How long would you travel for an outstanding primary school?

[Quijanotango]

Thinking about where to send my little one...primaries next to our home are very satisfactory. We have visited them and they are not an option. They are also oversubscribed since population in our borough is increasing by the hour.
We are catholic but the nearest catholic school is well out of our catchment area.Not an option either.
There is an outstanding catholic school close to my work where we could get a place based on the last 10 years stats. We attend church and this would put us in a stronger position than people living closer but no catholic. there is no sibling policy either. The problem is that it is a 45 min drive from home. Little one would have to travel with us leaving home around 7.45am and I'm feeling guilty already...Dropping off and picking up would not be a problem.
Moving is not an option. We love our house and we are in the catchment area from a very good secondary school.
Private not an option.
By the way, my husband and I are both in education and fully understand ofsted reports and school results.
What would you do? I'm losing sleep over this...Any opinions would be highly appreciated.

One way to look at it is to think about what a child could be doing instead of spending 1.5 hours a day travelling. That's 7.5 hours a week travelling, most weeks of the year, for several years.

A young child can spend that time sat in the back of a car or sat on a train, sometimes encountering delays, jams etc.

Or they can go to a local school and spend an extra 7 hours a week galloping around their bedroom, kicking a ball in the hall, up a tree in the garden, scribbling on the kitchen table etc. etc. This is a child who you already say doesn't have much spare time, it fills up quickly I know with playdates, extra curricular classes, trips etc. It seems really sad to feel forced to ask her to spend so many hours and hours commuting. Adult life has so much of that.

Also, just a thought, often we leave school and pop back a bit later. For example, for a school disco which starts at 5pm, parents evening at 6.30pm, school fair at 6pm, fireworks night at 7pm etc. Worth thinking about how you would manage this?

There's a fair chance your DD will be shattered after a school day and find the long commute exhausting, disruptive, whingy, tearful - not pleasant for anyone to endure for 30+ minutes. Even if she's used to a long nursery day, we all know that school is different.

You'll also be limiting her access to after-school activities should she want to do them - when would she be able to pursue these? Do you want your weekends taken up with ballet/drama/football classes?

And never under-estimate the pleasure your DD will get from bumping into their school friends at the local park, shop, street. That's priceless.

I travelled 45 minutes with my son to attend a Catholic school. It was ok - he coped with the long days. Having people to play was a pain. I tended to take them to soft play and out for tea but we didn't do many. Parties were fine - people travelled. However, we made the decision to move 10 minutes from the school. We left our beautiful house, amazing neighbours and fantastic neighbourhood purely to be closer to school. Having friends close by became increasingly important to my son and I wanted him to have the independence of 'calling for' his mates.

Frankly I'm a bit horrified at the "oh, they won't need school friends, we want thm to be friends with our friend's children" approach. Children need their own lives. As you will discover as they get older.

And in years 5 and 6 in particular in primary school, my children were in school teams and shows and had rehearsals and practices- it's so very wrong to deny thm that sort of opportunity.

'we want them to be friend's with our friends's DCs' is said by someone with young children. You can manage it until about 7yrs, at a push- but after that it is simply luck-they make their own. They will feel really left out by year 6.
I wouldn't travel for more than 15 minutes.

How far would I travel for an 'outstanding' primary school? No further than I would travel for a 'good' or 'satisfactory' one.

I'm not Ofsted's greatest fan and so wouldn't use an Ofsted category as a way of selecting which school was the right place for my DC. As others have already said, so many factors influence what a school is like: Headteachers change, Ofsted reinvents 'outstanding', new housing is built so intakes change, schools expand, other schools nearby go in/out of favour etc. etc. but if the one thing you are 100% certain about is that you will not move house before your child starts secondary school then I would be inclined to make your decision about schools based on where you live rather than where you work.

We're in London and the DC's school is approx. 800m away. It was 'good' in Ofsted-speak when DD1 started, was declared 'satisfactory' last year and I'm certain that it will be 'outstanding with a massive pinch of salt' next time round. I teach at a school in a different borough, DH is a secondary teacher in another London borough and although I think 'my' school is one at which my DC would thrive, we won't be moving them anytime soon because we want them to be part of the community in which they live.

When they are in Y5/6 I would like them to be able to walk the 800-ish metres home - DD1 already enjoys walking on ahead with her friends (she's 7). When they are tired I love that they are home within minutes and can 'crash'. I'm pleased that they bump into their friends/classmates in local parks, shops, swimming pools etc. Shared experiences such as this matter. I wouldn't want to isolate them from their friends by adding a long commute to their day, particularly at primary level when parents/the home is still the major influence in a child's academic performance.

