To move my children from a perfectly good school and home

[Wooodpecker]

More WWYD than AIBU I suppose...

I am thinking of moving about 5 miles away to an area with an outstanding secondary school , lovely green environment nearby , big sports field etc. The catch is neither DH or I are that keen on the area after a drive round today - just a bit dull really.

The reason for the move is our local secondary is generally bad (Ofsted/results/rep) in a less than ideal environment (built up area/poor sports ground) but there is a new head trying to turn it around but early days (heard good things though). It would mean moving our 3DDs from the primary they love, leaving our local supportive network of friends (help each other out with lifts for kids, baby sitting, feeding pets etc) and leaving our house of 10 years. Not so bothered by the last point as the house is a tad small so a move has always been on the cards.

Eldest DD is in year 4 so we have a few years but the secondary in the 'new' area has a feeder school system and I have heard of some people having to wait over a year to get into one of the feeder schools so want to allow time.

AIBU to want to move or would you sit tight and see how the local school pans out?

It's a big gamble, you may not even get a place in the secondary school.

I'm a bit confused. What do you mean that the school is bad? How can you tell from the average grades? Maybe they take D grade students and turn them into C grade students. Maybe the academy takes A+ students and turns them into A grade students?

I'd avoid sending my children to an academy if I could, personally. Hard to avoid these days I suppose.

wafflyversatile - every single secondary school in our borough is an academy... but for Catholic schools

Yeah.

Luckily my children are only notional but I can still care about all the other kids.

I would stay. More to life than the quality of the school. Unless you have specific concerns about how your kids are progressing right now, it just doesn't sound like there is enough reason to go.

Thanks all. All I know about the local school is on reputation and what I see when the kids leave school . I will ask if I can go on a tour although won't they think I an crazy as our eldest is only 8.

just turn up on the next open day usually in autumn term. they wont be checking names and details.

I'd post in Education for thoughts on the respective schools.

Where do/will the children of your local network go to school?

3-4 yrs isn't a long time to turn around a school [though check out Thomas Tallis in Greenwich -featured in Jamie's School Dinners I believe] so I'd err on the side of caution and move if there is truly no where suitable that your children could bus/tube to at 11.

They are still quite young so you have an opportunity to rebuild that network. Once they are in secondary school, that won't really be there.

Before you spend '000's on stamp duty, do they show signs of being sporty / gaining a lot of benefit from a school with great sports facilities or even enjoying sports at all?

It's also worth looking at local independent schools which have bursaries or scholarships, and grammars which are selective if our children are quite bright.

Definitely visit your local schools - my DD is almost 4 and I'm already looking at secondary school options. If it's anything like the past 4 years, the next 8 are going to fly by.

IMHO you can learn a lot about prospective school by going there at the end of the school day - see if kids are polite, is there police and/or teachers presence on the bus stop and corners of schools grounds.
What is the general behaviour and how do kids look like - are they taking their ties/uniform off as soon as they leave school grounds and cause havoc.

I wouldn't move to an area I didn't like just for the school. I'd carry on looking at other areas.

Definitely look at the schools first. My DCs chose the nearest and least well-performing school in our area. They've both done very well and have benefited from its being half the size of the two other schools.

If your eldest DD is in Yr4 now, she may well be invited to visit local secondaries in Yr5 (as they do here). So you don't have that much time, really.

What are property prices like in the new area? Would you be able to sell your current property easily?

I'd move, definitely.
It always amazes me the number of people who send their dcs to the nearest crap academy for no other reasons that it being 'the closest' or just because everyone else sends their kids there, or because the kids can walk there.

Yes we should be able to sell easily but the new area is more expensive. As yet I am unsure of the compromise we would need to make to get a house in that area.

Secondary schools are hugely important imo, we moved and it was worth it.

I agree a school is only as good as its staff and in particular the head. The local school has a terrible reputation going back years. Even local parents say it was awful when they were at school 20 to 30 years ago. But the new head is doing some great things to change it. I am just not sure years of whatever has happened to make it so bad can be turned round. DH says it doesn't matter as our children maybe the minority that do well there. I say why send then somewhere where only 40% leave with 5 GCSEs when we could send her to a school where 90% get 5 GCSEs.

Firstly I would go along to the next open day to see for yourself. Then tbh if it is as bad as you fear I would move. My ds is in an outstanding school, I moved to get him in and have never regretted it.

There's no easy answer to this, but the problem I think is that the local school could turn around and improve - and equally the outstanding school could get worse. And then where would you be? Or the outstanding school could become so popular that you have to live next door to it to get in.

But I'd be as torn as you are. I think you can tell a lot by how the kids appear outside school - one of the things that turned us off our local school was seeing some of the children turn up with cigarettes and beer cans in the morning!

Sorry, I see it's a feeder school so living next door might not be relevant - but you might not get into the desired primary school either.

I am worried about not getting into a feeder school. This is a relatively new admission policy so I imagine those schools are now full. Arrrggh. Why is this so tricky???