Are there any disadvantages to not living close to the school?

[Fruitgums]

Hi all,

Really hope that you can help me as I need some advice. I?m in the process of choosing an infant/primary school for my DS (2011 attendance). I have visited all of three schools that I am interested in. 2 of them are within 1 mile of where we live whilst my favourite and probably No.1 choice is about 3.5 miles away (really liked the school, good reputation and it has breakfast & after school club) which I am planning to use.

In short:

School A ? age 4-11, good reputation, good OFSTED, breakfast & after school club BUT 3.5 miles away.

School B ? age 4-7, outstanding OFSTED, no breakfast club, around 0.6mile away

School C ? age 4-7, good OFSTED, breakfast & after school club but I do not really like the junior school that this is attached to?? and I?ll have to apply once he is 7. School is 0.4 miles away.

I?m hoping that he will get into my first choice ? school A. I work full time and will continue to do so once DS is in school. I am planning on dropping him at the breakfast club and will have to use a childminder 3 days a week for school pick up. The other two days I?m planning to pick him up myself and to arrange play dates etc.

My question is do you think that he will at a disadvantage because he will not be living locally? I do not mind the extra driving to take him to play dates etc. However, I am worried that the other kids will not come over to play dates at ours as we are a bit of a distance away.

Am I making sense? Or am I slowly going mad and insane with the choosing the right school for my DS?!

TIA xxx

The primary school my kids go to is around 2 miles away. Takes less than 10 minutes in the car so really no problem with playdates, etc. However it serves a large catchment so lots of families are in the same boat.

Might be different if yours was the only child not living close to the school....

I do often wish we were within walking distance though but that is more to do with parking problems where we live.

Also, most primary-aged children in this area do not play out on the street but if they did my children might be more aware of not having local friends.

We live about 1.5 miles away from DSs school. Its never been a huge problem.

When DSs have playdates I always drive the children home from school and sometimes drop them back too if its hard for the parents to get them or they have nannys/childminders who don't drive. Only think I would say is that we do have a car which can fit 3 children in booster seats in the back. If we didn't have this it would be alot more difficult.

I know we are not as far away from the school as your first choice, but I don't think other parents will mind especially if you are flexible helping out with dropping them back from time to time.

We are very close to DD's school, and I do love it (but bear with me) - I dump the car at home before collecting her, so we get a nice little walk home instead of getting in the car, we all skip off to parents' evening with two minutes' notice, and I'm a governor and can take a cup of tea to meetings without it getting cold on the way there!

Socially though, for DD, there are two advantages - one is that she happens to have a friend living two doors down, and at six they go between houses with minimal supervision. Secondly is that her best friend and mum will sometimes come over to ours after school, or we'll go theirs, on a whim. BUT the rest of the time, the 'formal' playdates, it doesn't make any difference. He'll make friends, irrespective of where the other children live, and it'll be down to you and the other parents to sort out the practicalities of getting to and fro.

I wouldn't personally consider a school 3.5 miles away, unless I was truly rural and it was the only reasonable school.

That's a minimum of 15 mins drive each day surely, and possibly more.

TBH it's hard to imagine anyone where I live travelling so far - most people in this city go to their local-ish school for lots of reasons. A 3.5-mile radius would offer me at least 20 schools to choose from - the mind boggles!

Local is good for us because:
easy to get to on foot - which is reliable and healthy and friendly - meet people on way etc.
DC can walk on their own once in yr 5 or so.
Local playdates arranged in impromtu fashion.
Local pals to walk round and see (again, esp nice when child is older - DS1 is 11 and often strolls to see a mate)
Can walk to school, walk home and jump in car to go to work
In emergency, can quickly knock on neighbour's door and get them to walk the kids up - this happens more often than you might think! Also they do it to you and it's all nice and friendly.
Just a sense of community and belonging to area and school and all the kids about which is really valuable IMO.

DS2 has a pal who springs to mind who lives a distance away; we just never see him "around" in shops, at library, on way home etc and I am sure they are as a result less close.

