I think I've made a terrible mistake in deciding to move house

[Scubadivinginabox]

I’m having sleepless nights over this and would appreciate some advice.

We live in an area where secondary schools that we would get into are all Ofsted ‘Requires improvement’. We live in a city and DH has wanted to move out to a rural location for a long time now. So we decided to put our DD in for the 11 plus with a view to moving to the more rural grammar school area.

We will find out on March 1st if she has got in to one of two grammar schools (one 50 mins away, one 1 hour 10 mins away) and then the plan is to put our house on the market and move near one of them.

The problem is that I don’t want to move. I’ve lived in this city for 18 years and in our house for 10 and I have a great circle of friends and a community. DH says it’s too built up but the rural villages we’ve looked at seem to have everyone living on top of each other. I don’t want to be away from city life and conveniences and start all over again with making new mum friends. There are buses DD can get to school but I don’t think that’s fair on a child to commute 2 hours a day for school.

My DD and DH want to move, me and DS really don’t. I feel stupid for putting her through a really difficult year of studying for the exam and then balking at following the plan through. Everyone else around here seems happy to send their kids to the local school.

Should I put my happiness aside for hers? It feels like everything is in motion now and I’m powerless to stop it.

WWYD?
AIBU for not wanting to move?

How old is DS?
Are you planning on sending him to the same school?

Just to give a different perspective, we live in London. My 2 older DC go to secondary schools 4 miles away. It takes an hour each way due to public transport. Their primary was a 10 min walk, so it has taken some adjustment but they are totally fine, loads of kids do this.

I would absolutely move to benefit my children. I'd think about the full picture though - what would the new area be like for teens? Will your ds be likely to get into the grammar, and what schools are available if he doesn't?

Are there any other areas apart from the villages? Where do other kids travel to the grammars from? Any large villages or towns?

I would choose your new area carefully. We moved away from a city and after lots of reflection identified what mattered most to us whether we were in a city, town or rural.

Yes I need to find a compromise about where to live. I thought I wanted to live in the countryside and have only since lockdown realised that I really don't. @turnaroundtime DH yes he wants to move and has for a long time. But who knows if where we move to will be what he wants? There will be compromises as he would really like to be miles and miles from any kind of civilisation with only trees for neighbours!
@CatkinW I might do that - thank you!

Why not rent for a year? You can keep your city house, and try out country life without burning all your bridges. You might like it, and your DH might not.

@HelloDulling You're not alone in suggesting this. I'm thinking this may be a solution of sorts...

@HelloDulling has a great suggestion.

We have moved more rural and all of us love it. Yes, we have to drive to the next village twice a day for our DS (no bus) but DD gets the school bus to secondary .

We fully accept that we are always going to be taxis for our kids as there is nothing in our small village. Why not move near a small town so that there is somewhere to go but still an easy trip for your DD

Did you visit the local comps? I ask because one of the best schools in our Local Authority for results, for well-behaved, smart, polite, happy pupils is Ofsted graded Requires Improvement. Ofsted's grading of schools can be very subjective and can turn on a pin point depending on one area of results- eg PP students, Children who are looked after, white working class boys or whichever of the many groups they check on, or on an aspect of Safeguarding which is not that big, or an aspect of attendance. It does not mean every aspect of the school was RI. I think it is important to visit schools and to read the full report online.

To me, and I live in the north-east where it would be very unusual for a child to travel an hour or more each way to school, two hours+ of commuting a day is awful! It means a child does the equivalent of two additional school days a week travelling to and from school.

Within 10 minutes walk or metro from where we live there is an Outstanding secondary, and 4 Good secondaries. Our DC will go to the Outstanding one because of how close we live to it (5 mins walk) . I can't imagine them travelling 2+ hours a day. How do they stay behind for teams and clubs? Open evenings? School visits to the theatre or wherever? What if they need to go to the dentist or a medical appointment? Seems mad to me and a waste of their childhood.

In any school bright children do well- there is a secondary school graded as a failing school in our LA but it has children who score a whole string of top grades every year and get into good unis.

