Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Secondary School planning for an unborn child

49 replies

MissHoney85 · 13/08/2020 15:28

DH and I are in the midst of a gruelling house hunt. We have been meaning to move for years but never got our arses in gear until just after lockdown, now every other bugger is looking for the same thing as us - a house in the country with plenty of space and a nice garden! We have accepted an offer on our house but few houses we like are coming up, and when they do the competition is insane.

I found a place which we both thought looked decent. However, DH did his research and found that the secondary school into whose catchment area it falls is RI across the board. (Inspection in 2017, was also RI in most areas in the previous inspection.) He is now pretty determined not to move anywhere in the catchment of that school, which eliminates quite a big part of our search area.

Now, our child is not yet born - due in January. I am a teacher so I'm aware of the importance of a quality education. However, I'm not sure if this should be grounds for ruling out a whole area. I feel like schools can change a lot in 11 years. This school is not in a 'bad' area - the catchment area is mostly nice little villages between Reading and Newbury so I'm not sure why it gets such bad results. Then again, it seems to have only gone backwards since 2013 so maybe there is some kind of major underlying problem.

What do you think? Would you rule a whole area out of your house search based on the secondary school choices of an unborn child?

OP posts:
Fluteytooting · 13/08/2020 15:30

A lot can change in 11 years. The school near me was known for not being great 5+ years ago. Now they’re over subscribed.

Twospaniels · 13/08/2020 15:31

Your husband is being unreasonable.

An awful lot can change in 11 years! And you’re a teacher so if you feel the education isn’t up to scratch (in 11 years time) surely you will be able to fill the gaps or at least have knowledge to sort it out.

Have you explained this to your husband?

MuddledUpAgain · 13/08/2020 15:31

I agree with you. A lot can happen in 11 years.

I currently work at an RI school, and it's run an awful lot better than the outstanding school I moved from and the results are very similar.

LaPoesieEstDansLaRue · 13/08/2020 15:35

The school could improve massively in that time, just as a currently Good/Outstanding rated school that you may choose to live near could deteriorate massively. Catchment/admission areas could also change so no guarantees which school you could and couldn't get into in 11 years' time anyway. I get where your DH is coming from but I don't think I would rule out a whole area that you like just based on this school's rating.

PotteringAlong · 13/08/2020 15:39

You cannot choose a house based on what a school may or may not be like in 2032...

Timekeeper2 · 13/08/2020 15:43

What is RI?

mindutopia · 13/08/2020 15:45

You don't even know if you'll be able to have children and you have no idea if you'll even still be living in that house when your as yet unconceived children start primary. I would go for the house you love.

For what it's worth, Ofsted reports aren't all that telling. Schools can be marked down for really random things that have nothing much to do with the actual quality of the school. When our eldest started school, we intentionally chose a school that was RI over one rated Good. The reason it got that rating was because there had been a lot of turnover in the Governor's (whatever that means? but apparently Oftsed didn't like that) and because the test scores were lower than average (it's a small school with a very holistic approach that doesn't teach to testing - great!). In fact. my teacher friend is planning to send her dc there from out of catchment for exactly that reason. It's a lovely school and is now rated Good after the most recent inspection.

Fwiw, my older one is in Y3 now and we are looking at houses and I'm not even looking at secondary school catchments. They aren't all that important when I don't know what will happened in a few years time.

LaPoesieEstDansLaRue · 13/08/2020 15:45

RI = Requires Improvement

Tunnocks34 · 13/08/2020 15:46

A lot can change in that tone, however we moved into our area because the primary schools, and in turn the High school they feed into,

are also outstanding, and have been outstanding for at least 40 years (my mother, and I both went to them).

dontdisturbmenow · 13/08/2020 15:56

Utterly ridiculous! Our local school went from outstanding to RI in 4 years, when the previous Head left.

Similarly, the next one distance wise that had stating of RI got plenty of funding and 2 years later was only just short of being outstanding. Again, change of HT.

Mydogdoesntlisten · 13/08/2020 16:08

Actually I am going against the general view. My DS is now 19 but we actually moved prior to him starting secondary school. (The local primary was outstanding and we moved in before he was born, arrogantly assuming secondary wasn't an issue as he would pass his 11 + and go on to local grammar- turned out not to be).
We moved areas so he could go to outstanding comprehensive school, and I am so glad we did.
However if l was doing it again now, I would have moved areas before he started primary school so he could have moved on with same cohort of children.