You also need to bear in mind that you might not get in to non-local school!

I can see that breakfast club is important to you, but have you considered cm for that too? Also where do most of the DC in yr street/neighbouring streets go?

Sorry for long post.

Thanks for your replies :)

Decorhate - This year's intake for Reception is 60 and only 8 are NOT local kids. Apprently 2009 figures were similar too.

Gegs73 - Thanks, I do not mind the picking up/dropping the other kids. Will need to check whether I can fit 3 booster seats in my Golf.

A big deciding factor for me for choosing School A is because my son will be there from 4-11 and will only have to settle in once - IYSWIM.

See if only 8 of intake of 60 are not local, do you realistically stand any chance of getting in?

Re inf and jnr, I personally prefer it as a) the DC are not faced at 4yo with a dining hall/playground with HUGE 11yos in and b) at 7 they move schools, get started in new place etc, but not too scary as pretty familiar (all the kids they already know) and BRILL practice for secondary.

Oh and c) (this is very much our experience) yr 2 being biggest in infants, they are treated as grown up in school and also get to do lots of stuff that they wouldn't in primary, on account of being oldest in school. Eg DS2 last yr (now in yr 3) did city-wide dance competition, ditto singing event, ditto recorder event, while the local primary sent a team from yr 5 or similar.

(Does that make sense???)

TheLastWitchFinder - Sorry but I'm confused.... are you saying that your DD hasn't had a playdate because you live too far away?

DontCallMeBaby - Thanks for the reassurance. I would love him to have a friend living next door etc but I guess I would like it more if her got into the better school ;)

Clary - Thanks for sharing your experince. I agree that it may not be practical for my DS to go to a school that far away but I guess my desire for him to gain what I believe to be a better education at this school is giving me a tunnel vision?
Like what I said above, it would be great to go a local school but I just liked School A better. School B is fantastic but I'm worried about him going to the local junior which has got a large staff turnover and the headteacher has been absent for the last year or so.

I think if you do go to the further away school you should move near it, to be honest. I found it very hard going to a non-local primary school at that age, for all the reasons Clary cites. I was dropped and collected in the car - everyone else went on foot, and out to play after school.

My daughters don't go to the closest school to us, but to the next one along - and even that half-mile makes a difference, in terms of just loafing around after school/at weekends/during the holidays, and ideally I wish we were closer to it for those reasons.

It gets increasingly important, as your children get bigger, to be able to hang out with your mates. To meet up on a Sunday aafternoon. To ring up on a whim and nip round there. It's all part of starting to grow up and have a social life. And it's nice too.

Do not discount your school C on account of the juniors it feeds into. I am in a similar postion in that my DC are at an infants that I really like but was very unsure about the junior option. In the 3 years since I applied for DS to start school the junior school has much changed plus now I am "in the loop" I am much clearer about what I want from a school for a 7 year old - and it's not what I was looking for at 4.

I am in a locality where most people go to the local school (and are within walking distance even if they don't walk). The school definitely "plans" activities round the fact it is easy for parents to pop to and from school. Do you have other children to consider (for example our school runs separate discos for different age ranges on the same night at different times, so that would be a lot of doing and froing, what if they want to do different after school clubs)? DS would definitely miss out on playdates as many of his friends' parents don't drive (and it's a PITA if you have to drive them home, even if you are prepared to do it).

Another issue is what happens if things go wrong? I have many neighbours/school friends that could pick up/take the DC to school at 5 minutes notice, if you are not living near anyone else at the school the onus is all on you to get to and from school every day.

Clary - Based on the last 2 years intake he hopefully should get in for 2011. The school is based in a wealthy area and apparently some local parents choose private education. I do love the infant school(School B) but like i said previously I really do NOT like the local primary in the area and hence choosing to go further afield now. School A do not have an intake at 7years old.

Also, the infant school has an intake of 30 kids, some of which go on to private education and hence my reasoning is that he will probably only know 15 kids or so.... the local Junior school has an intake of 90 and he will be a newbie all over again.... I guess I am also worried about him settling into a new junior when he's 7 years old.

