excellent school (especially one that's strong on sport and the Arts - so rare in state schools atm, where I am at least).

You could stay where you are and tutor/top up of course, but personally I'd find the time and logistical commitment around filling all the gaps with tutors, classes, instrumental lessons etc to be more of a long-term stress than actually moving! Much better to be reassured that at least some of this is happening in-house.

I wouldn't bother with private at the moment, with the VAT price hike and the uncertainty around the political landscape in the near to medium term. Especially for 3 DC!

I'd stay where you are and go to local school and spend the money on enrichment/tutors if necessary.

I think you need to separate "peer group" from "better school".

I'd go with an improving state school over paying a lot of money to move to one that might not actually be any better in practice. Viewing with your oldest in Year 4 is very early - the schools might change and your view of what you want might also change.