to want DS with me even if it means he'll miss out on a decent school?

[Tramadoll]

briefly:

Have three DCs. DS1 is 9, other DCs are 3 year old twins. DS1's biological father lives nearby. He sees DS every other weekend and one evening a week. Had to convince him to be involved in the early days (unplanned pg from slightly unhealthy FWB scenario), they are close now.

I am now married to a great guy who's been in DS's life since day one (he was my best mate), and considers DS his own son. DS calls him dad.

We all live in an area with good primary schools but absolutely rubbish secondary schools. DS's father said that if we settled in this area, where he already owned his home, he would pay half of private school fees when DS got to secondary school age (plan was we'd move before the twins got to secondary school).

We bought our flat. Market crashed, we are in huge negative equity, DH's industry shaky - we can't move for a few years at least.

DS's father got a girlfriend and decided they were going to move out of our city together. He said that he was going back on the agreement re: school fees and DS could either stay with me or he would pay for him to go to a fee-paying school wherever they settled (planning Manchester, near his DP's family).

I said no (and other choice words). He then suggested he and his DP buy in the home counties (we are all in London). He said they would move near good schools and suggested DS live with them in the week during termtime and attend school there.

I was pretty desperate by this point and said I would consider it. They started looking for houses. Then his DP left him. He went a bit mental TBH, very clingy with DS, started demanding more access.

That was a year ago. He maintains that he will move to the home counties near a good school and is expecting that DS will go with him.

I have pretty much no intention to go through with this. His ex DP was a nice girl who encouraged him to spend more time with DS and made massive changes to his lifestyle. Now she's gone he's back to barely leaving the house, he plays his consoles or is on the computer all the time. DS is given takeaways, they never go to the park or anything, it was a battle to get him to agree to take DS to his judo lessons on sat mornings.

But DH and I truly cannot move, plus the twins are all set to go to the (excellent), primary DS is at. We don't have a hope of paying any percentage of school fees and DS isn't bright enough to get into a grammar or get a scholarship.

The local secondary schools are utterly crap. But I think a stable loving home, help with homework, maybe we can get him help with exams going forward. I think it's better for DS than living with his bio father miles from everyone he knows and going to a good school.

At war with myself though because I went to private school (which I hated - but it did get me good results and a good job, same with DH). Can't stand the idea that I might be handicapping DS, but... he should be with his mum, dad and brothers, surely?

Have you been to see them all? They may well be on the up. [optimist]

No school can compensate for a difficult home life but an excellent,supportive,loving home can make up for the problems at a poor school.

It really can't all the time pranma.
I taught in a school until relatively recently where the value added score was awful.
It was awful deservingly.
SLT despised the teachers. The pupils knew that, and pupil behaviour was very poor. Very few lessons, across the school, with very experienced teachers as well as newer ones were not subject to massive disruption.
It took me little while when i moved jobs to remember quite how much you can get through in a normal lesson when the students are not constantly shouting out, out of their seats, scuffling with each other, arguing with staff, inc senior leaders about basic expectations, don't have a pencil/book/planner etc etc. The decent kids got lost in the herd, and had to put up with not getting through the syllabus in virtually any subject due to time lost to disruption.
This school has the highest staff turnover rate, and highest staff sickness rate of any in its very large la
If you listen to the spin the head puts on it, and only turn up to open eve (held on an evening after a day when the pupils are out, so the school can be cleaned and posters put on the walls without being ripped off) then you might well think this was a fine place to send your dcs.
The sad reality of the matter is that there are still some awful schools in this country (along with loads of fab ones) and if the poor op is in an area where the schools are dire then she does have a genuine problem on her hands.

Trama DS should stay with you, no doubt about it. Your Ex is far too unstable to allow your DS to live with him.

I think you should put the start of your postcode on here (ie SW18) and let some of the parents/teachers on here, from that area help you work out which state school you would be best to apply to (and which to avoid like the plague).