Another thing to consider is that by sending your DD to an out-of-area Catholic school you may find that she ends up isolated from Parish life too and ends up feeling as though she doesn't 'belong' anywhere .

Good luck with your decision. It may well be worth applying for your closest Catholic school and asking to be put on the waiting list if you don't get offered a place. In Y3 the Infant Class Size limit doesn't apply so she may get a place for KS2 if a place doesn't come up before then.

Agree about wanting them to be friends with wyour friends' dc.

The wonderful thing about children is that they are their own person, and indeed, around age 7 you have about zero nput who their friends are! They choose their own, and it may be a challenging child of parents who have nothing on common with you and who live a half hour drive away...

I think that posters are being too harsh on the concept of wanting DCs to be friends with the parents' friends' DC. In big cities a lot of "family friendships" go on because families belong to the same sports or country club, which is a sort of proxy for village life in a built-up environment - it's where families can go at the weekend and there children can run around freely in a green space, climb trees, play sports or do other activities in a semi-independent way. They just cannot do this with their schoolfriends.

I also wouldn't use Ofsted other than a rough guide. I know two Heads who are dreadful to work for but they both got 'outstanding leadership' because they are wonderful at paperwork!

Wouldn't use Ofsted as a guide - having moved areas and dc have moved from an 'Outstanding' school to a 'Satisfactory' one, for us the one Ofsted ranked Satisfactory is the better school by far (chosen due to it's proximity to our house). In our tears at the fist school we saw how they got their rating - there were things going on during inspections which never happened during the rest of the year!

This has underlined to me that Ofsted are looking for different things to me!

Personally (teacher and parent) there is absolutely no way on earth I would send my dc to a primary 45 mins away. We moved from 2 mins away to 10 mins and even that is a PITA. Do you have or plan to have another dc. There are situations where one finishes at 3.15, the other finished at 4.15 (clubs) or they are in different key stages and so events are at a different time morning and afternoon? School discos/film nights/carol services etc. You will find they are exhausted after school (especially in early years, the few weeks before Christmas, the last weeks of the summer term).
Also, you can't underestimate the excitement and enjoyment for them of having friends over for tea after school (excitement and enjoyment not necc shared by parents )
My dc have lots of friends within our friends children but they adore their school friends.
I would really think carefully about this decision. The school run in an absolute grind at the best of times, a 45 min one would be a nightmare IMO.

I did 30 mins once, when we were in the middle of a complicated house move, and it was only for 7 weeks. It happened to be January/February and the car had to be scraped first. You also have to bear in mind that you have to get back. It was 2hours a day in the car for me- a waste of time. After we moved we had a 3minute walk and DS did it on his own. No one is going to drive 45mins for tea!

What happens when they play sport after school, have an evening disco, school play etc?

On the friends thing, I don't really get when all this playing with local friends happens at a young age?

DD goes to school and then on to an after-school nursery till 6pm. She will be doing this until she goes to secondary school. At weekends she goes to a stage-school on Saturday mornings, and then we either do things as a family or with other friends/relatives. In school holidays DD will be going to the after-school nursery except for days that I take off so that we can go out. We have no family living nearby so any trips to see them will take a whole weekend.

I just don't see where all the hours are that she could be spending time with these school-friends?

Do I just have a weird life? I don't have any experience of my own to draw on in this respect. I moved all over the world in my early childhood, then went to a prep where we finished at 6pm while living in the back end of nowhere - then went to boarding-school which comes with 24/7 friends. I also have lots of siblings which tends to make outside friends less necessary.

I can see the arguments for being close in for school activities - play rehearsals, sports etc, and for not having a big commute.

To the OP: if your area is so bad then you need to remember that the children of these mums will be going to the same secondary as your child in 6 years time. I don't know if I would want that anymore than sending my DD to a primary school. Maybe even less as parental influence is different with a teenager than a small child.

Also remember that schools can change and a now good one can get a lot worse in 5 years.

I would better move house now instead of dragging my child for 6 years around.

Pyrrah- once they get past the infant stage, they will often prefer to go home with a friend rather than to the after school club. You child will miss out on soo much at school if they never have any sort of after school social life.

And children have the right to make their own friends. What if they don't get on with your friends dcs? Or your friend's dcs turn out to be horrible? Or move away, ot you fall out with your friends?

Our dd went to an outstanding primary it frankly wasn't and we moved her. The old school was a five mins. drive - we could walk in 20 mins or so.