There’s loads of issues here isn’t there OP? No wonder your head is spinning. Leaving your support network, especially when you don’t have a physical work environment with new colleagues to maybe turn into friends, would be very difficult. And if you’re struggling then obviously it could affect all other aspects of your life, including your marriage, esp if you feel your husband is pushing the move. I don’t think the updated info on the commute is practical from your current home.

I think I could probably grit my teeth and move if i could wholeheartedly say well this is what seems to be best for my kids etc. The problem here is that what is best for your daughter sounds like it would be bad for your son. Your daughter wants to move and has passed her exam… but your son wants to stay with his friends and there is no mention whether he might get in. And if you are upset at the thought of leaving your network behind as an adult, then no doubt you are imagining how the prospect makes your son feel. I just don’t know how you reconcile the two. I think the absolute first thing to do would be to spend a weekend in some potential areas you would move to. And also do the location location location thing of a drawing a circle on a map with areas within a geographical limit between the schools and your current home and viewing places anywhere within? Is there anyway you could cut the commute time down and keep your son (and you) close to friends etc? I would think that the rural aspect - on isolated spot with no neighbours - probably has to be the most negotiable aspect. It sounds pretty rubbish for you and teenage kids and in a fairly short period of time your kids will have finished school and you two can negotiate how best to organise yourself after that without all their considerations. Thinking of you, it’s not easy.

Just reevaluate her school. Stay in the city and send her to a local school

At the age of 11 I had a choice of 3 schools - please bear in mind I'm old.
The grammar school, nearer to home than my prep school, so either cycling or walking distance, about a mile, but the head was known as nutty nora and girls who failed the 9 and 10 plus were very pleased to be going to the new girls only secondary modern.
A free place ie grammar school place at a convent school about 6 or 7 miles away. Better than the local grammar, but the uniform list was endless, down to both black and white mantillas.
A place in an outstanding (1 of the 10 best girls' schools in the country according to Vogue) direct grant school, with it's own entrance exam. I lived outside the borough, so couldn't have a free place, but the fees were incredibly low as my df was retired. The journey was around 10 miles or so, 9 by train and the last mile either bus or an uphill walk. The rush hour traffic meant that you ran from the railway station to the lights to cross the road to the bus stop, only to see the bus sailing past without a hope of catching it. I used to leave the house at 8am, get to school, if I was lucky at 8.40am, leave at 4.15pm and be home for about 5.15pm, expected to help with getting the dinner ready, eat at 6pm and then have either 2 or 3 hours homework. Quite a lot of my homework I used to get done on the train on the way home. It helped that a group of us took over half a carriage every morning, both my school and the boys' school, so there was often someone else to ask for help from the years above me. Except for the one day a week which was CCF day and all the boys used to tread on our toes with their army boots. It was their unsubtle way of flirting.
My parents didn't have a car, so I had no choice. It was a chance to get to know the 17 and 18-year olds just about to leave for university, listen to how they made their choices etc. We read Woman and Womans' Own together on the train, shared the problem pages and chocolate on the way home. My social life revolved around the youth club and Guides, so I don't think I missed out.

It all depends on the other variables. There wasn't a big tradition of being takn to school - except for girls whose father was an MD of the company, so used to get taken to school by their father in the morning and get the bus home. I had a 9-month train contract, so it didn't make any difference to me. There were around 100 in my year, 33-50% from the borough, the rest from up to 10 miles away. It was just normal. Even the people from the borough came from old villages within it, so stayed in their local groups, rather than mingling with people from the other side of town.

If your DD gets a place, and you don't move, it will be easier for her if she's not the only person on the bus every day.

I wouldn’t move house just so I was closer to my daughters school! She’ll only be there for 5 years, then what? 1 hour commute there and back is not really a big deal and you shouldn’t have given her the option of deciding she “wasn’t keen on it…”

Then you move again if you like.

2 hours a day commute is less time to relax, or do homework, restricts the ability to do after school clubs. I speak as someone who did similar and really missed out.

