Hi. First time I've ever posted here. I'm looking for views on whether it's worth moving house for a better chance of a place at a good secondary school.
Where we live is fairly sort of urban, lots of houses, pretty close to shops, nice coffee places, we have deliveroo :) It's quite culturally diverse. Not everyone's cup of tea but we quite like it. We have one kid and a dog and live in quite a small house and we can comfortably afford the mortgage.
We have 3 secondary schools near us. One is small and Catholic and really nice, but as we are not really religious, we would be way down the admissions list. One is new and everyone wants their kid to go there. It is our closest school but the entry point is weirdly in a different bit of town so I'm not sure whether we'd get a place. The third is big and under subscribed and has been failing for years and has a terrible reputation. Most children in the area seem to be offered a place there.
Our son's year is very big and there was a fairly undignified scramble for primary school places when he turned 4. We didn't get the best school in the area, but he's got on okay there.
We could afford to move to an area nearby - near where my parents live - where he could definitely get into a better secondary school, and some might say the area is better for children, being less congested and nearer to open spaces, but where our son wouldn't really have any friends and would probably be starting not knowing anyone. We would be leaving behind good friends and neighbours and would feel pretty sad about the whole thing but if it's better for him, it's the right thing, isn't it?
So sorry about giving you war and peace. What do you think?