what is more important to you for pre-school/primary education social or Education skills?

[JenT]

We have easy access to a good primary school, it is efficient and a 15 minute walk from home. DS1 will live round the corner from lots of his friends. However, there are bright children at the school who are being neglected because they are pleasing themselves and there are more challenging children taking up the teaching time.
Within a 20 minute drive there is a really good but expensive private school he wouldn't see his friends easily after school they wouldn't be able to play football at the park without prior arrangement.

We are looking that the primary school in the village is the better option but how do we ensure that DS1 reaches his fullest potential?

Jen x

We were in a similar situation to you, good primary school within walking distance, etc. We chose the private school. Mainly because of class sizes and attentiveness of teaching staff. We made our decision because our DD was very shy and would have been swamped by the 28 other childen in her class, but she is beginning to shine in a class of 16.

Our two children have very few friends where we live, but do have lots at school who they see after school and some weekends too. However, one friend of DD's lives 15 mins the other side of school, which makes a 1hr 10 min round trip to pick-up from a play date!