Any positive experience of DCs attending NON-LOCAL school?

[LondonSuperTrooper]

Just as the title really. I am considering sending my DC to a school that is 5 miles away and wanted to know whether anyone else has done this and not lived to regret it!

Apologies if this has been done before

I had this issue...I think it's more and more common these days. I also think that whilst there are benefits to going local...such as your classmats living nearby and being able to walk...those are outweighed if the further away school is better.

I never did it in the end for complex reasons but it would have worked fine I am sure. We felt that as kids are mostly gong on arranged playdates these days...rather thn calling for their mates..that it would be fine.

Once tey go to high school they come from miles away often.

DD (9)goes to school approximately 20 miles from home and it's fine. Amusingly in the bad weather recently her school was open with buses running but all the schools within walking distance were shut! The only thing I would say is that you, as a parent, have to be prepared to put yourself out a bit in terms of getting them to parties, facilitating playdates and so on. I come from a very rural area, catchment primaries often cover huge areas with 4 year olds being bussed 10 miles each way so it's not as alien to me as it seems to be to many more urban mumsnetters.

My DC currently go to a school that isn't their local one as it is in the area I am planning to buy a house in once I get a job (just moved back to Scotland from England due to divorce and need a jon asap!!!). It is fine on certain levels, good school etc, they are making friends at school, cubs, brownies etc. BUT they don't have friends round after tea, have anyone to play with afetr school and at weekends etc - we are living with my parents just now and we ahve no room to swing a cat!! The issue is becoming more apparent as time goes on and DC are missing being able to just play outside with friends - mum and dad love in an 'older' area with people their age around. Think they missed it in the snow especially when school was closed and they ahd a big park to play in but noone to play with IYSWIM!!

Ds is at a school 6.5 miles from home. It is on the way to work so not a problem. His school friends are local but not in the village. However if he had gone to the local school the geographic spread would have been similar. Obviously some driving involved for playdates, parties etc but the same would have been for the local school. Local school is round the corner but lots of pupils travel from outside the village to attend.

Thanks for this thread. I am considering putting DS in a school which is 13 miles from home but less than a mile away from where I work, so I can actually keep my job instead of having to go part-time (which boss is VERY reluctant to discuss since she says they need two of me not half!) or find a childminder.

Course the minefield is worse because state primaries won't countenance this, especially as I'm crossing a county border, so DS will have to go private (again something I need all of my job to pay for!)

I was wondering if this was going to implode on me, so thanks for the thoughts.

We do it for secondary (school 18 miles from home but 1 mile from DH's work).
Advantages: DH (not me, tee hee) gets to pick him up very quickly for medical problems, to go to school meetings, parents' evenings etc)
Disadvantages: he very rarely gets any out of school contact with school friends.

Is there an on-site afterschool club that your son could attend? If so, AND if you're happy with the school itself, I'd go for it. If you hate the school, don't consider it.

It's been a term for us, so far, so possibly to early to say.

Moved dd from local school where she was not happy, to a less local school, where she is happy. So that's a plus.

So far, we're not doing friends outside school - I'm going to start concentrating on that next term. I'm guessing it's going to be tricky ... but since that wasn't going well in the local school, despite being local ... well, it can't be worse, really.

There are many activities after school in the new school, and that works well.

The journey is fine, actually. It all fits in with my work surprisingly easily (in fact, because there is a good travel connection from new school, my "time" has increased by about an hour each day, which more than off-sets the 40 minute (round-trip) of driving to and from school). Public transport is OK, too.

This school is only about 2 miles away, though I'm not sure distance matters as much as ease of journey/connections in London.

DD goes to a school 6 miles away. Only in reception so early days but

Advantages

1)It's close to my work meaning I can work 9.15 til 3 and still do drop offs and pick ups. With a local school i'd have had to work 10-2. Also handy for assembly, nativity etc - I can pop out of work more easily as local.

2)Mix of children. Local school was virtually 100% muslim.

3)Near to after school activities. My local area doesn't offer much so i'd be driving her after school anyway to the town I work for activities.

