How far would you travel for an outstanding school?

[whoknowswho]

In the area we live in the primary schools are ok but the high schools are dire. If I move my DS now (y3) to a school out of the area (we can get the place as its a church school) he will be in a great position to move to a good high school when the time comes (going on current entrance criteria). However it means a 20 minute drive to school and from school. We can't afford to move at the moment but have a plan to move in two years. Am I absolutely mad to be considering this??

Not if you are planning to move. The trouble with admissions criteria is that they change! And even if you are at a feeder school, over-subscription usually means sibs and distance first. If you are planning to move within a reasonable distance to the secondary school, I'd go for it.

About 300m... any further than that I wouldn't get in

Half an hour.

30 min for the direct car journey, if you have to return.
Clearly different rules apply if you can drop of and or collect on the way to work.

Our stupid buses take an hour going round the houses. Car takes 20 max.

Can he take the bus or train to the great high school when he's older?

And "outstanding schools" do not always stay that way
ESPECIALLY those that have converted to Academies and now have no external oversight other than what they invite in.

I think it depends on what they are outstanding in. I also know several outstanding schools that would never be ofsted outstanding as they do not meet that criteria. But to the parents they are brilliant

20 mins not long

I would definitely travel the 20 mins. Not mad at all.

we travel two and a half miles to get to our school which is outstanding...we're not the only ones and you probably wont be either.

I drive DS to scouts once a week, go home, back to get him. 20 min. each way. It costs £18 on my car each night I do that. £18 x 5 x 39 weeks = £3910 / year.

It would put me off.

Do it.

20mins to primary school is no big deal.

As a y3 child he's slightly ahead of the 2006/07 baby boom, so intake for secondary unlikely to alter drasticaly, if he has younger siblings it will benefit them too re admissions criteria for secondary.

Might be worth really having a good look at the secondary schools that are near you that are dire, if they are sufficently failing now they should be have intervention funding, redundancies, super-heads etc that might just turn them around in the next 3 years.

I wouldn't do it. It depends on your other commitments. Do you work? Is he an only? I don't have time to do everything I have to do in the day so doing a 40 minute round trip twice a day just wouldn't happen.

And just think how you'll feel when you get home in the morning & spot a violin or his lunchbox left on kitchen table. Makes my heart sink & I only live a 3 minute cycle ride from school!

Don't do it! Schools move up & down in ofstead inspections and most children will learn if they want to, regardless of where their school happens to be in the league tables. There is no substitute for being local, we had to do a 30min each way trip to primary school, it was a nightmare, the kids have to get up earlier, they get home later & play dates were difficult to arrange. We now have 2 of the kids in the local school and what a relief being able to walk to & from school and the kids are getting to know the local children they see out and about the area. We moved from a outstanding school to an average school but DC3 has moved up 4 bands in reading within 2 months of starting there I would never want to go back to a 30min school run again. Oh, and it costs a fortune in petrol!

Thanks all for your input - very thought provoking!!!

Twenty minutes is nothing for a decent school where, a decent Teacher can make a huge difference to a child's education. If my DS had the teacher he has now, the last few years would have saved me the sweat blood and tears of having to do so much of it myself. I think parents contribution is key, but with a crap teacher, it becomes paramount. For me though, all things being equal, the deal breaker would be the feeder into a good secondary school. I cannot tell you how much grey hairs, heart palpitations, sleepless nights, worry and stress that will save you in the long run, if of course, their policies remain the same. I really can't see 20 mins having an impact on play dates. For my DS, come year 5 and 6, there was little time for play dates with all his after school curricular.

DS had a school friend who had a 1hr 20 minute round trip each day. He was in yr9 & found the travelling exhausting. I would consider how long the school day is already, are you definitely going to move, what about the social side of school? Will she be able to meet up with friends out of school? & lastly outstanding in Ofsted terms may not mean outstanding for your child. I wish you well win whatever you decide.

Nearly £4k a year to go to Scouts? !

I am about to do 20 minutes each way as we have found a new school for DS1. I don't think it works out at £18 a day though.

We have his name down for the Vacant Seat Payment Scheme whereby if there are spare seats on the coach that goes from 5 miles away we can pay for him to go on the coach.

i think its more than the journey to school- dds school is just under 3 miles away and whilst it takes only 10 minutes drive its much more inconvenient when you consider all the school activities they join in later years - either attached to school or nearby to school (as they'll want to join the ones their school mates attend). I can do that run 3-4 times in one day and it does use most of my weekly petrol up.

IslaV would be £4k/yr if I drove him there 5 days/40 weeks yr; obviously Scouts isn't that demanding of his time!

Still it's... £800?
He goes on the train for some of the extra Scouts events (thank goodness).

It is much more difficult to have a social life when you're that far from school. The difference now that ddtwins can walk to their friends rather than need mummy taxi for everything is fantastic, also fuel bills are a quarter of what they used to be. But I don't regret spending 7 years on the school run, as the education was brilliant.
If you're going to move in 2 years, why not wait and move him in Yr 5?

20-30p/mile is a pretty typical cost per mile to run a car. That should include fuel + servicing + repairs but NOT insurance, MOT & VED and maybe not depreciation.

Our current car (hideous 7 seater), costs 43p/mile to move from A to B, plus I estimate 20-30p/mile depreciation (insurance MOT VED all extra). Many cars cost 1/2-2/3 of ours (our previous car, for instance, :(). Purchased from new cars cost more in depreciation, older cars cost more in repairs; more examples here.