To ask how many of you use your local/nearest school?

[monkeymamma]

When we moved to our current house I was pregnant with dc1. I noticed there was a newish, nice looking school here and thought 'ah good, that's where the baby will go to school when the time comes.' Ds is now 3 and all anyone seems to talk about is the school question. Many people seem keen to avoid the local school (it Required Improvement at last offsted, has a new head, and a large intake from both social housing and local traveller community). Everyone wants to send their dc to an alternative school but the others round here are 'good'/'requires improvement' apart from one small village school (v.v small, middle class intake, not what I have in mind for my dc - I feel like they'll learn more about life in a more diverse environment) which is outstanding. No one ever gets their child in there anyway from where we live (ie nowhere near said village).
Anyway sorry to go off on detailed tangent - my thought ws that it seems the 'normal' thing to do to try to shop around rather than using the school nearest to you. Is that your experience also? Or did anyone find this whole business more straightforward?

Mine both go to our local primary. OFSTED don't rate it particularly highly but we've always found it excellent and both boys are thriving and doing very well academically.

The local secondary is rated outstanding by OFSTED but neither dh or I were particularly impressed when we visited. So may look further afield when it comes to it.

DS2 goes to the local village primary. OFSTED "Good" 5 years ago, but over due another inspection. Very caring, nurturing and inclusive (important for DS2, as he has significant SN). Some parents think HT isn't "strict" enough but I like the fact that she treats all children with respect.

The intake of the school is socially diverse, reflecting the make up of the (not particularly pretty, not remotely little) village. SATs results are consistently good and sometimes the best in the area.

DS1, OTOH, goes to school 45 miles away! It's a specialist school, though. He went to the local school for 7 years, but mainstream really wasn't working for him.

We started in the nearest local school. I had my doubts about it before beginning (it was inspected as 'satisfactory' in the final round before 'requires improvement' came in.
We left after a couple of years.

I was keen to go local, to be able to walk to school,to have local friends and be part of the community. I am still disappointed that we no longer have those things, instead driving 3 miles to another school. I hoped the benefits of being local would outweigh the niggling concern I had before starting, but in the end I was so dissatisfied with what I saw as a hopeless, jobsworth Head and mediocre results which really should have been better.

Incidentally,just before we left the school was inspected again and was rated 'good' which amazed me.

There are loads of great things about being local and if the decision is one bass on marginal factors, I'd go with local. Local doesn't trump rubbish though!

We have a toddler and are moving for more space. We are only looking at houses in clearly defined catchments where we can walk to school and all possible school friends are also likely to live in walking distance.
community is really important to me and I like to see people I know in the street or the lical park. I make an effort to make very local friends as well as my good friends who live further away. I want the same for my ds.

NO.
Both primary and secondary I actively chose not to use my local schools.
Do not regret my decision for an instant.

In our area to be honest most people choose nearest as there's also actually very little chance of getting in anywhere else. Catchments are tiny and almost all schools over subscribed. Priority is on distance. I am amazed at how many on here can travel over a mile to a good school!!

Mine all go to the closest schools. Actually eldest two's secondary is not our nearest but it is our catchment (nearer school is non catchment). With 4, I didn't even consider non catchment schools.

DS2 goes to our 4th closest infant/primary school. It's a 5 minute walk from the house. There just happen to be a lot if primary schools close to our house. We really didn't like the closer non-denominational schools (not least because they composite classes based on age rather than attainment and DS2 is summer born) and didn't want a faith school (the three are on the same site about 3 minutes walk from our house). He'll go to the second closest middle school because his current school is a feeder school.

DS1 used to go to the high school at the end of our road but it was horrible. So now he goes to a school in the city centre. I'm hoping the school at the end of the road has changed beyond recognition in the next 8 years so DS2 can go there.

Scotland here. Both my DC went to the local primary, 3 miles away so they were provided with a school bus. Then they went on to the catchment Secondary, also with free transport. Both schools were excellent, certainly they have a very mixed demographic but are well-run and conscientious. My DC are both leaving school and heading to Uni this summer and next. No regrets.

Yes. You are guaranteed a place in Scotland. They walked 100 yards to Primary and now get driven 3 miles to High School (where DH and I work). The nearest alternative is 45 miles away!

You're not guaranteed a place if you move after the normal admissions period though. DS1 couldn't get a place at our catchment school after we moved in Scotland so he went to a school near where I was working instead. It was a lovely school with an incredibly challenging catchment.

Mine go to nearest. Its classed as good now but has been lower. Many advantages to local.

Mine all do because where we live you can only send your child to the school that you are in the catchment area for. The only alternative until they're at high school is to go private.

In September one of them is switching to a state boarding school, so she'll go from being at a school 30 seconds walk away to a school that's nearly 300 miles away. That should be interesting...

