To move son's school or not??

[lovelymuddy]

Hi, it's my first post☺️would so appreciate your opinions!

My son has just finished his first half term in reception. It's a wonderful school and he is loving it. We have been renting for a while and are a 15 min walk from his current school.

We are finally in process of buying a house not too far away. The new house is a 3 minute walk to another great school with a great reputation. I called this school out of interest how long the waiting list would be for him. They said, whilst they are usually heavily oversubscribed, they had just had one pupil leave so there's a space for my son if we want it. We'd have to take it very shortly after this half term hol. We probs won't be living in the new house until January.

If he stayed at his current school it would be a 30 min walk from new house. If he moved to the new school it would be a 3 minute walk from the new house! He has little sister too so she's with us for the walk in a stroller. No car access.

It breaks my heart to think of moving him after he's just settled and loving his wonderful school. But the thought of doing that 30 min walk 4 times a day for the next 9 years seems so crazy when he could move to the one super close and we'd be sorted.

What would you do? ❤️

That's not quite true @Comedycook. You can apply for any school at any time, but you must use your current address, you can't speculatively use an address that you're thinking of living at. But that's not relevant here. The OP has stated that there's no waiting list, so her address is irrelevant. If there is a vacancy, and only one applicant you can't be refused the place wherever you live. However, if someone else comes along before the OP accepts the place and they live nearer than the OP's current address then they will get in - she can't argue that her future address is nearer, it goes on the current one. That's why there's pressure in her to decide quickly.
We had almost exactly the same scenario when we moved OP, though our DD was a bit older. We wanted a place for our DD at a new school for September but her year group was full. Then a family left, creating a space and we got a call. I had to accept it pretty much immediately because they couldn't hold it til September and if someone nearer applied before the end of the current school year then they would get it and we'd have been stuck. We went for it and it was all fine, though our move was all sorted by then. I think your only real risk is if the move falls through, which does make it tricky. What would your plan be if this house falls through - are you still planning to move nearer to the new school or would you stay where you are?

@MrsAvocet thanks so much for your reply, yes exactly you're spot on about the addresses and waiting lists process.

What month in the school year was it that you had to make your decision?
When you say "our move was all sorted by then" do you mean you had gone past exchanging contracts?
And did the new school let you go in and visit before you accepted the place? And did your daughter settle well?

You're right that the only risk is if the house falls through, (because I think like others have said, if we were guaranteed in the new house then my son would be fine to move, should settle ok etc so that's not the real issue).

In our favour in our case is that there is no chain, survey and mortgage approval was fine, and we would be unlikely to be gazumped because we got it before it went on the market. It would just be if the sellers pulled out. They are an elderly couple going into a retirement apartment. There's definitely always a risk for sure. It's so tricky.

If it fell through, we would either buy close to the new school (first choice as it's also closer to the shops etc), or on the estate which is halfway between the new school and the current school. So in the latter case I would maybe regret moving him to the new school as there would've been no need.

Really appreciate your thoughts and time thank you!

It's a long time ago now lovelymuddy so I can't remember some of the precise details. We'd actually viewed the new school earlier as we were planning on applying for a reception place for our younger child in due course but were pretty much resigned to having to leave DD where she was, until we got our unexpected phone call!
I think we got the call a week or two before the Easter holidays and moved her for the Summer term. It was a bit of a panic as there was so much going on and I did worry about the disruption but she settled fine (she was year 4 at the time). We didn't have the added pressure of not knowing that we were definitely moving though - the people we bought from were having a new house built so the only delay was waiting for their new place to be ready for them to move into.
Yours is a tricky one, I don't know what I'd do to be honest. Can you find out what the turn over of places is like? How likely is another one if you turn this one down?

@MrsAvocet ah got it, I'm really glad it all worked out for you! ☺️

Hmm it's strange because the new school is always oversubscribed. They cap at 45 between 2 reception classes, whereas my son's current school caps at 60 between 2 classes so it is never oversubscribed.

However I can't work out why there's no waiting list for the new school? It's as if there was a list of people who didn't get in, but then they removed themselves from the waiting list once school started??

The new school lady said it would be unlikely after this chance because all of reception would move up through the years etc. it would have to be like in your case where a family moved (which could happen!! But no guarantee of when)

If the current school is never oversubscribed and isn't full then although not ideal if it is all a disaster you could move him back. I don't think it would be but you know you have that if you had to. Do though be aware that 45 means that there is likely to always be a mixed class so although reception might be just 22/23 per class, there are probably three year 1/2 classes so depending on how they do it he might be in with children who are a different age/ ability. Lots of children are fine in mixed ability classes but it probably will mean the classes are regularly mixed up (again not necessarily bad) but some parents for example find it hard if their year 2 child is mixed in with younger yr1 children.

Yes @MrsAvocet. I know what you mean! The school we applied to had a waiting list so no point in us applying until we'd actually completed the move to be closer to it and apply with our new address.

@Cattitudes ooh yes this is a great point!, I did see somewhere that I think the new school does have some mixed classes...but I can't get my head around how that works? And how did you know that 45 would mean it's mixed classes? Sorry I just can't work out how it works, is it not just 2 classes of 45 in each year group?

Primary classes are 30.

Therefore very simplistically for years 1/2 there will be a year 1 class, a year 2 class and presumably a class where the oldest in year 1 or most able are mixed with the youngest in year 2.

I think all schools do mixed classes differently but say they did it by age and your child had a July birthday and was one of the 15 youngest in the year.
Reception - reception class (often they have two small reception classes)
Year 1 - in the younger half of the year so in the yr1 only class.
Year 2 - in the mixed yr1/yr2 class
Year 3 - in the Yr 3 class
Year 4 in the yr3/4 class
Year 5 in the Yr 5 class
Year 6 in the yr5/6 class.

It does depend on how they organise it but a child young in the year but very able might be frustrated being with lots of younger children.

Ah got it. Thank you! My son is an early September birthday. So I guess that could mean he is in with older ones at some point? I think that would be ok.