How did you navigate choosing senior schools?

[SpaceRaiders]

If one parent has minimal day to day input and the other does the lions share?

Parent A: lives 35 miles away, offers dc minimal support, refuses to attend school events, matches, parents evenings, has refused to acknowledge dc additional educational need and is against formal diagnosis. They want a super prestigious selective school, in the top 5 on the national league table. The school is very academically rigorous with stellar results. It’s a brilliant school just not the right fit for either of our dc. This school is also 22 miles north from dc’s current school.

Parent B: would rather the smaller, single sex, academic school, with good pastoral support for dc who are both very bright but have SEN to differing degrees. Its 3 miles down the road also making school runs manageable for the two years dc will be at separate schools. Dc 1 would rather go to smaller school for various reasons but mainly as a friend is going there too.

I know this is missing the point but why are you bothering with all the Parent A and Parent B malarkey?

Unfortunately I think this is one where you know you're right, but what a load of strangers thinks is irrelevant because ultimately it's a battle between you and Ex. Presumably you have both visited both schools?

Choose the one your kid wants since they will be the one going there 🤷‍♀️

Your are clearly Parent B! Well of course, you've sold it to us. If school A is that prestigious and selective then your child won't get in. Also if parent A is not involved then I'm assuming he is not going to take charge of tutoring etc so I would just refuse to do any tutoring and see how far he gets with entry exam. I know it's not nice for DC to fail it but you can tell him he's only doing it as that what Dad wants so let's do it for Dad's sake but don't worry about it at all.

I was just interested in how other had dealt with similar decisions. I was trying to be impartial, clearly I failed!

I forgot mumsnet can be such a weird place. @Maestrog thanks for your input it’s very helpful

sorry, it was a genuine question.

DH and I had completely different preconceptions about which school would suit our DC. So we cast a wider net, visited several, spoke to SLT, had meetings with both SENCos, and by the time we'd done the rounds we found we were much nearer to being on the same page.

I suppose I was suggesting that if you haven't visited them both (and others for comparison, in my view) then I'd start there. If this is a crap suggestion, apologies.

Choose the one closest to where the child lives most of the time. Will make all your lives easier.

OP, I think you didn't get many responses as your thread is in chat (maybe parenting, relationships or secondary education would be better). Also it sounds like you've already chosen so what you're really asking is 'how much say should DC's non resident parent have in where he goes to secondary school?' There will be many divorced parents who have had to navigate this issue, I'm sure. I hope you get some more advice on a different thread!