How sensible is it to choose a primary school other than......

[Normsnockers]

... the one which is 2 minutes walk from our front door ?

Background to this is that we live extremely close to a local primary school which does not perform at all well in the league tables and more importantly frequently advertises that it has vacancies in all year classes plus from talking to neighbours it appears it has a reputation for not tackling bullying. I know 2 mothers who are not happy that their kids are there but cannot manage to transport them anywhere else that has a vacancy due to working patterns/ lack of transport.

We live on the edge of a city and I have identified a villagey type primary school which also has vacancies but this appears to be from the current local demographics (shortage of local babies for a few years now) and the fact that it was known as a backwards village school until a few years ago. It has leapt up the league tables recently and moreover I liked the feel of it and what I saw when I looked round. The head told me that they are proud of their stance on bullying and he hopes to improve further on their recent educational results improvements.

He said that if we really felt we could commit to the journey twice each day he could see no reason why ds shouldn't be accepted when we fill in our forms in November/December.

The trip will take about 20 mins one-way, 40 mins round-trip.

It is not on my way to work and I am expecting a baby in September who will probably be at a nursery close to work ,7 hours a day, by the time ds starts school in September 2007.

Do many parents go for this amount of morning and evening drop off/pick up routine/travel time in order to get what they perceive to be a better educational environment for their kids ?

Am I being unrealistic and setting myself up for a commuting/transporting burnout after a few months ?

My dh is either away too early in the morning and back too late in the evening or working away during the week and cannot share the transporting so I will be doing all of the drop off/pick-ups unless I get hired help who I trust to be responsible for driving with my ds on board.

Sorry this is a bit long but I would value the experience of other parents doing school runs as to the trade off between "on the doorstep convenience" and possibly "better schooling with a lot of daily parental effort".

I would do the drive

Are you sure it's only 40 mins even in rush hour?

Also could you find other local parents who are doing the same and set up a school run?

The villagey school sounds lovely.

But one of my main priorities is for Ds to be able to walk to school and to live close enough to his little mates to be able to hang out together. I'm also less bothered about performance tables than about atmosphere and environment.

Have you been around the local school yourself?

Agree with CD about the drive. It sounds like a bit of a logistical nightmare TBH and just the kind of thing you can do without if yu are working and juggling a toddler as well.
But then I'm perhaps not a good person to ask as we attend the local school and would always do so inless there was a really good reason not to.
Have you been round the local school and talked to teachers etc? Vacant places is not necessarily a sign of a bad school. We have spaces in 2 out of 3 yrs at our infant school, simply due to falling birth rate, and I am very happy with it.
League tables are not everything. Your sanity may be more important.

I do about an hour round trip in the morning and just a little less in the afternoon. TBH it does get you down especially when the lo won't allow themsleves to be strapped in their car seat for the x time that day. Some days it is fine though.

Ours is a bit different htough as I know it is only temp while we are between houses. We are buying a new plcae soon so she will be moving schools soon to a local one (still mile and half away though. we just didn't want to move schools twice while we are renting.)

Would it be possible for you to move closer to the school?

I thnk there is a great advantage in having school friends (and also a network of parents at the same school) close to where you live, and this advantage will be enhanced once your baby is at school too!

I think the school run will be a strain - but probably worth it for your strong preference for the school. Can you actually manage and get to work? If there is a cost difference, I would think it would be much cheaper to find a local childminder (close to the school) rather than hire a nanny to fetch and carry them? I would move!

DS is at a school 15 mins away, and it is already noticable, in reception, that he i further form his friends at w/e - and the mornings and pick-ups are more of a strain.

I would like to be near enough to do reciprocal favours with friends in terms of pick ups etc.

If I find other parents doing the same as us when ds had started at the villagey primary school I would not hesitate to ask them about a rota of joint school runs. On the selfish side I don't want to provoke a rush of applications from other city dwelling carpetbaggers which might move the school towards being full/oversubscribed.

I am kind of thinking I have found the answer to my prayers in this school just because of the niche location we live in on the very edge of the city.

Our other option is to move to a village with a good school but that would involve more even travelling for dh who is finding it all too much even now. We don't really want to move hoouse until ds reaches secondary school age.

I have yet to time the journey both ways at the appropriate time of day for drop off and pick-up but I estimated that it would be treble the non-peak journey time.

why do you want to move house when your ds reaches secondary age ,I'd say this is the hardest age to move for a child.Unless he's going away to school.

I also think the journey sounds a strain,is it on the route to the nursery?

Mazzy, I left a message on the local school answerphone and they have left me an answerphone message back an incredible three times to invite me to look round. I am not posh but relatively well-spoken compared to many of our neighbours and I am slightly worried that I am being targeted as the sort of middle class parent the school could do with to help its stats and funding.
I too worry about ds not having his mates just round the corner for playing although judging by the baehaviour of some of the kids who pass our house each day on the way to the local school, it might be a blessing.
I have as yet only seen the local school's physical facilities but I will definately be looking round this spring. (must get this all sorted before late pregnancy/new baby comes)

Part of me thinks that I could start ds at the villagey school and if it all got too much logistically I could move him to the local school but that's kind of hard on him if he's made friends quickly.

ggirl

No its outside the city so I would be going there and back before dropping the younger child at the nursery which is only 5 mins from where I work.

hmm. well you can't blame them for trying!

of course if you have seen lots of horrible children behaving horribly on their way home from the school, that needs to be taken into consideration.

we live in quite a middle class area (well, y'know for liverpool!) and and all our local schools perform reasonably well. despite this loads of mothers around here have been very damning about them, and lots intend to go private. i was VERY pleasantly surprised when i went around the two nearest schools.

ggirl

It would be a move slightly prior to secondary school for catchment area reasons if we felt it necessary and taking into account what ds wanted in terms of a secondary school (to go to the same one as his mates or the chance to go to a science/languages/"whatever the government have changed the system to type school" by then .

