Outstanding school not oversubscribed but 2 neighbouring good schools are. WHY?

[Idonthaveenoughtime]

I am perplexed. I'm looking at primary schools. There is an outstanding school and two good schools in my town. Both of the good schools are oversubscribed, one school is slap bang in the centre of the better off part of the (small) town and has a middle class intake (but odd sats results, 17% achieeing only a level 3 and 63% achieving a level 5, what happened to the average students??). The other one has a more mixed intake and not so good results, but parents like it. But the outstanding school is not oversubscribed at all! It borders onto a council estate but only a tiny proportion have free school meals as many send their children to the good school down the road.
The outstanding school seems to have somewhat average Key stage 1 results (which could be more or less honest) but is at least outstanding. Ofsted report says parents love the school.
What am I missing? Why are so many parents avoiding this school when outstanding schools are usually fought over like gold dust? Are they all wondering the same as me? Or am I missing something?

'Outstanding' schools don't always mean the best school for every child. IME 'outstanding' can sometimes mean 'focus on the clever children and the rest can get left behind'.

IMO a provision can get 1,1,1,1,1, for everything but when you look at another school that doesn't score so highly you nevertheless feel the latter may be a better fit for your particular child because of a difference in ethos.

Ok this sounds really similar to my area for schools. The school that is rated outstanding is definitely judged as 'rough' by the parents who send their children to the other 2 rated 'good' schools.

There is a hoard of mums outside the school gates smoking, lots of screaming down the street at the children by the mums, predominantly working class.

These are just facts I'm giving by the way, I'm not judging, just stating what I know to be true. So don't flame me

Hmm, I chose a "good" school for dd, over and above the "outstanding" one down the road. I went to look around both, and infinitely preferred the "good" option. It was also the most heavily subscribed school so other parents clearly felt the same. Since then, both schools have been ofsteaded again, and our school was graded outstanding in every category whereas the other one has been regraded as satisfactory.

Go and have a look at the schools and make a judgement for yourself. You will know which school is right for your DC.

Because Ofsted have their own agenda which doesn't match up to the quality of a school for your children. My children's very rural tiny school was marked down by Ofsted for things which were frankly bizarre. The box-ticky high pressure 3 form entry a few miles away was given an outstanding.