New school is 3/4 hrs drive, we now leave home at 7.30am not 8.40am. Yes it is hard work, I did the round trip (one and half hours), twice a day for a whole year, we now share with another family who live 5 mins away and it is much easier, but it was my turn today and it took two hours from the time I left home to arriving back at work (near home).

However, she does still have friends in the village she made in her two years at the local school (yr 3 now), but although she sees them at Brownies and ocassionally around the village, we only make playdates during summer hols. and then only once or twice with old friends. I don't let dd play out (we are too far out the village anyway), so she is not going to 'bump' into them. I don't think she has missed out so far because of this.

Parties, we travel, but the kids are all scattered, school nights we don't have kids come and play except Fridays. I do however have to think carefully who comes, as it is a long way to expect a parent to come and collect. Maybe next year they can sleep over on a Friday, until then we make the effort to pick her up from friends houses too. Discos/play etc, there has only been one and she went to a friends house after school and we collected her afterwards.

I wouldn't choose to do this if I could help it and only do now because the school is an independent, if I had the option of another reasonably good school nearer to home, I would choose that, but the only one we could get into, is in special measures and on a large very run down, don't go there at night, estate and I am sorry, but I don't want that environment for dd - flame me if you wish, but I am lucky enough to have a choice.

It isn't easy and I don't think I would have wanted it for a Reception and Year 1 child, but by Year 2 or 3, I think they can cope with the travel a little better.

I would consider moving to be closer to the school and to both yours and DH's workplaces. It seems silly to have such a long commute for everyone. I certainly wouldn't fancy sending my child on a 45 mins each way daily commute.

Unless you are in a position to be a SAHM then not using an after-school/holiday club really isn't an option in Central London. We're not in a position to have children round both in terms of availability and in terms of space.

The after-school club takes children from 5 local schools, most were at the nursery full-time before going to school, so DD will be seeing others that she has been friends with as well as those in her current school.

I agree children have the right to choose their own friends, but parents have the right to decide what a family does at weekends and holidays!

Do you really allow a young child to form close friendships with children that you feel are unsuitable? I can understand not trying to stop it, but I'm not sure I would facilitate....

What quite often happens that every now and then a child will go home with a friend instead of going to the after school club they are booked in for.

And why on earth are you assuming the friends a child makes for themselves will be unsuitable?

Oh, and while I'm asking, do you really think that a child should have no say in what happens at the weekends or in the holidays? Aren't they part of the family too? Obviously they don't have full voting rights, but....

Sorry, I was responding to the bit where someone said that you may not like your child's friends - I'm sure that most of them are lovely, normal kids, but I was a bit that a young child would be facilitated in a friendship that a parent didn't approve of.

Do they get a say? Up to a point. It's very rarely that we don't have things planned out weeks in advance. It would also depend on what they wanted to do and who it involved.

• If we have arranged to go and see a set of grandparents and then it turns out that it's little Freddy's birthday party on the Sunday afternoon then the trip away to see the grandparents takes priority.

• If we have planned to meet up with friends we haven't seen for a month or so then again that takes priority because we would be letting them and their kids down as well.

• If we have plans to go to a new exhibition at the Natural History Museum, then we would change that so that DD could go to Freddy's party.

Is this mean and unrealistic? I imagine that if there are 30 kids in a class and you have a reasonably popular child that there can be an awful lot of potential birthday parties.

How much would you want to know about other parents before you would let your child go home with theirs after-school? What sort of age would you do that? I know the nursery I use are very flexible as long as they have 48 hours notice, so it's not impossible.

Hi everyone, if you do opt for the school near your work and you want to encourage local friends then I would really cast your net wide when it comes to clubs. My dd is at a small prep school and I wanted to make sure she had friends outside of that environment so she does brownies, gymnastics and ballet and I'd agree with other posters that Brownies is the one most difficult as they tend to be affiliated with a local school. However across the 3 activities she now knows lots of other children and they have discos etc so it's another avenue outside of school life. Having said all of that I do spend a massive amounts of my life in the car which may not be what you want after a long commute.

I'd go with noramum's questions.

Remember, your dd does have to go to school even if you've been chucking up all night and can barely get your head over the steering wheel.

When ds was half-way through infants school his sister developed all sorts of health problems which took up a lot of time and energy: I blessed my decision to send him to the school round the corner where I could in an emergency ask one of the other mums to pick him up.

Personally I'd give the local school a try and move your dd if it really doesn't work out. The mums you see in the park are a minority and they don't teach at the school.

I wouldn't travel 45 mins for a full scholarship at Eton !

Our were at school 25 mins from home and it was a bloody nightmare in the mornings, any road works we were late, any drama's over homework we were extremely late. It simply wasn't worth it.