AIBU to consider the furthest away secondary school?

[3pears]

My daughter is in Year 5. Her closest secondary (school 1) is a 5 minute walk from our house and the one all her friends will probably go to. Her older sister goes there and is happy there but the extra curricular activities are slim pickings. Older sister doesn’t mind this as they do the one club she likes which is netball. Youngest loves drama and rugby and neither of these are on offer.

School 2 is a half hour drive away. There is a bus and I think it’s going to cost about £200 a term but could be more. School 2 is bigger and has more club options including girls rugby and does a big school production each year which dd2 would love. None of her friends will be going there. DH thinks I’m a bit mad to consider it when there is a perfectly good school round the corner.

outside of school, DD2 does netball and mixed rugby but won’t be able to carry on with mixed rugby in high school as she won’t be allowed and there is no local girls rugby club. She doesn’t do drama due to cost (and doing her sport) but would love to do musical theatre. She is very outgoing and makes friends easily.

academically, both schools are similar with similar subjects on offer for GCSE.

AIBU to even suggest School 2 as an option? I haven’t mentioned it to her yet. I think she’ll jump at the opportunity for it. dh think she should go to the same school as her sister as it’s closer, easier and DD1 is happy there. And we don’t have to worry about bus fees. What would you do?!

Id ask your DD as it’s her that has travel, settle and make friends.

30 mins is nothing. Only on MN do posters think 20 mins+ is a long journey.
Friendships change so even if she starts off going with friends, chances are they won't be friends by end of first term.

Can she get there independently?

Honestly I wouldn’t. All her friends would be 30+ mins away which is a nightmare when they want to go after school / meet up and weekends etc.
Id save the money and find out of school options. I’m sure there must be a girls rugby team within a 45 mins drive (easier to do this a couple of times a week for training then every day for school).

Definitely consider it. 30 mins is nothing and it'd probably do her good to step outside of her comfort zone. The closest school isn't always the best option.

Can she get home after clubs?

There is no harm in looking.

But honestly, I wouldn't chose a school just because it has a girls rugby team. My DDs school team played one game last year as there's no one to play against!

There are more girls rugby teams opening though. The clubs join up as well, so each club doesn't need a full team in each age group.

My kids made loads of local friends going to the neighbourhood school. Having friends on the doorstep was great. When my daughter went to a further away primary, no one from her school lived nearby.

It is great to see them meeting up and walking to school in a morning.

My husband went to a school further afield and hexaays he really missed out on that.

With increasing pressure on school places unless this is an independent school I wouldn’t be confident you obtain a place at the further away school if u are out of catchment

If there are enough rugby playing girls that school 2 can field a team, there must be a local girls team. Around me, every single rugby club (about a dozen within 30 mins drive) has a girls team.

Dd did 2 x 30 minutes on the bus to high school and she survived. It was about 20 minutes by car to her friends.

She found the first three months awful but we were prepared for that. She had to learn about bumps in her road some time. We knew plenty of kids who went to the catchment high school and still had a bad time.

Go for wherever you think your dd will be the most fulfilled.

30 minute drive but how long on the bus? And what if she wants to stay late for one of these clubs? Driving an hour every evening to go fetch her sounds like a massive commitment! And driving again any time she wants to see a friend.

I think it's lovely that my daughter goes to the school 5 minutes away. I'm in Scotland so we don't have as much choice, but there's not no choice at all. I stuck with the local school and don't regret it (it's not the best school in the city at all and has plenty of challenges). It's lovely that she can get home in the afternoon, it's wonderful that she can easily meet up with friends and it was hugely reassuring to her to be familiar with the walk and most of the people on her first day (she's autistic)

I'd take the money you'll save on the bus and the petrol and sign her up for a musical theatre class.

If you can afford the £600 a year bus fares could you not put that money towards stagecoach drama group and a rugby club? Then she can go to the local school and see her local friends after ?

I really wouldn't. We had to move in with my inlaws for 7 months a few years ago, 30 minutes drive from the dc schools. It was a massive pain and i hated it.

30 min drive us this with traffic or without. How long is the bus journey. 30 mins on a Sunday is a lot different than rush hour traffic on a Monday morning.

For £200 a term could you not sign up your daughter to the local rugby club team and stage coach instead? Then she can go to the same school as her friends and sister?

I wouldn’t rise any expectations until you know whether the distance from the school would make you eligible or ineligible. You need to look at the admission criteria and find out which category you’d be.

Aside from that, the fares are going to be expensive in time and money and I agree that it would be better to use the money on subscriptions for the extra curricular stuff she enjoys.

To answer a few questions-

both are state schools. School 2 is 20 mins in the car, 30 on the bus.

at the moment, we can’t fit stagecoach/ theatre train in because they’re on the weekend when she has matches. They’re also not close by. However, people are right that we could use the money saved from the bus to pay for them when she isnt playing mixed rugby matches any more.

I will ask dd but at the moment I’m working out whether or not it’s a sensible option. She is assuming she will go to school 1. Most of her friends going to school 1 are not immediately local but not far away, about a 5-10 min drive away. It’s true that it’s nice for them to have local friends and this is what dd1 has and enjoys so needs to be considered.

I’ve emailed the school regarding catchment and spaces. I know of a few round us that go to school 2 but obviously it doesn’t mean dd would be able to.

the nearest girls rugby team that I know of is about 45 mins away and it is an option. I’m not sure on its numbers, I think it’s slowly growing.

dd could get the bus there and back independently. She could probably get a bus back after clubs but I’m not sure on the timings of the extra curricular clubs. I would be able to pick her up if needed but agree it could get annoying!

im really grateful for all the responses because it’s giving me lots to consider and I’m very torn. I don’t want to suggest it to dd and then it turns out it wasn’t a good idea

My school did "a big production every year" but turns out you only got cast if you were pally with the teacher / in the clique. I loved drama and auditioned a few times but I never got a place.

Wouldn't it be easier to enrol her into a drama club / sports club whatever at the weekends? Would probably be cheaper than the bus fare.

Testing the bus ride yourself at the right time on a school morning is the only way to get a true feel for it. Buses are really, really slow in rush hour and they stop at every single stop to let people on and off.

Keep in mind that in December it gets dark really early.

If she wants to see her school friends socially will she need to take the bus? This can sometimes mean she’ll miss out if things end late.

I wouldn’t be choosing a school based on extracurricular clubs. All it takes is for the member of staff running rugby to leave and be replaced by a ping pong enthusiast (or not be replaced at all) and the club stops running. It’s also very possible that after one term she decides she doesn’t like rugby anymore.

I’d spend the bus money on extracurricular activities out of school and save a lot of stress by sending her to the local school unless there are bigger reasons to go further.

You’re the adult so you make the decision.

It sounds like you shouldn’t to school 1 and investigate the rugby outside of school. How often would she go to training? 45 mins twice a week is a lot different to 30 mins every day.

30 minutes is fine to go to school but if she is meeting up with friends and they all stay in that area, it’s you that will need to drive that 30 minutes each and every time to drop off and pick up when she wants to hang about with her friends, it gets tedious.

one of my dds friends lives 25 minutes away(they met in school but hey moved out of catchment) and it’s a PITA whenever they want to meet up and it’s usually me that does all the running about as the other parents aren’t interested in doing it. (And buses in that direction are unreliable)

Have you checked how far the distance in a straight line from the main school entrance is to your house and how far the distance the furthest pupils lived who where admitted in the last few years. This should be your main concern as if you put school 2 as first choice and it is over subscribed you may not get school 1.