Mazzy, there can be such a lot of unnecessary snobbery about the whole issue of schooling can't there. Private schooling would be a very last resort for us and only if ds was unhappy at the school he gets allocated. We can always sort out a bit of tuition if things are not happening accademically but I'd rather he had a state school experience as both dh and I did.

I'm certainly not ruling out the local school as it would be soooooo convenient for me but as a possibly middle class mummy I worry that I'm just bing lazy at ds's expense.

Without going into details, ds has an inherited physical attribute that might make him the target of bullying at some point in his school life so I am thinking about bullying hugely in this decision making process.

I would do the drive as well. Where are you? Could you find a local student to hire for the transport. Maybe a neighbor's au apair?

My DD has just been accepted at a school in Twickenham. We live in Sunbury. We are definately goin to the one in Twickenham! It will be about a 30 minute commute on the bus each way for the nanny.

I currently do a similar drive but tbh I'd view as a short rather than long term solution. I had to take dd as a newborn on the school run which was only 10-15 minutes and she'd often scream the whole way so it was a hard way to start the day. The next year ds took the bus to/from school but it would have been hard to interrupt her to do the pick up and she'd fall asleep at the worst time of day if we did. Also long term we are finding it affects the children being able to do after school play dates and activities. We do think the school is worth the effort but it is wearing doing all that driving, depressing to leave and come home in the dark in the winter and generally frustrating, so we plan to move closer to be able to make more of it.

A family with 2 kids at our school moved about 30 minutes drive away.

They intended to keep the kids at the same school

They lasted 3 weeks

fio and blu: you are my soul buddies.

I agree - just forget league table results at prmary level. in fact bad results can be a good thing because it means the kids aren't coached much. teacher turnover sounds a bit worrying, but kids usually have a different teacher every year and the high level of vacancies it more likely to be because the head is a git than anything else.

Thanks for all the opinions.

Senora, by vacancies I mean't spare capacity as far as kids in each class is concerned. I have today been told by someone in the know that as my local school has vacancies for kids of all ages it is currently being used to find a new school for kids having "difficulties" elsewhere. Don't know whether this is good or bad.

I agree with the league tables comments but feel they cannot be ignored completely although I am far more prepared to go by my gut feel from visiting schools and talking to staff and other parents if possible.

I am concerned that the school run would do my head in although I'd probably decide to only have the 1 year old with me on the drop off journey. At hometime I'd pick up ds first then go to nursery for the 1 year old. I am very spoilt in that work is a five minute drive from home and nursery very near to work.

I should have mentioned that my work commute from home is 5 mins so the school run will be the only real part of our daily logistics nightmare.

I myself went to school a 40 minute bus-ride away from home and had no school peers to play with at weekends or during the lighter nights unless parents made a special effort and I survived by hanging round with the local girls who went to the local school but ds may not be as outgoing as I was.

Will get back in touch with the local school and go prepared with a list of questions. Their ofstead report was not good at all but it was 4 years ago.

I have moved a good 5 miles away from my dds school and get the bus in everyday. Leave the house at 8.15, used to leave it at 8.30 to dawdle there slowly from nearby.
DD1 was so settled I couldnt move her. I like the fact that she has friends at school and a seperate set at home. If she falls out with one lot there will always be the other lot still to heal the wounds.

You say you and the younger kids are the ones who'd have to take on all this schlepping because your dh can't deal with any more commuting. Why not check out the schools nearer to his work, and consider a move in that direction?

Don't forget as well that the school may suit your child! League tables and ofsted reports are not written with what YOUR child needs in mind, so you are the one who can go round the local school with your eyes on whether the ethos and feeling will suit your DS.

I do strongly feel that being part of the local community plays a big part in being happy at school, seeing your friends while out to play and being able to have friends round, etc.

My brother and I went to the roughest of rough schools at primary age and funnily enough for quite an able child this can be a blessing - I felt special and shone at some things that others didn't because I had the support at home that many lacked! However I do think maybe it could bw tougher for boys, dealing with the boy culture and 'not cool to be clever' culture....

If you do go for the other school could you relocate so it became local to you? Would this work out with senior schools as well?

what a civilised idea Fio

I've done exactly this!

There's an adequate, large (around 300 pupils) infant school about 15 minutes walk from home. There's a little village primary (24 infants, 55 children in total) C of E school 15 minutes drive.

The smaller school had a much better Ofsted and SAT results. The local school is about average. The majority of the local children go to the local school, including most of our immediate neighbours.

My gut feeling was that dd1 would be happier at the smaller school, as she's a sensitive little soul and I thought she would get a bit lost in a large school. However, I was swayed by people who said the social side was more important, and sent her to the large school nursery when she turned 3.

She hated it. She wet herself (and they didn't notice on several occasions, but that's another thread!), she cried and clung to me, had night terrors again, her imaginary friend came back.. eventually after 8 weeks of hell we pulled her out and found a different nursery for her.

She started in reception in the village school last September and I'm very happy with the situation.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that you know your child the best. Children are different and what might be right for the majority may not be the best thing for your child. Go and look at both of them, take ds with you and go with your gut feeling. You can cope with the drive if you really feel it's in your child's best interest, believe me!

hth.

My ds school is about 2 miles...sometimes taking 30 mins on the way to school due to traffic but its also on the way to work so not a problem. The drive back is about 10 mins as he goes to afterschool club and the rush is over by the time i collect him.