anyone else not prepared to upsize mortgage / home for that better school..........

[yentil]

i have been feeling pressured to get my children into a better school as i live on the 'border' catchment of better schools and in the catchment of an ok school. if i moved a few streets i would be 'guaranteed' the best schools, but i love my house neighbourhood and the fact i can have the opportuniaty to have a very professional job part-time (almost unheard of in my field) - take my children to school every morning be home at a reasonable hour, have nice holidays and not have to count every penny. If i moved it would really take a lot of that away ....but my children would be in the best school in an area of some of the best schools in the south.......

i come from a council estate went to a 'sink' school but against the odds went to one of the top ten universities in the world and now have a doctorate degree. my children aren't like me personality wise and may not have that 'drive' but i feel that my hard work has now allowed them to have a nice lifestyle live in a nice home and have great opportunities. I want to be able to pay for those driving lessons, help with adeposit on a flat, help fund that year abroad, show them the worl, but none of the above (which I could only have dreamed of) would be achived if I made that move. would i be doing them a disservice to not push that little bit extra and give them the gold standard education!?

BTW not trying to disservice those who have made these choices, we as parents have to make difficult decisions everyday and we do what we feel is best for our children and that is all we can do......

Well I am not prepared to upsize mortgage(for now) because if I do, I wont be able to pay the fees

You are being a great mother by looking at all the other things. I think, the home enviroment is one of the biggest factors in enhancing a childs education. Encourage them to be the best they can be and be there for support in any decisions.

Good luck

Olipolly stole my words !!

Stay put, with your support and encouragement (and maybe the odd bit of private tutoring if the school is weak in certain subjects) your kids will do fine.

yentil, stay where you are and stay strong. Don't get swayed by the paranoid school frenzy.
There are no guarantees wherever you send your children. I'm amazed at how many parents seem to believe that the particular school they go to, is the single most important factor in their child's success.

It's clearly not, but don't try telling that to people who have substantially increased their mortgages or made huge sacrifices to be able to afford the "perfect" school for their dc. Been there and still bear the scars.
Just keep out of those debates, stay quietly confident and stay happy

Thing is, you can't know now which is the right school for your child, or which is the better school for your child.

Because you don't know what your child will be like in a few years time. Will he be Academic? Shy? Bullied? Sporty? Dyslexic? Popular? Musical?.......

The 'better' school might hot-house the kids and look good on paper but actually be awful. The 'worse' school might look terrible on paper but have excellent pastoral care....

You really can't know what will be the right school for your child. So you might as well stay where you are and go to the local one.....

(Speaking as someone who bought a house near a 'good' school, and then had to move my 3 to the 'bad' school I'd done everything to avoid - which was in reality the far better school.)

Some really good responses op.
I'd go to the open days of both of the schools (even if secondary school is years away). You will know which one is right for your child/children.

What do you mean by an "OK" school? Primary or secondary?

My local secondary school has under 40% of DC getting 5 or more A-C GCSEs. Despite a "good" Ofsted - the results may well reflect the DCs' home environment, not the school - that's not OK IMO.

Cheaper than going private!

Thing is, it's easy to say you won't when actually you're happy with the alternative. We've been lucky (we didn't know before we moved into this area) that all the schools we could get into are fine.
It's easy for us to say we wouldn't move for school.

And schools that can be good, can change.
I know someone who moved across town for the school they thought was perfect for their child. Tried to jump through hoops to get their child there. (one of the governors told them to do certain things would make it more likely to get in. I suspect they were hoping for a backhander, and told them it raised major red flags for me).

After 4 years at the school had a totally failure in all ways OFSTED especially how the governors and SLT behaved. The SLT denied this was anything but vindictiveness for a year before my friend realised that a different supply teacher every fortnight was not ideal... and they moved back again to the same street they'd lived in before to get them into the school there, which had been failing when they left.