MsEllany · 13/08/2020 16:09

I think it is an enormous privilege to have this as a worry when thinking about moving, and your husband is being ridiculous to discount a house because of it.

The governors and leadership team will have quite some time to put in place measures to improve between now and then, a new school might be built.

MsEllany · 13/08/2020 16:09

@Mydogdoesntlisten did you check the Ofsted reports back to before he started Reception?!

SleepingStandingUp · 13/08/2020 16:10

What is his plan if he finds a house with a good secondary and I'm 5 years it has a change of head and goes downhill? Will he keep moving so the local secondary is always excellent? I'd worry about nurseries and infants at most

Pobblebonk · 13/08/2020 16:16

It would be insane to make this choice based on something that happened 14 years before your unborn child is even due to start school. We have schools near us that have gone in both directions - one went from RI to outstanding within around 5 years, another went from outstanding to RI in roughly the same period. You're both going to be pretty unhappy if you go for something inferior or more expensive near to an outstanding school only for that one to go down the pan.

MouthBreathingRage · 13/08/2020 16:16

We live literally yards away from an Outstanding secondary school. 11 years ago, it was the worst of the worst. However, we live in the suburbs of a city, so have a wider choice of both primary and secondary within the catchment area. If you're planning to live very rural, I can see it being a bigger issue and needing long-term considering.

TorysSuckRevokeArticle50 · 13/08/2020 16:21

The secondaries near me have gone from bad, to good and the other way in 10 years. It's very much driven by SLT of the school which is relatively fluid so you can't plan 11 years in advance.

SnuggyBuggy · 13/08/2020 16:22

It depends on what potential there is for change. We rejected an area because the only secondary options were a 10 form entry and an acadamy that bordered on an infamously bad area.

RedRumTheHorse · 13/08/2020 16:24

If you are a teacher have you not had OFSTED inspections yourself?

Simply look at the type of people who live in your area and then decide from there whether to buy the house.

Loads of people move after their children start primary school due to change in job or for other reasons.

PastMyBestBeforeDate · 13/08/2020 16:25

The secondary we were in catchment for when dd was little wasn't good. Lots of people were "Oh dear" about it. By the time dd went it was very outstanding and those same people were moving to get into catchment

bookmum08 · 13/08/2020 16:29

If the current unborn children are lucky in a decades time the whole school system could have changed and all that league table and Ofsted crap will be gone and every school will give children a good education in a much more relaxed and happy environment.
Sigh. We can dream.
You can't predict the future. Who knows what anything will be like in ten years time.

Teacher12345 · 13/08/2020 16:30

I would say that right now, you shouldn't rule it out. I think you could end up moving again in the next 11 years or like others have said it could improve. That said, we did move to an area for the schools when DS was only 6 months but we knew we wouldn't be moving again for a long time.

Original poster
MissHoney85 · 13/08/2020 16:31

@RedRumTheHorse yes I've had several! Luckily never in an RI school though. I'm aware that Ofsted is not the full story. However, RI across the board is a little concerning especially as their precious inspection was not great either, suggesting a long term problem. The results don't seem to have changed drastically since 2017 either. The school has academised, I'm not a big fan of academies though so this is not necessarily encouraging to me.

That said, I still feel like most here that it doesn't need to be a deal breaker. 11 years is a long time! I think the problem is partly due to DH's own experience - when he was growing up his local secondary school had a terrible reputation and it continued to be terrible until it shut a few years ago. So now to him bad = always bad. I will show him this thread so he can see it's not always the case!

OP posts:
Starbuggy · 13/08/2020 16:32

ideally you would choose an area with several good schools and avoid an area where all the schools were bad. But that doesn’t really work in practice in many areas especially where there may be few schools like rural areas.

It’s madness to base such a big decision on what one school may be like in 12 years time!

AhNowTed · 13/08/2020 16:33
  1. Your DH is being utterly ridiculous.
  1. You're a teacher, so you should know that the main component of whether your child will do well is an attitude to learning, which they get AT HOME.

Bright kids with a willingness to learn will do well regardless of the school.