What next for her daughter? Less chance to get in to University, poorer eduction and therefore poorer life choices available.

If you can move so your child gets a better education, why wouldn’t you?

Moving from the city to the country, especially if it is quote remote is a huge change and isn't for some people. My husbands in the army and we've lived in tiny villages and big cities. I love the country but with teens it was a nightmare. Spend most of your time ferrying then about and is not just 5 minutes. Having to drive for everything can be a pain, and having to our book taxis for a night out would wind me up. Can you rent a house for a bit to decide? Maybe rent your house or for while to see if you adjust. That may not be possible with schools I suppose but worth a thought ...

Attending a Grammar school will help your daughter no end (as long as she settles there that is...)

Is it worth putting your house on the market, asking her to commute for a short period to see if she likes it before you accept offers on your house?

Go spend time at weekends in the area near her school, stay over night.

I'm a city girl, thankfully found a house on a nature reserve close to a major city, so best of both worlds, but the best place I ever lived was rural Leicestershire. It was peaceful, beautiful, people in the village were fabulous, but there was no work and I had to commute a few hours everyday, so it got tiresome! If you want to see friends you can still see them.

I do think two hours is a long ride. Not only that, but she’ll be two hours from her friends too. Then what do you do when the weather is bad? When your younger DS starts, will you send him to the better school too?

I’m looking at it from another angle though. Education has always been paramount for us, for both my DH and I, that we moved for better schools. We got involved in the new school and made new friends as well as maintaining our old friends too .

Hi, secondary teacher here. I would recommend visiting the RI schools and asking other parents what they think of the school.

Many Ofsted are behind with linspectoons and have had lots of money given to them by the viv to catch up. Manu schools will not have been inspected in many years.

RI school often academise and get lots of money thrown at them. The academy Trust ensures that the school development plan is being followed by leadership and therefore schools often improve. The school I work at has been RI for at least 6 years, we were never re- inspected in that time.

We were inspected a few weeks ago and we’re judged ‘good.’ In my opinion we have been ‘good’ for many years- have have just never been inspected.

Check when your schools were in specked, go and visit, ask parents questions, ask the head about the schools areas for development etc.

Hope this helps

I would move anywhere for my children's education. A good education would make a huge difference in their lives.

LuluBlakey1
"In any school bright children do well- there is a secondary school graded as a failing school in our LA but it has children who score a whole string of top grades every year and get into good unis".
Yes, this. If you're as committed as you sound to helping your daughter achieve at school and she is working hard she can achieve to the best of her ability.
I haven't read all the posts, but my children would certainly have kicked off about moving to the back of beyond with a long commute to school. Often transport links are timed to fit in with the end of the school day so, as others have said, that means no clubs and you or your DH would have to ferry them about if they missed buses. Let alone the ferrying them about when they're teenagers.
Not sure if your DH appreciates the time this will take and hope that he'd be pulling his weight. This doesn't sound like a very family friendly plan.

The point of moving is so that she doesn’t have a long commute.

Hi! Not sure how helpful this is, but I took public transport to school every day into central London (ie doing the commute with everyone else) from 11 to 18, at around an hour each way, and as others have said, you chat with your mates and it’s totally fine!

@Reusablebags Thanks for your kind words. All the advice the lovely mumsnetters like you has really given me food for thought. And I am sleeping better! So thanks all.

If she gets in, she tries it for a year, commuting.
Decide after her first year if she decides she likes it enough and is happy commuting (might get used to it), or, she likes the school but the commute is a huge drag, decide then if you will move (rent for seven years?!), you don't need to move next year. Wait.

I had a fairly long commute for secondary. I think it was worth it. It was a shame most girls didn't live locally to me, but there were three of us from my primary school to go to the same secondary, we hung out, it was all good. Plus I had other local friends not at my school. She'll most likely be fine.

I don't think you should underestimate having and keeping in with the good social circle you have built up.

Meant to say, if she doesn't like it, and you decide it's not worth the stress plus commute, move her to a local school, she can reconnect with her primary pals.