Motherinferior - there is absolutely no chance of us living closer to the school... well not unless I have a spare £1-2m floating around somewhere!

Well, if you can't move then I'd seriously think again. As Clary says, before-school drop-off can be negotiated with a childminder.

my childhood was ruined once I moved away from where I went to school. I never really fit in again with local kids as my friends were the ones I made at school.

I was much more than the 3.5 miles you talk about, but too far to walk is too far to walk.

The distance is not important for a 4 year old but it will be by the time your DC is 8 or 9 and the local kids have more independence.

School A may not have an official intake at 7 (as in you don't have to reapply for a place in Year 3 if in situ) but the restriction of 30 on class sizes becomes more flexible for KS2 so you may find in reality a number of children join then. I wouldn't worry about him resettling at 7 in the infant/junior scenario as all the children will face the same move and staff will be used to it.

I agree with naghoul. I was very miserable at that age, and very isolated.

And at about Y4/5 they need to be able to walk on their own sometimes, I think. In two years time my nine year old will be managing her own journey to secondary school. She'll be absolutely fine, but I wouldn't feel so confident if I'd had to ferry her by car to school and back every day!

Dear all,

Thank you so much for all of your thoughts and time taken to respond to my dilemma.

I've certainly got planty food for thought regarding this issue!

Thanks xxxx

Thinking about it I went to a school a couple of miles away when I was 8. Always felt that the local kids viewed me with some suspicion and a sense of why was their school (much nearer) not good enough for me. Also I recall going to others' houses for tea but not them coming to mine :(

We used to be 20 min walk away from school and I did find playdates difficult, both the ones where children would come to us, and the ones where I would have to go and collect because I would need to get the other children (inc. baby) bundled up and going out around 6pm. It also meant that I couldn't let the children walk to school on their own ever, and also when children went out to play at playground local to the school we would have to leave that bit early.

That said, I would rather that they go to a good school that we all like that is 20 min away as opposed to a not so good one that is next door, but it wasn't ideal.
We are now very close to (a different) school, and it has been a good move, particularly for my older (9) child, who is needing an enjoying a bit more independence.

My parents too had the option of local school (1 mile away) and faith school (3.5 miles away) and went for the latter and then secondary ten miles away in completely opposite direction. As a consequence I have absolutely no sense of belonging to the village I grew up in and no friends apart from one other family of poshos. I met someone recently who was by coincidence from my village and I had nothing to say about it - never went to the local pub, never saw anyone I knew in the post office etc etc. My mother always flinches when I say I'm from London (where i now live) as she thinks I should say I'm from x village. But I'm not, I have no sense of community there and I think that's a real shame. If I'd at least gone to primary there I might have had friends to meet up with in the holidays.
A real shame. My dcs now go to school they can see and I love the fact that they bump into their friends at pool, library, park etc. It makes school part of their lives instead of some strange other world.

Jennifersofia......And hence my dilemma. Go to a local school that is not so good or go a good/better school but that is not local

By the time he gets to the junior local to schoo B the HT issue may be sorted, yknow.

My DC (oldest is 11) have gone through our local inf and junior and in that time the HT has changed once at the inf and twice at the jnrs. Both times for the better

Hello MI! Happy half-term [hgrin]

A 20 minute walk is different, though! We had a 20 minute walk - it's shrunk, as the girls grew, to a 10 minute walk. I don't find that a problem. DD1 does it on her own from time to time.

Yes agree that schools change all the time - I could have sent my dcs to a more local school - reasons for not doing so were many but certainly one factor was that the school was not doing as well in terms of SATs, etc.

A few years later it is now great "outstanding" whereas the one my dcs are at is just "satisfactory"....

OP I am concerned as well that if houses in your chosen school's locality cost £1m more than yr house is worth (even if you live in london that is a fair jump isn't it?) then will there be a very different social type there? Like mega rich people??