I think alot depends on your work set up and area you are in.

Also consider ease of journey - mine is 15 mins virtually all motorway.

Also consider school itself - does it take from a wide area. My SIL drove her children quite a way to a village school, they were the only non villagers. Alot of issues and she ended up moving them.

We did it for 2 years, about 4 years ago. It worked fine, we didn't want to go to the local school as many of the childrens parents would of worked for my husband. We didn't want the situation of an argument at school being awkward for my husband at work. It was a pain driving to school every day but they benefited so much from the school itself that it was worth it.

We do it now as the local schools are not too good and we had some bullying issues. DS is very happy in his new school and the drive is not bad, we are not too good at the friends out of school yet but mainly due to the weather being bad and no one doing play dates right now.

I would say as long as your DCs settle in the new school it is not an issue, just be prepared to go the extra mile for them on the out of school friendships and it will be fine :)

Thanks for your responses.

@ marialuisa - I?m shocked at the 20 miles journey & that the school was open!!!

@ makemineapinot ? I am worried that my DS will not have any local friends either. But once I got thinking about it, my DS will be at a childminder anyway (as I work full time).

@ MollieO ? It?s very lucky that your DS school is on your way to work. Mine isn?t. I will have to drive past my house once I drop him off at school!

@ moonbells ? tricky situation. Are you definitely sending your DS to private school? It?s a pity that your boss is not very understanding.

@ Lancelottie ? In answer to your question, there is an after school club. I don?t think that I will be using it for the first year or so. DS is a late summer baby and I don?t think that it is fair sending him to an after school club whilst in Reception. So he will be going to a child minder for a year or two before we can take advantage of the after school club.

@ animula ? Thanks for sharing. It?s heartwarming that so far you?ve had positive results with your DD. Hope it continues to go well for you.

@ dixiechick1975 ? we could potentially be one of the few non-locals at this particular school.

@ mumof2girls2boys - I am prepared to give two afternoons a week for play dates etc as I am planning to pick up my DS twice a week by reducing some of my hours at work. I?m hopeful that this will be give my DS sufficient social interaction outside of school.

Just out of interest, What do you do with your DCs in the summer holidays? Does they meet up with any of their friends? How do they cope with having friends so far away?

We have been doing this for preschools for two years and look likely to be going even further for primary school. It is a bit tricky with playdates etc. but if it's the right school for you I'd say go for it.

My secondary school was about 12 miles away on an awful, congested bus route.

My abiding memories of high school are sitting on a noisy, damp school bus for 90 mins in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, being really tired when I got home and having zero social life as my friends all lived miles away.

Thanks for your replies.

I should have mentioned that this is for an infant/junior school, i.e 4-11 years old.

My 2 DDs both go to schools over 10 miles away. The youngest started at her school in yr5 and is now in yr6. The eldest started in yr 6 and is now at a different school in the same village but in yr10 iyswim.
They go on a dedicated school bus as loads of children from our town go to the 2 schools.
They have had no problems with the distance between friends. Most of their friends don't live in the village where the schools are anyway but rather in surrounding villages. As they are all spread out they don't spend evenings hanging out together anyway so my 2 DD's are missing anything.
My eldest just uses facebook or texts to talk to her friends. When they go round friends houses we go and pick them up which can be interesting as we don't know where half the villages are (good old satnav).
After school clubs are a pain but the younger DD'S school only do clubs at lunchtime as 75% of the school travel on school buses.

Sorry aren't missing anything

Hi
We moved DS (6) to a school about 2-3 miles away from a school that we could walk to. He has plenty of friends, and sees them after school on my days off, has weekend play dates etc. So far it's not been a problem, but it did take a bit of effort to get to know the other parents, arrange times to meet up etc. I've found most of the parents are fine with sharing the travel so I'll pick up DS's friend from school and drop him back after they have had tea. Next time the other mum does the pick up and drop off.

Ladies,

Thanks for sharing your experience x

My children have been going to a school that is 5 miles away for nearly 6 years now and it all seems ok, they have friends that don't go to the same school so that's fine I suppose.

Works well for us!