Primary school dilemma - Please help

[Carbonaranight]

Which primary school to choose out of the two below for our reception child that starts in September? Please help!

AIBU - Local primary , 8min walk from home, good reputation over the years, ofsted rating good (last inspected last year) and many current friends from the nursery will go to this local school meaning that our kid will have some friends to begin with

AINBU - CofE primary, 15min drive, needs supplementary form from a Christian church to get in but our priest signed this form for us, good reputation over the years, ofsted rating outstanding (last inspected last year) and our kid won’t possible know any classmates.

We are Christians from a different denomination, believers and don’t mind the churchy part of the second school. We also love that it’s outstanding but the commute and the fact that our kid won’t have friends in the beginning worries us.

Please please please help us chose! Whichever we put first, we will get an offer 🙏🏻

AIBU - Go for your local good school
AINU - Go for the churchy outstanding with longer commute

Will you actually walk to the 'walking distance' school, or will you need to drive for some it anyway because of your other commutes (e.g. to work?) There are benefits to being close to friends, etc. even if you don't end up walking it some days, but equally if you're getting in the car anyway, 15 minutes isn't that much.

Are you planning on more children? If your current DC is likely to be an only, then they can walk home with a bunch of friends, and make their own plans in Y6 if they are at the local school. But if you'd need to get to the school to pick up a littler one anyway, that won't make so much difference.

On my "work from home" days I will walk to the school, but on the "office days" , I would have to take the car, drop younger kid at the nursery, drop older kid at school and then drive to work, which is also nearby.

15min drive is not a problem for me in theory, as I prefer to drive for 15min under the rain than having to walk for 16min (8 to go and 8 to come back) under the rain...

So what did you decide?

We choose faith school a mile away over our local school at the top of the road. Never, ever regretted it. It's only a 5 min drive for us but the community and faith based ethos is something we really value. Our local school was actually the outstanding one until Ofsted downgraded it to requiring improvement. We went from reputation and what we preferred on our visit. The kids make friends so quickly, friends from preschool isn't much of a benefit really