Yes.
To the point that we have only ever put down the catchment school when making school applications.

we bought in catchment area of a grammar and so far all have passed 11+ .we go to village primary which has just 50 pupils and has just been awarded its fourth Ofsted outstanding and it is outstanding!!

No.

Our local schools are 2 single sex fee paying girls' schools and 1 single sex fee paying boys' school. There is one state primary about the same distance but there is no local state secondary school.

We sent him to a private co-ed school about 3 miles away which takes children from junior nursery all the way through to 6th year.

I guess some Scottish people must have the school angst though, as there was a campaign in Edinburgh to get parents to use their local state school. (25% of Edinburgh parents send their children private.) www.theguardian.com/education/2009/sep/22/parents-campaign-schools-edinburgh

(25% going private is the highest in the UK.)

Kind of. We applied to our nearest school (as in bottom of our garden nearest!), didn't get a place as DD is not Catholic (although DH is). Applied to 2 others with 1 mile, but were outside the catchment.
The next nearest school is rated as "inadequate" by OFSTED, went to look round and was left very disillusioned, a friend who took her son out was told by his form teacher (who had resigned that week) that as far as she could see, the only reason the place was still open was because there weren't enough places elsewhere to put the 400-odd kids.
That was the school we got, and our appeal was turned down on distance grounds (it's 1/4 mile away).

So we bit the bullet and went private to a school that just happens to be a four minute walk away in the other direction. But we would drive her there if needed as it's the right school for our DD. The problem here is there are several good schools which are oversubscribed, and several piss poor ones with spaces, so you literally have to tick every single box to stand a chance if getting one you even remotely like.

DS is currently at the nursery at our nearest school and will probably go to school there. It is an outstanding school that everyone speaks highly of, and to me seems small as it is single form entry (my primary school was 3-form entry). It was part of our decision to buy this house. The children will almost certainly go to our nearest high school which nearly everyone in this area does (it is a very popular school).

When I was at school I don't remember there being all this fuss about school choice (I left primary school in 1990) - everyone from my primary school just went to the nearest high school, which had two feeder primaries. There was a state grammar school about 6 miles away but I hadn't heard of it and no-one I knew went to a private school apart from one boy who left my form group at the end of year 9.

My DD goes to the nearest primary school, my DS has SN so has to travel further to a special school.

DD's school is 'Good' according to Ofsted (which I don't pay much mind to anyway) and all schools are over subscribed in my area of London, but its in no way a 'bunfight to get into' school, like most of the faith schools around here.

The huge pluses are that its near (obvs!), DD has lots of very local friends and the place has a genuine community feel. We are very happy with it, but I did visit it first and if I hadnt liked it we might have looked further afield (we have several other schools in catchment).

Not sure what we'll do about secondary.

I live in London; all schools are over subscribed so I have got the 'luck' of shopping around. What I do know though is that make your own opinion and visit the schools around. Ofsted and other parents tell you one thing but it's only by visiting the school you will know if it is right for your kid.

OP we asked to look around the new schools we were considering, all of them let us without us having to wait a long time.It's good to feel that they don't need to prepare for new parents to look around,it makes you feel like they don't have anything to hide.

We spoke to other parents that had children at the schools,we asked parents that had children in different years so we'd get an overall view of all the teachers/children and classes.

We spoke to some children that went there.We checked out ofsted reports and reviews by parents and children online.

I asked if there was ever any serious complaints made against the school/a member of staff or a child attending the school.You can ask all these things and they have to answer you honestly.It's just lots of people don't like to ask.

I asked if they'd had any Police or SS involvement.They hadn't.If they say yes they can't by law give you details but they can tell you yes or no.

I though to ask this as I used to be involved in child protection and DH is a Police Officer.It's most likely not something most parents would think to ask about.But it can be good in helping give you a feel about the school community.

Remember the school won't only become a big part of your child's life it will become a big part of your life as well.So try to make sure you find a school that feels like a good fit for you as well as your child.

I put DS into the local school at the end of our road when we lived in England. It was also in special measures but I had visited it and loved it. They had a new head when DS joined and he was absolutely brilliant actually. Very friendly, waited in the playground in the morning to say hello to parents, knew the children by name and would stop and talk to them in the corridors and remember things about them - just a lovely, inclusive, friendly, nice feeling school. Not overly competitive but I actually think that's better at primary anyway.

Now we live in Germany you're automatically assigned your local school but you can request application to another if you have a reason (e.g. teaching/education style or model - much more freedom for individual schools here, or proximity to parents' work, or likelihood of moving into an area, bullying problems, a significant number of kindergarten friends going to another school, the different school has better provision for your child's SEN, etc) Again we are going with the local school because we like it.