to be really confused about thinking of moving to Bognor Regis?

[Confusedmartie999]

Currently live in Horsham, son has a lovely catholic school to start in September, one intake of 30 a year.
Problem is there is no catholic secondary school anywhere near which is a problem for us being a practising family.
The secondary's near are leatherhead ( could never afford ) and barnham ( a good option as my mother and brother are in Chichester.
We are stuck in a tenancy until March now however the local catholic primary do have a place and he could start in January as oppose to September so only 2 months of driving the 60 mile round trip.
We would then have to really hope that a decent rental came up at the time we need it as the journey is too far / will cost too much in petrol to do for any longer than those 2 months.
My issue is that the school we have got id high performing, 90% of children achieving level 4 or above as oppose to 48% in the other one. The other one also teach in mixed ability classes through year 1/2, 3/4 and 5/6 which the current one dont and on our visit to the new possible one the headteacher informed me that currently around 50% of children are non English speaking on entry ( mainly Eastern European ) which was almost used as the reason for the low results.
The upside would be being closer to family, affording a 3 bed rental rather than 2 bed and hopefully the children would make some friends they would take over to secondary whereas here they won't have anyone starting secondary with them as the kids all go onto either private education or single sexed schools neither of which we can do / want.
I'm really confused, my husband says 5 years is a long time to go to a not great school ( he mainly disliked the fact that because it's right in bognor town it's very comcrete and they have no grass playing areas whereas the current one has masses ) and my mum says to think of the kids at 11 knowing nobody going to secondary school :-(

I knew it would be you again OP. Have you considered the fact that there are only a limited number of MNers who live there/have knowledge of the area?

I wouldn't live in Bognor if I was paid.
HTH

One person's paradise is another person's idea of hell. You sound very indecisive. Also, this really isn't a proper AIBU, so it does seem like you're spamming for traffic.

What's wrong with st wilfrid's? I personally wouldn't send my children to catholic school having been educated in one.

Crawley is a hell of a lot better than bognor lol

I'm from bognor. It's a royal dump don't do it to your kids. In other news, Horsham has loads of excellent non Catholic secondaries. Why don't you just stay in Horsham and go to one of those? They're as good if not better than SPH

I'm going to regret this since it may well spawn eleventy million more 'confused' threads but have you considered whether the faith-based benefits of an indifferent or downright poor Catholic secondary can ever outweigh the educational benefits of a much better non-denominational secondary school?

I have a few friends who at catholic. They all said they were happy for their dcs to go to catholic primary but didn't want them going to catholic secondary schools. Some go to a multi faith school near Redhill.

Agree with Summer. Surely a good non catholic school is better than a rubbish catholic one? Especially as you will obviously be taking them to church/giving them religious education at home as practicing Catholics?

Yes of course but then it's very unlikely to get into a catholic secondary.
Because we rent it would be a lot better for them to start at a catholic primary as even if we have moved out of the area for instance if the landlord sold the property / increased the rent we would still get in on religion.
Renting plays a big part in it all to be honest.

Why do they have to go to a catholic secondary if their religious needs are being met elsewhere?

An outstanding school now could be in special measures by then.

Staff change, you've academies popping up.

Yes and obviously if that's the case by then they would go to a non catholic school, to me that seems a shame after spending the whole of primary in one.
It's just a shame bognor has such a bad rep

What are you priorities though?

Religion school versus living near your family?

Perhaps you need to work out what is most important and go from there.

Then, if you have to move anyway you need to hedge your bets as much as you can and see if you can pick a long term LL. If you stalk Rightmove, over a period of time you start to see the some houses continually re-let.

If we are moving I ask the letting agent about the LL and won't bother even looking round if the couple have just gone abroad for work for a couple of years. I also don't bother if the house belongs to an elderly lady who has now moved into a home (sadly, they may not live much longer and then the house may be sold) or couples who have just divorced and are renting the house out while they get their head around selling it.

I look out for dull brown carpets, standard basic white goods and a bog standard entry level fitted kitchen...9 times out of 10 these sort of houses are let buy investment LLs. Our house has not been owner occupied for several decades and we have been here for years. Its a bit dull to begin with, but its a blank canvas and there is a lot you can do to make it homely. A bit dull to begin with is less stressful than having to move every year.

OP you have been told twice how you can find your previous threads on here. Did you find that information helpful?

What makes it hard is that both are pretty important to me, I would love to live near my mum, my kids adore her as she does them and we have a lovely relationship.
Problem is the onto school in bognor with a place now is the catholic one anyway, although that leads onto a good secondary ( at the moment ) so seemed a good bet.
Honestly, had I not seen this one in Horsham I probably would have liked it, I loved the head and assistant head and all the kids seemed happy and leaning well.
The concrete, mixed ability teaching and half the children not speaking English on arrival is now an issue in comparison to the school he has a place for.
If only my mum decided to move a year ago this wouldn't have been an issue!
I did comtemplate keeping the good school but moving further out anyway to get the bigger house and be near family an doing the 25 mile journey each morning but then that's a good £300 a month which in return we could have that kind of house here without the commute.
That's great you haven't had to move, we've moved 5 times in 7 years, only 2 have been our choice as one had terrible mould and one we wanted to leave London, the others were apparently all long term let's according to the landlord and after a year or 2 they were sold :(

I think I must be invisible.

Thats rotten luck having to move a lot. Does your Mum move a lot? Why did she move before? It would be gutting to move and then for her to move again.

I think you need to work out how you want your life to be and then work out how to get it without having to base it on where other people may/may not be living. If you had a hassle free life in Horsham you'd have the time to visit your Mum...

My mum only moved once, to retire from London and went for Bognor as the rents were cheap and her husband transferred jobs to there so she won't be moving again, not out of the area at least ( she's renting too )
Proper shit luck and this one is slightly up in the air too depending who gets it in the settlement although they own 10 properties here so not sure if it will be sold but that's another concern, we could do the move and then a year down the line get our notice again!
If I had the money to buy I would but in barnham near the secondary school and just make the commute I think, but we don't have that kind of expendable income paying this high rent

Commute to where from Barnham? sorry...I got all a bit lost with all the schools bit?

I would just follow your dream and stop worrying about things that might not even happen!

Renting in Barnham: the only compromise would be sending the DCs to (a nice) non religious primary. Not a bad compromise in my book.

ilovesooty I think we all are! OP isn't listening to anyone, just setting out the same 'problem' over and over again.

I have questions.

Are you actually practising catholic's i.e. Go to church every week or is this just about 'good schools'

Does your son actually want to go to a catholic school?

I did see that response about finding old posts but I couldn't remember so just made a new one.
Yes we are privatising Catholics, and at 4 I'm not entirely sure my son would know the difference between a church or non church school to he quite frank!

However as I said there aren't any other local schools in barnham / bognor way, the only one with a space is st marys as a catholic child has moved out of the area.

Couldn't remember what?! Just click on "threads I've started" and you will find all this information on there already. What else can there possibly be left to say?

If nothing left to say why are you replying??

Hate to say it OP but you are just going to have to prioritise.
You can either be at this school you like but further from your mother, or move nearer her and take a chance on the Catholic education.
The thing is there are non denominational schools that can give an excellent education, plenty of them, and if you consider religious input to be so vital you can give that at home, it doesn't have to be at school.