I am in a situation of moving home this summer and finding a new school and I am completely torn on what to choose. I've found two schools that may have places for my two DC.
School 1 is junior school 1.0 miles from our new house. It will have a space for Ds1 and the school secretary says that they always have movement in the first week or two of year 3, so DS2 would be to top of the waiting list under the sibling policy.
School 2 is 2.5 miles from our new home and it will have places for both children in September. I'll need to use my car to get there and it will be a problem if it breaks down.
When I toured school 2, the walls were covered with really good art work and imaginative lesson work, whereas school 1 wasn't so good on this.
School 1 is in a nicer part of town and it has amazing facilities. School 2 is perfectly acceptable though.
One weird thing is that school 1 was unbelievably quiet the day I visited. I don't think I heard a child say a single word. I like a school to have order and discipline with the focus on what the teacher is saying but this was really astonishingly quiet!
They have the same SATS results, although school 2 was identified by Ofsted has having a weakness with G&T children in the subject my children are G&T in. Both are rated good by Ofsted, but school 2 got an "outstanding" in various categories.
Also, school 1's Ofsted report says that a huge number of parents said they were unhappy in the survey but Ofsted couldn't find any cause for this.
Whichever I choose, I need to get the forms submitted today as time is running out. I have turned it over and over in my head and I just don't know what to go for. Which would you choose?