To think that 14 miles in a car to school is ok?

[VeryTiredMummyOf2]

It seems a long way, but that's where the school is?

Any thoughts?

of course you are qualified to have an opinion, seeker - but you do seem to be refusing to acknowledge that other people are similarly qualified even if their opinion doesn't match yours.

I think the issue is that people are saying local friends and going out to tea aren't important, and I think they are. And the people who are on this thread who are now adults and as children did this sort of journey are (I think) unanimously saying that it was not a positive thing for them. So, while I agree that people have different opinions, and I hear what they are saying, I genuinely think that for most children I am right on this one.

"the people who are on this thread who are now adults and as children did this sort of journey are (I think) unanimously saying that it was not a positive thing for them" - so you are choosing to ignore my post that says that I did do this sort of journey as a child and was/am fine with it, and others in the same vein?

Missed that. Sorry. But you also missed me saying "I think"!

um, I'm another one saying it was absolutely fine to do this sort of journey to school.

seeker, do you take in anything from the posts you read? I don't think there are just 2 of us saying it worked out fine. and there has been at least one poster saying she wished her parents had made the same decision (ie gone to the further away school) which they did not because they, in turn, had gone to the further away school and disliked doing so.

no one has said that local friends do not matter - where do you get this nonsense from? I have posted that I had local friends, as well as school friends. and that dd1 has local friends, as well as school friends. all part of life's rich tapestry, really.

you are not even trying to address points raised on the thread.

I haven't noticed anyone taking my points on board either- just people saying "we don't do spontaneous" and that I'm talking nonsense!

seeker I agree with you.

DH and I both went to secondary schools a long way from home and suffered in consequence in the ways described here.

Primary is much worse IMO esp as a lot more people don't travel a long way to primary. Cannot imagine driving 14 miles to DCs' primary, I would have to choose from about 100 schools if I was prepared to consider that kind of radius!

Not talking about wilds of Scotland but then I don't infer the OP is either!

the only nonsense you have been talking is the stuff you are blatantly making up.

your opinion is as vaild as anyone else's. I have disagreed with some of your points - isn't that what discussion is about?

but neither 'side' of this discussion is 'right' in general terms, only 'right' as in what is right for each family, both in terms of which school to attend, and the distances involved and whther they will impact socially on the children/the parents due to pick ups etc.

I do take your point, seeker. All other things being equal, of course it is nice to be close to school, have loads of local friends, invite friends to tea on the spur of the moment, etc.

Back in the real world, though, parents have to make choices. If the choice is between a school where you honestly believe your DC would not be happy (or safe) and one that you and they love, but which is a car journey away, opinions are clearly divided as to the relative weighting which various factors should be given.

Neither do I think this is a product of parents being given the illusion of choice in state schools. My parents had to make the decision between keeping DB and I in a state school which was clearly failing us (not failing as a school) or moving us to an independent school, which is what they chose.

What on earth am I making up?

the bit where 'you think' that posters are saying that local friends are not important.

the bit where apparently everyone who has gone to further away schools hated it and regrets that their parents made them do so.

and that's just for starters, tbh. selective recall at best.

My daughter went, by 2 buses each way to her High school in Manchester from being 11. It was 7 miles from our house but she managed it. There are no good schools in our area and the one she was given, was not even on a bus route.

The only drawback was that all her friends lived in Didsbury, Chorlton and other areas of Manchester so she didn't have any around our immediate area. Now that she is 18 and at college it doesn't seem to bother her going on buses more or less everywhere.

I am hoping her younger brother gets into the school where his older brother attended, no buses/bikes needed!

All a kid needs for a social life now is a phone or a computer and a lot have both. It's not like the dark ages of the 1970s and 80s any more when people only had one family phone at most and parents constantly fretting about the cost of calls.

What, the dark ages where people actually met each other? In ^real life?

There's far more communication between my DCs and their friends than I ever had with mine, and my best friend lived about five mins up the road. The DCs are constantly texting and chatting with their friends. Their phones buzz from morning to night even after they fall asleep. DD2 keeps up with a friend who moved half way around the world by skype. When DD1 and DS went away to university they kept in constant touch with their old friends who went to different places. I could contact them any time. It's not that big a deal to be separated by miles any more.

Not my primary age child he doesn't!

Are you suggesting that secondary school children don't need to go out because they can socialise online? Or am I misunderstanding?

I agree with seeker as well. But I do accept that different people have different priorities.
My DB and SIL choose to do a 30 minute journey each way to their DC's school. I chose the local schools that my children can walk to.

It's very obvious when I talk to SIL that our DC have very different lifestyles. Her DC go to very academic schools and their school day has very little leisure time, they can only pursue a limited range of extra-curricular activities, they get very tired to the point of exhaustion sometimes and they don't have local friends. They do have long holidays during which they do see their school friends and arguably a wider range of experiences at their school and better preparation for highly academic secondaries.

My DC walk or cycle to school, can't go to the local park without meeting at least half a dozen people they know, can do pretty much whatever after school clubs they want (within reason) and also fit in playdates with friends and visits to extended family in the week. If they get tired, we cancel something to give them a break. On the flip side they go to schools that plenty of people in the area turn their noses up at (one is Ofsted "satisfactory", the other has a high proportion of DC with SEN).

Junior school DC are 7-11 - still very young. I don't want my DC to have their cousin's lifestyle. Others will disagree.

DD4 will have a phone next year, at age 11. At the moment she calls friends whenever she wants to using the house phone, and they call her. She has about three calls a day, on average. She is also in touch with a friend who moved a fair distance away on skype. Unlike the phone I used growing up, the home phone is cordless. She can take it to her room and chat until the battery runs down, and nobody bothers her to end her conversations because everyone has their own. She can sit and watch tv and chat at the same time. All the DCs got a phone around 11/12, so that they could go places on their own and still be in touch and safe. The bonus for them was that their existing social circles were reinforced and then widened exponentially.