Private primary or outstanding state? They both cost exactly the same......

[foreverhappy]

Little bit of background information that I hope is helpful:

DH and I live in a not so nice area of a nice town. We moved here about 5 years ago and bought a small house which we always knew we would be able to afford.

Since then, work has improved greatly for us both, leading us both to have more financial stability. DH has finished training and is now on a good salary, I am currently SAHM to DD (3) but intend to go back to work when she goes to school. We would like more children, but that is not proving fruitful at the moment, but I will save that for another thread.....

Anyway, I digress, we are now thinking about our primary school choices as the ones we are in catchment for have become very poor over the years, the closest one to us has just been placed in special measures.

So, we will have to move to the 'best' part of town to be in the catchment for the 'best' primary schools as they are so over subscribed and the catchment area is so very tiny.

This means renting our house out and renting a flat/house in the very expensive streets near the schools and paying an extra £500/700pcm (based on rough calculations.)

We are prepared to do this of course for DD and can afford it as our mortgage is not that much at the moment. However, upon some further investigation it seems that private pre schools are between £6,000/7,000 a year.

So, we either pay £500/700 pcm for 12 months = £6,000/8,400 to be in with a chance of getting DD into an outstanding local primary. (Of course there is still a possibility that she might not even get in, but if we do, we would be more than happy to carry on renting so she lives near her new friends and we are near the school etc. I also understand there is a common (quite right) view that if you do move to be in the catchment area, you should stay there rather than moving out as soon as your DC gets a place at the school.)

Or the other possibility is we stay where we are and send DD private, which according to my initial calculations, will cost exactly the same as renting in the catchment area of the outstanding primary.

We are of course planning to visit both schools and others and do more research, but just wondered whether anyone else is/was in a similar situation or has any advice?

I am a little concerned that if we start the private school system it would be harder to transfer her to secondary state and know that if we have anymore children we won't be able to afford private for them both.

Thanks very much

Look around the schools that you say are bad near you too. Ofsted doesn't tell the whole story nor parental gossip. My friend looked at an outstanding school and a satisfactory. She much preferred the latter and both her kids have done really well there. It's not as middle class as the outstanding one but 5 years later both schools are now rated good.

One child left my child's school to go to a "better" one up the road and the next week a child left that school to come to his. So personal preference really varies.

There is no way that we are going to sell up and move to catchment as the price difference is triple, that's just the mortage not the 30% deposit.

Especially as I am not earning atm, and there is no guarantee that dd will even get in, so to mortgage ourselves to the max, spend thousands on moving to the roads next to the school and then for her not to get a place would not be a sensible option imo.

If we go for the state option then we will rent, move in 6 months before we apply and then see what happens - worse case we don't get into the school we only have to live in the house for another 6 months and then move back to our old house and pay the private fees or move to where she did get a place.

If she does get in, then we re-calculate everything and start house hunting on the basis that I am pregnant/can conceive and have the long term plan of returning to work. (My plan was to have them very close together so there is not a huge age gap and I can return to work, rather than having a 5/6 yo and a newborn, not that there's anything wrong with that I hasten to add, but I want to be a SAHM until they go to school, so the bigger the age gap the more time out so to speak....) If we can afford to buy great, but if not then weight up long term renting in catchment vs private factoring every last cost plus 25% emergency budget.

If we go private then we stay where we are and factor in all additional costs as others have pointed out, trips, rising fees, hidden extras.

Re: Secondary private - from research so far there is a strong pull towards primary, for going onto grammar school/partially selective and for good strong foundations - couple of friends are teachers and say that at 11 they are pretty much shaped to how disciplined they are/motivation/etc Of course, many may argue the other way but just my experiences so far.....

I agree with what titchy says you really don't want to be the only parent in the scummier part of town, not able to afford holidays and other material things, when your kids are in secondary. It doesn't matter you don't mind, your kids will mind. It might be completely different in the UK. But my feeling is it's more materialistic here than back home (in NZ). It also depends on the parents of the secondary you are in too ofc. But my own experience is there is a lot of pressure of getting the right bags, shoes, clothes and where you spent your summers.

I work in a prep school and we have a couple of children each year move from us at the end of their time with us to local state schools bcause their parents can't pay senior school fees - they will do well at them because they have an outstanding work ethic compared to the many of the children in state schools (from my experience of working in both types of school).