To not want my son to go to this school

[lecce]

I really hesitate to post this here because it could go horribly wrong and give the wrong impression of me, but I am so desperate for advice that I am posting here simply because it gets the most traffic. Dh and I have discussed this until we are blue in the face and have ended up arguing and I just need some outside opinions.

Ds4 has been offered our 5th, and then the next day, 4th choices of primary school and we have until tomorrow to make our decision. We live in a inner-city, culturally diverse area, which we love. We had thought that the primary schools would reflect this but they don't really.

Our 5th choice school has 92% of the intake from other nationalities, two thirds of whom are new to learning English. It is the language issue that is my concern. I am so afraid that ds will not make friends. The school has a good OFSTED but all the most positive comments are about what is provided for those children who are learning English.

We have visited twice, it has a lovely atmosphere and they have a creative curriculum but the head admitted to me that in some years, there are only 2 - 3 confident speakers of English, meaning that in each class there may be only one or two such children. I really don't see how ds is going to thrive if those around him can't communicate.

The school does a lot to promote racial harmony and the head tells me the children mix great in school but she admitted that the majority of families do not encourage their children to mix with other nationalities outside of school.

This is especially important to us because ds has not attended pre-school, for various reasons, and we don't know local people with similarly aged dc ourselves. We have recently started meeting up with one girl regularly, who we met in the park, but that's it; so we were relying on school for ds to form friendships but it just seems it's not going to happen in that school.

My main issue with the other school is that it is in the process of becoming an academy, had I known that I doubt we would have even put it down as I am really against the idea. It will now be run by the same people who run the very poor secondary academy. I really don't want to send him there.

It is an 'ok' school, it is more socially mixed that the other one but does not seem to have such a creative approach to the curriculum.

I would really welcome any advice at all, I just want him to be happy and not to go to a academy but we have to put one of them down! What would you do?

DD got her 3rd choice of school, which we were Ok with and accepted but appealed for our 1st place on the grounds it was a church school. We did not succeed with our appeal - despite living in catchment and having a letter from minister about our church involvement - because more people had also ticked the church box and were not required to provide any evidencce of membership or attendance, just state a preference for a church school.

but were allowed to be on as many waiting lists as we wished, and were offered places at both our 2nd and 1st choice schools before the september term began. We had been led to believe there was no hope, having ben 4th and 7th on their lists, but we made our way to the top of both lists! the offer of our first place school came just days before the september term - we declined - DD had been to and enjoyed the taster days, met her teacher, got the uniform! we have never looked back and I now have 3 kids at that school and they all love it.

what I am trying to say is that whatever school you accept now, there is STILL hope you can get a better offer, or even that somehow things work out for the best despite your initial thoughts and plans.

good luck

I would go for the 4th choice as well. The lack of sociability outside school is something we have come across. My son struck up a great friendship with a British Asian boy in his class, and they live within 100 yards of our house. We tried to make arrangements for them to meet at weekends, but every attempt was politely rebuffed. Apparently others have found the same with the other Asian boys in the class. It's just a cultural thing, I suppose - very close families, and sometimes large extended families that take up a lot of time. They all still get on really well together at school, and maybe it will change once they start organising their own social lives a bit more.